Just built my first 'real' coil on a kayfun

[littlewierdo]

My experience with rebuildables is, I have none .

I had a Zatty and eventually grew more and more disappointed with flavor (or lack of).

Those not familar with the Zatty should know that the coil is hardly much of a coil, you literally wrap your kanthol under a screw on the base of a top piece and tighten, then wrap 4-5 times vertically around a mesh wick and then wrap the other end other another screw at the top just below the mouth piece.

Its so incredibly easy with no real options that I dont really consider it much of a rebuildable, although in the strict sense, it is.

I then purchased an authentic Ithaka. Word of advice, if its your first rebuildable, avoid it (Ill get around to messing with it as soon as I figure out where to buy the upgrade that removes the Resistance/No Resistance/Resistance requirement). I put it on the shelf with the intention of looking at it later.

6 months later, I now have a shiny kayfun.

Having watched Pbusardo's video, I figured, what the hell? That doesnt look too difficult...

Wow, video can be deceiving.

There is hardly any room to work in the Kayfun...

I had purchased some 28 kanthal wire just prior to ordering the kayfun, I broke out my jewelers screw drivers and when I got to the coil, I squinted at the screws...

I took the existing setup out and set to making my first coil, wrapping around the jewelers screwdriver I was using and I decided on 9 wraps. Sweet, I had a home made spring!!

However, getting each end of the wire to stick under the tiny screws? That was a nightmare...

30 minutes later and my home-made spring was not much of a spring anymore...that made me sad.

So, I set out to make another home-made spring but this time, I remembered something I saw earlier, heat up the wire to red hot before you wrap and it will take some of the springy-ness out of the wire. I broke out my shiny blow torch that I had only used once only to discover, it wouldnt fire.

But, never fear, X-smokers have all kinds of devices for making fire, it is after all a key starting requirement for lighting a smoke so I broke out my box with around 400 lighters (and Im not kidding either) and heated the wire, then wrapped into a coil and another 30 minutes later, I managed to get the ends under the screws with the coil reasonably over the top of the air hole.

I threw it on my Provari and was disappointed to discover (after setting up the cotton and wetting) that the coil was reading almost 4 ohms and jumping around wildly...

I figured, eh, lets fill it with liquid, maybe it just needs to break in. I cranked up the Provari to 5 volts and vaped. It was ok but not great. Over the next 10 minutes, I watched the ohms jump wildly up and down and the Kayfun was getting hot to the touch...I was again sad...

Drained the liquid, took the whole thing apart and was puzzled as to why I had so much cotton and then I remembered that I needed to cut it to the base of the first ledge, not all the way to the bottom. So, I pulled all the cotton out and re-insert a new fresh cotton...uh...10% of a ball...

I also noticed that somehow, the ends of the coil were touching the chimney and another light went off, thats probably why the ohms were so high and jumping around and the kayfun was getting so hot... so I pushed the ends in (I couldnt trim them any closer but there was maybe 1/8 of an inch of wire sticking out from each screw.

So, here we are an hour and a half later and voila!!

Its not putting out plumes of vapor (if you want that, go get a dripper like the patriot) but its putting out loads of flavor and clouds big enough that Im having trouble seeing my monitor through it all.

The lesson? Dont trust how easy Phil makes it look because in hindsight, had I known how much difficulty I was going to have, Im not sure I would have bought a Kayfun.

Hopefully I get better at making the coils and luckily, Kanthal is super cheap for ...... such as myself who have dwarven fat fingers.

And heres hoping that the new revision of the Kayfun coming soon provides a bit more room to work in and provides a better method for filling.

FYI, my setup turned out great, 9 wraps of a mostly tight coil with 28 gauge ended up at 1.7 ohms which is perfect for the Provari and my mechanical mods (I like 8 watts so just add 2 volts to the ohms for a very close approximation to 8 watts - variable wattage is over-rated, a little adding to your ohms is all you need).

 

[vapdivrr]

I use one of those hat type magnifying lenses, kind of like a jewlers visor. harbor freight like 5 bucks. because I am old, there is no way I could make coils and such without that visor, I wear it all the time. you must be using a fairly large diameter bit when making your coil. I use 1/16 diameter and with 28g, 9 wraps would be like 1-ohm. good luck and it does get a lot easier, but its well worth the effort with the kayfun.

 

[Portertown]

I use one of those hat type magnifying lenses, kind of like a jewlers visor. harbor freight like 5 bucks. because I am old, there is no way I could make coils and such without that visor, I wear it all the time. you must be using a fairly large diameter bit when making your coil. I use 1/16 diameter and with 28g, 9 wraps would be like 1-ohm. good luck and it does get a lot easier, but its well worth the effort with the kayfun.

I understand what you are saying about being old and eye sight. My late father, who passed 4 months ago at 91, had a floor stand type reading/magnifying light unit that I now have. The lens in it is about 6 inches wide and surrounded by LED lights and mounted on an articulating arm. I think the magnification power is about 4. I got one of the Harbor Freight suction mounted portable vises that has rubber jaw inserts. I clamp the 510 threads of the Kayfun base in the vice and can also use the vise to steady my hands. These two items have made it so much easier to recoil my Kayfuns.

