Hello everyone,
I'm new on ecf but I've been vaping for a year or so and lately I saw a very handy tutorial from KanjNguyen so I decided to put a new ss mesh on my eVods. I've been hitting my head against the wall when I started getting a dreadful bad taste from a dry, flavourless vape. Sure enough, I almost gave up until I started to roll back and try and figure out what was different from the silica wicks I was normally doing. I thought it would be the stainless steel mesh not being wrapped too tight or maybe the coil strangling the wick but...
The only thing I've been doing different is that instead of the normal five/six wraps, I was doing three wraps around the coil which gave me a ton of vape (when it was working). No hotspots, just a lower resistance and good vapour production.
However I was wrapping the coils close to another which wasn't that bad if there wasn't the dreaded rubber grommet. Seeing as my coils were in the center of the coil, the kanthal legs were fairly close to another and going to the positive/negative leads fairly close from the middle of the wick, forcing the rubber grommet to bend to allow the first leg (the one that's the closest to the top of the atomizer) to come through. THAT only is enough to give a very bad taste, noticeable especially after a long vape, when the kanthal gets hot and burns through the rubber grommet.
So now I rebuilt it with four wraps, two on each side of the wick (as close as possible to the extremities without touching the rim of the metal atomizer). I'm going to test it overnight and hopefuly, even though I've lost the full vape that three coils gave me, I've a working setup.
Other things to look at:
Make sure that the wick fits snugly in its place, otherwise you'll get drips and juice spill
If you're using VG/PG, put on a top silica wick to prevent gurgling (make sure there's no empty space between the wick and the top metal bit).
oxidize the kanthal before wrapping it, that will really remove further rubber grommet burns
roll the wick tightly, capilarization will occur even better
use 500 mesh, it works grand with whatever liquid you're vaping
you don't have to torch the mesh (there's a major thread here about the possibility of toxic residue when torching a ss mesh and Cr IV results from that) if you wrap the coils tight enough - don't use all your strength but make sure it's just about snug so that you don't get hotspots galore
clip the remaining kanthal legs as close to the center post as you can to avoid shorts
Feel free to add suggestions to the thread, hopefully this will be of use to somebody.
All the best and thick vapes!
I'm new on ecf but I've been vaping for a year or so and lately I saw a very handy tutorial from KanjNguyen so I decided to put a new ss mesh on my eVods. I've been hitting my head against the wall when I started getting a dreadful bad taste from a dry, flavourless vape. Sure enough, I almost gave up until I started to roll back and try and figure out what was different from the silica wicks I was normally doing. I thought it would be the stainless steel mesh not being wrapped too tight or maybe the coil strangling the wick but...
The only thing I've been doing different is that instead of the normal five/six wraps, I was doing three wraps around the coil which gave me a ton of vape (when it was working). No hotspots, just a lower resistance and good vapour production.
However I was wrapping the coils close to another which wasn't that bad if there wasn't the dreaded rubber grommet. Seeing as my coils were in the center of the coil, the kanthal legs were fairly close to another and going to the positive/negative leads fairly close from the middle of the wick, forcing the rubber grommet to bend to allow the first leg (the one that's the closest to the top of the atomizer) to come through. THAT only is enough to give a very bad taste, noticeable especially after a long vape, when the kanthal gets hot and burns through the rubber grommet.
So now I rebuilt it with four wraps, two on each side of the wick (as close as possible to the extremities without touching the rim of the metal atomizer). I'm going to test it overnight and hopefuly, even though I've lost the full vape that three coils gave me, I've a working setup.
Other things to look at:
Make sure that the wick fits snugly in its place, otherwise you'll get drips and juice spill
If you're using VG/PG, put on a top silica wick to prevent gurgling (make sure there's no empty space between the wick and the top metal bit).
oxidize the kanthal before wrapping it, that will really remove further rubber grommet burns
roll the wick tightly, capilarization will occur even better
use 500 mesh, it works grand with whatever liquid you're vaping
you don't have to torch the mesh (there's a major thread here about the possibility of toxic residue when torching a ss mesh and Cr IV results from that) if you wrap the coils tight enough - don't use all your strength but make sure it's just about snug so that you don't get hotspots galore
clip the remaining kanthal legs as close to the center post as you can to avoid shorts
Feel free to add suggestions to the thread, hopefully this will be of use to somebody.
All the best and thick vapes!
