Kanthal Resistance Increased

[KeyLo]

Hello members. I'd greatly appreciate any help and insight.

I am rebuilding my RSST using cable wire wick wrapped with SS mesh. The coil I use is a .4 Ribbon Kanthal.
I kind of went away from my RSST, and went on to RBAs using round kanthal. Then I found my RSST and wanted to use it again.

So here's the problem, my .4 resistance has changed. A 3/4 wrap use to get me 0.7 - 0.9 ohms. Now when I wrap it using the same technique and material, I am getting 1.8 to 2.0 ohms. I tired a multimeter. I tried a 510 ohm meter. I bought this kanthal in July. All new material. No gunk on the coils.

I use a private V2, voltage drop tests have the same reading... about 0.23v drop. No shorts. Its not my meters. I know cause when I go fire the mod... the coils dont light up like they use to. 0.9ohms had an instant glow. Its about 7 or 8 pulses to get it going.

Ive rebuilt it 5 times trying different techniques or thinking it was a dud wire. I torched it. not torched it. Lightly torched it. It meaning the kanthal.

Ive been racking my brain trying to figure it out. I tired searching in the forums.

Please help!

 

[entropy1049]

Try this, affix a coil to the RSST without a wick and see what your resistance is. With a wick in place and both functioning properly, the resistance shouldn't change much. Sounds like your wick and coil are shorting a bit.

 

[Thrasher]

.4 is roughly 32g round. and with 4 wraps i would think around 1.5-2 ohms would be more normal depending on the size of the wick. and the .9 was actually a short then the short worked out and the wire returned to normal.

 

[entropy1049]

.4 is roughly 32g round. and with 4 wraps i would think around 1.5-2 ohms would be more normal depending on the size of the wick. and the .9 was actually a short then the short worked out and the wire returned to normal.

Good logic. I don't use ribbon myself, so I can't ballpark the resistance. Your estimate is very sound, and most likely the correct one. I'd still suggest OP try the coil-no wick thing just to verify your hypothesis. I bet it's spot-on .

 

[Thrasher]

I don't use ribbon myself, so I can't ballpark the resistance.

over on temco supply's website on the ribbon page is a really handy chart. and I used it when I bought some ribbon. it kinda helps i have a spool of .4 sitting in front of me that i wrote 32G on lol

 

[entropy1049]

Thanks for the tip- I'll be looking at that chart.