 

[vapdivrr]

I understand what you are saying about being old and eye sight. My late father, who passed 4 months ago at 91, had a floor stand type reading/magnifying light unit that I now have. The lens in it is about 6 inches wide and surrounded by LED lights and mounted on an articulating arm. I think the magnification power is about 4. I got one of the Harbor Freight suction mounted portable vises that has rubber jaw inserts. I clamp the 510 threads of the Kayfun base in the vice and can also use the vise to steady my hands. These two items have made it so much easier to recoil my Kayfuns.

I actually had bought one of those before settling on the visor type. you mentioned about your wire ends touching the chimney, if you just wrap a little further around the screws it becomes less of an issue if your ends aren't clipped tight enough to screw head. the wire ends will only touch chimney at sides, but on the farther side, or side near wick deck, the chimney is further away at that point. after I make a coil and before I mount it on the kayfun, I kind of make a loop at the ends and cut off excess wire, once this is done the coil just snaps into place. I will try to post a short vid on how I do it.

 

[Subdivisions]

My eyes are starting to have problems seeing small things. <insert joke here > I grabbed a pair of reading glasses at wal-mart for 5 bucks and they help really well. I got the 2X but you can get higher mag.

 

[vapdivrr]

my bad PORTERTOWN, I thought I was posting to the original poster LITTLEWEIRDO, that's why I was explaining about the coil because he seemed to be having a slightly harder time to what he expected. anyways littleweirdo here is how I mount my kayfun coils, maybe this could help. coil mount on the kayfun lite - YouTube

 

[vapdivrr]

My eyes are starting to have problems seeing small things. <insert joke here > I grabbed a pair of reading glasses at wal-mart for 5 bucks and they help really well. I got the 2X but you can get higher mag.

that might have helped 3 years ago but since I just cant see close anymore. I use the 2x glasses plus the magnifying glass visor.

 

[littlewierdo]

my bad PORTERTOWN, I thought I was posting to the original poster LITTLEWEIRDO, that's why I was explaining about the coil because he seemed to be having a slightly harder time to what he expected. anyways littleweirdo here is how I mount my kayfun coils, maybe this could help. coil mount on the kayfun lite - YouTube

Nice, yea, thats exactly what I ended up doing was to make a 'U' at the end of each end of the coil.

I ended up with a slightly higher resistance coil but since I use regulated mods, this doesnt bother me.

I occasionally am having some minor wicking issues with this coil but a simple loosening and tightening of the top cap that holds the drip turn (a half turn to loosen and half turn to tighten) seems to fix it.

My main problem with the Kayfun and most rebuildables is that people are looking so much at the 'numbers' that they have forgotten that people have to actually be able to work in the space provided, the notion that the distance between the screws must be as small as possible and the smallest screws must be used is frustrating.

It seems to me that a screw-less option would make more sense, or, the method speaker wire used back in the day where you had a hole that the wire went into and then you would tighten a screw above it to clamp the wire and hold it in place. The method now is wrapping the wire under the tiniest screw head in the world.

I like the Kayfun, its performance is perfect for me, the usability on the other hand leaves alot to be desired, especially if you take into consideration everything else about it (filling, adjusting air flow, etc.). I mean, who really is carrying around a screw driver with them? Who has one just sitting on a night stand? Id bet that most people on the forums here have one there because of their rebuildables but have no other reason for having one handy.

I will try building another coil next week, regardless of whether it needs one or not, I dont see myself moving off the Kayfun any time soon but I really want to try out my Ithaka again so a bit of practice might be useful (and I still need to find the upgrade for it).

I also bought a dripper, I dont know what its called (the helios?) which came with a 'rook' mouth piece. It was suggested to me as the best and most affordable dripper for people with a budget (if money is no object, the patriot is the recommendation there but at $75 it was hard to swallow).

Anyway, I havent yet made a coil yet in the Helios but it seems to support every type of coil you can imagine and Im not a particularly fancy person, I use what works. Dual and quad coils is unnecessary for me, I just wanted something I could drip into as I occasionally have nights where I want to vape multiple flavours.

Im also in the market for a good mechanical mod, Ive been looking at the Flip, Ive seen one in person (our local vape shop, they all use Flips with patriot drippers) and its a very pretty mod.

I should take a moment to explain also, Im not exactly on a budget, Im ok with spending money but I have a hard time justifying paying the high prices people are asking for their mods these days. Im only seeing them get more and more expensive as mod designers are pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with charging, often times, it isnt for anything special, and dont get me started on availability (or lack of)...

Take the Kayfun for example. Its a unique concept but the design is simple, but priced at almost $200?

And most drippers are the same way, a small cup with 4 mounts for screws at almost $100 seems a bit too high. Hell, Im even seeing mechanical mods that are nothing fancy for $100 or more.

Well, here I am rambling about something having nothing to do with the post . I need to start a vaping podcast so I can just talk and get it out of my system...