Kanthal

[Drauder]

Hello

I wanted to try winding coils and rebuildables. I bought some kanthal and some nichrome from a local vendor. I got a couple of feet of each for around $10. It worked marvellously. I tried both the nichrome and the kanthal and couldn't really tell the difference. t wanted more so I bought two 100 foot rolls of different gauges from Temco. I also got a 100 foot roll of nichrome. I made my first coil with the new kanthal on my newly acquired Russian clone. Although it produced plenty of vapor, the flavour was horrible. I thought it might be the Russian clone. So I did the same build using my Kayfun. Same thing. The flavour was horrible. It totally over powered any juice flavour. I tried a different gauge, same thing. Does anyone know why this is happening? I tried again with the little bit I had left from the local vendor and the flavour was fine. Can anyone with more experience than I please shed some light on this? I am at a loss to explain it.

I use organic cotton from the pharmacy.

The first time I built a coil I wrapped 8 turns of the local vendor Kanthal around a #1philips screwdriver. Then I slid it off, squished it together and mounted it in the atty. Then, using the screwdriver I positioned the coil they way I liked. Then I took the cotton ball, unravelled it, tore off a piece and threaded it through the coil. It worked very well. It measured 2.4 ohms on a Sigelei ohms tester. It measured the same on a Fluke. I concluded that this was easier than I thought. The next one I did the same way and ended up making a mess, tossing it and starting over. After the second attempt it worked but wasn't as nice as the first one. I followed the same procedure exactly with the new Kanthal, and the flavour was horrible. I have always tried for between 1.7 and 3.2 ohms. I have had them from 2.0 to 3.3 ohms. They all worked well. Twice I tossed them when they measured under one ohm. The horrible tasting coils measured 2.2 and 2.5 ohms. I took out the cotton and dry fired it, it glowed very evenly. I thought that maybe burning it was necessary so I dry fired it a few more times, and tried again with new wick. Same horrible taste. Any ideas?

Thanks for this.

 

[Jack NMI Stecker]

First here is a useful tool. Coil wrapping | Steam Engine | free vaping calculators
I use this and an android app called vape tools
Wish i could ask you questions. LOL
I get best results when the coils are tightly wound. I wind them tight and after install dry fire and press them together. For me I use a coil no bigger than 2.5mm but i do dual coils. If you crowd the wick or it can't get good juice flow it will do that. On the Kayfun never cover the juice holes at the bottom of the wick chamber. Pre moisten the wick and test it. Don't crowed the chamber. If you pack the wick in to tight on the coil it will not feed as well. lastly and i have yet to try this but will be as soon as i get some in. Try cellucotton which is a rayon fiber. It comes in pretty much a continuous strands and has a much higher temp that it can take. Cotton burns at like 240 deg F Rayon at 400 something.

 

[ShariR]

Hi. I am using a Russian 91% which is pretty much the same as the Kayfun. Make sure you heat up and pinch those coils together real good and tight. And use less cotton. Yes less than you think is too little. That was the secret for me. It took me a while to figure it out. Many rewicks and each one I used less cotton.

The successful amount of cotton was about half of what I thought was too little. All the early wicks with the cotton were burning early at the contact point of the coil. I use 28 and 30 gauge kanthal and build anywhere from 1.4 to 2.0 ohm coils.

It takes more time to figure out how much cotton to use than to learn to build and properly mount the coils

Another thing to check is to make sure your coil is higher than the screws on the posts. That makes a huge difference too.

 

[Hoosier]

I didn't notice that the original post contained a mention that the new wire was cleaned in any way before it was used for vaping. Wire production uses lubricants and nearly any lubricant will not be tasty. I usually heat my coils up before use and that helps eliminate the stuff on the wire from the production process. (Besides the annealing effect which is darn handy too.)

 

[DavidOck]

I think Hoosier's on the mark. The crud from manufacture is really foul!

I always torch my kanthal before building. This annealing takes some of the spring out of it, making it easier to work with. And then either pulse a few times once mounted, if open coils, to make sure it's all "right" before wicking, or, if going for a compressed coil, well, it gets cooked pretty good in that process.

And as ShariR says, the right amount of wick is also important. Too much and you choke off the flow, and wind up burning what little juice gets there, and the wick. Too little will often just burn the juice, not vaporize it. (And may leak, as well.)