Kanthal, Titanium, or nickel?

[trentenmarschel]

Just got some new gear recently. A Merlin rta and a Pico 75w to go with it. Built a Kanthal coil the first time, and I am currently using the included notch coil. What is everyone using now and why? Was going to see about buying some more notch coils because I really like how well it vapes, but the prices on those....WOW! Thanks.

 

[Eskie]

Me? Kanthal and SS. More SS of late. Advantage, you can use SS in both power/watt mode or TC mode. Kanthal is power/watt only. Honestly, both are good, both are easy to work with (for simple coils), and it's your preference power or TC. However, SS can be harder to get TC to "work well" with than say Ni. It will depend on the ability of your mod.

I have 2 Picos and love them both. One is in the original box for my backup stash. The other is used in power/watt mode. All my TC is done on 2 DNA 200 mod I have, so I can't comment on how well the Pico does on TC.

 

[cheech226]

titanium all the way for tc vaping!

 

[sofarsogood]

I've been using 28 guage 316 ss exclusively for months to make single coils about 1.4 ohm.

 

[trentenmarschel]

I will be buying some more wire soon, and I really miss using the TC mode on the Pico with that notch coil. But those as far as I can find are expensive.

So I guess it's really down to these wires according to using TC and what you guys have said. I may just buy a couple different types of wire and try.

Stainless steel:
Annealed Nickel Wire:
Tempered Ni200 Pure Nickel Wire:
Titanium Wire:

On the lightning vapes website it shows those two types of nickel wire. I am not sure what one is better to use. But then the next set of questions are regarding the best gauge of wire to buy for each type, and how easy/hard it is to wrap each type. Are you still supposed to heat each wire before wrapping the coil. I normally use a lighter to make the wire glow before I go to wrap it. It makes it easier to bend and conform to a coil shape.

I will be using this on a Augvape Merlin RTA with a Pico 75W mod.

Thanks.


I was thinking of trying some clapton wire, but I was thinking about how easy it should be to make when I found this video totally worth a try.

 

[whiteowl84]

I like n80, 316L and Kanthal.
I only use Kanthal for exotic parallel clapton builds where you need the resistance.
LV has clapton variants of all the above wire.

With the ni200, the tempered stuff isn't as springy as annealed.

 

[OhTheAgony]

I recently started playing with 316L, but Ti1 is still my fav, the one from UD on the little orange spools in particular.

 

[trentenmarschel]

I recently started playing with 316L, but Ti1 is still my fav, the one from UD on the little orange spools in particular.

What gauge of stainless steel and titanium do you generally use?

 

[OhTheAgony]

What gauge of stainless steel and titanium do you generally use?

I have a few different sizes but 28g seems to work best for my builds. I tend to build larger coils, around 3,5mm ID 8-ish wraps of two strands of wire twisted together:

They almost always come in at exactly 0,40ohm.

For single wire coils I prefer 26g but I don't use those often, the twisted wire gunks up a bit quicker but gives so much more flavor.

 

[trentenmarschel]

I have a few different sizes but 28g seems to work best for my builds. I tend to build larger coils, around 3,5mm ID 8-ish wraps of two strands of wire twisted together:

They almost always come in at exactly 0,40ohm.

For single wire coils I prefer 26g but I don't use those often, the twisted wire gunks up a bit quicker but gives so much more flavor.

Thanks, and is that 28G wire for Stainless steel wire or titanium or both?

 

[OhTheAgony]

Thanks, and is that 28G wire for Stainless steel wire or titanium or both?

So far for both, but I haven't used SS a whole lot. Titanium seems to give me a slightly more consistent vape and I can taste the SS wire where I can't taste the UD titanium.

I've only tried one brand of SS wire though (UD), whereas it took 3 tries with the titanium to find a brand that I found completely tasteless.

 

[cheech226]

i played around with 316l wire but it didn't do tc so well with my vtc mini imo. i recently purchased a dna 75 mod and am going to give the ss wire another try. the high tcr value of titanium is a big plus for most tc mods

 

[whiteowl84]

Use a custom TCR value on the VTC devices.
VTC Mini TCR Values

 

[thetrucker]

Just got some new gear recently. A Merlin RTA and a Pico 75w to go with it. Built a Kanthal coil the first time, and I am currently using the included notch coil. What is everyone using now and why? Was going to see about buying some more notch coils because I really like how well it vapes, but the prices on those....WOW! Thanks.

if you pull out the cotton and dry burn the notch coil and then install new cotton your notch coils should last quite awhile........

 

[trentenmarschel]

Thanks. So I think I'll get some 28Gauge Titanium and SS and give those a try.

 

[trentenmarschel]

if you pull out the cotton and dry burn the notch coil and then install new cotton your notch coils should last quite awhile........

I would have tried that had I not already thrown it away. I'm going to buy some more notch coils this month. If I am able to get them out of the deck and take a torch to it, I think it would clean the carbon off of it pretty well.

 

[thetrucker]

I will be buying some more wire soon, and I really miss using the TC mode on the Pico with that notch coil. But those as far as I can find are expensive.

So I guess it's really down to these wires according to using TC and what you guys have said. I may just buy a couple different types of wire and try.

Stainless steel:
Annealed Nickel Wire:
Tempered Ni200 Pure Nickel Wire:
Titanium Wire:

On the lightning vapes website it shows those two types of nickel wire. I am not sure what one is better to use. But then the next set of questions are regarding the best gauge of wire to buy for each type, and how easy/hard it is to wrap each type. Are you still supposed to heat each wire before wrapping the coil. I normally use a lighter to make the wire glow before I go to wrap it. It makes it easier to bend and conform to a coil shape.

I will be using this on a Augvape Merlin RTA with a Pico 75W mod.

Thanks.


I was thinking of trying some clapton wire, but I was thinking about how easy it should be to make when I found this video totally worth a try.

This is a great idea to control the outer wrap.......................................worth watching...............................

 

[thetrucker]

I would have tried that had I not already thrown it away. I'm going to buy some more notch coils this month. If I am able to get them out of the deck and take a torch to it, I think it would clean the carbon off of it pretty well.

I just leave the notch coil in the deck and press the fire button and let it glow 2 seconds with out a wick in it and then install a new cotton and it works good....

 

[cheech226]

Thanks. So I think I'll get some 28Gauge Titanium and SS and give those a try.

temco sells very clean and already annealed titanium wire and ships for free. the ss is very clean too.

 

[sawlight]

Check fasttech and 3fvape for the notch coils, like $3 for 10 of them.
I like 316l for TC myself, I need to get some 28ga now.
The Pico is very smooth in TC, Eleaf really seems to have gotten the new boards right!