Ribbon wire has been getting a bit of play lately, so I thought I would kick off a discussion on Kanthal Ribbon Wire. I know a few people out there have this wire, so feel free to share your experiences.
I have been using Kanthal Ribbon Wire for a few months now in many different attys and with different wick materials. I am getting consistently good results.
The specific material I have been using was sourced from here:
Ribbon 020X 004" 10' 5X 1mm 3M Heating Flat Wire | eBay
Specification:
Tradename : Kanthal DSD, (FeCrAl)
Nominal composition : Cr 22%, Al 4.8%, Fe balance
Width & thickness : 0.020x0.004 in, (0.50x0.10 mm *¹)
Resistance : 9.09 Ohm/ft, (29.8 Ohm/m *¹)
(Essentially the wire dimensions have the width of 24g wire and the depth of 38g wire. Resistance is similar to 30g Kanthal A-1)
My current set-up is in a Cobra with a 1.1 ohm coil using an un-oxidized wick consisting of 40mm of #500 (.025mm wire with ~26% open space) wrapped around 40mm of #200 (.028mm wire with ~60% open space) mesh rolled tight.
This wire is more difficult to work with vs round wire. It has a natural tendency to twist when you coil it. With a freehand method I could not get perfect wire/mesh apposition. I now use the Petar K method. Using a drill bit allows for better wire tweaking and getting perfect coils. It also permits me to bring the coil through an annealing/hardening process for longer term shape stability. While making the coil, the wire ends need to be twisted 90 degrees to fit underneath the positive and negative connections. I had only one minor short on the initial set up with the top coil. It was easily resolved with a minor shift of top screw.
This is the same set-up after 2 weeks and 40mls. It has been very stable and I have only tweaked it once and have not cleaned the coil or wick yet.
This set up is one of the best I have had to date and is still going strong. The increased wire on mesh surface area coverage is really kickin up vapor pressure and the extra expose wire surface is shooting fireworks.
Below is a video of a full 16 second burn of that gunk-up wick above on a Provari at 3.6v ~12 watts using a 95%VG ejuice. The video starts at the button push, to show the heat-up time and goes until the Provari auto-cutoff.
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1567/meikjmwehausntvepzhgcf.mp4
I have been using Kanthal Ribbon Wire for a few months now in many different attys and with different wick materials. I am getting consistently good results.
The specific material I have been using was sourced from here:
Ribbon 020X 004" 10' 5X 1mm 3M Heating Flat Wire | eBay
Specification:
Tradename : Kanthal DSD, (FeCrAl)
Nominal composition : Cr 22%, Al 4.8%, Fe balance
Width & thickness : 0.020x0.004 in, (0.50x0.10 mm *¹)
Resistance : 9.09 Ohm/ft, (29.8 Ohm/m *¹)
(Essentially the wire dimensions have the width of 24g wire and the depth of 38g wire. Resistance is similar to 30g Kanthal A-1)
My current set-up is in a Cobra with a 1.1 ohm coil using an un-oxidized wick consisting of 40mm of #500 (.025mm wire with ~26% open space) wrapped around 40mm of #200 (.028mm wire with ~60% open space) mesh rolled tight.
This wire is more difficult to work with vs round wire. It has a natural tendency to twist when you coil it. With a freehand method I could not get perfect wire/mesh apposition. I now use the Petar K method. Using a drill bit allows for better wire tweaking and getting perfect coils. It also permits me to bring the coil through an annealing/hardening process for longer term shape stability. While making the coil, the wire ends need to be twisted 90 degrees to fit underneath the positive and negative connections. I had only one minor short on the initial set up with the top coil. It was easily resolved with a minor shift of top screw.
This is the same set-up after 2 weeks and 40mls. It has been very stable and I have only tweaked it once and have not cleaned the coil or wick yet.
This set up is one of the best I have had to date and is still going strong. The increased wire on mesh surface area coverage is really kickin up vapor pressure and the extra expose wire surface is shooting fireworks.
Below is a video of a full 16 second burn of that gunk-up wick above on a Provari at 3.6v ~12 watts using a 95%VG ejuice. The video starts at the button push, to show the heat-up time and goes until the Provari auto-cutoff.
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1567/meikjmwehausntvepzhgcf.mp4
