Kayfun (3.1 ES clone) coil gunking mystery

[tarkin000]

My coils keep on gunking up!
My builds are 28ga Kanthal, 2mm ID, ~9 wraps, ~1.4Ω
I use rayon wick.
I DIY my juices - so far I've only used PA Vanilla Custard, PA French Vanilla, PA Sweet Cream, and PA Cola.
My juices are 70/30 VG/PG, 6~7mg nic (sometimes I'll round fractions up), no DW or PGA.
My mod is a Vamo V5, RMS watt mode, anywhere between 9-15W.
I do press-draw-release.

I'll do fresh build, or, fresh wick with dry-burn, and the flavor is good (not great, I just started DIY 'juicing').
Then, after 2ml or so, the flavor gets 'jaggy', or bitter.
I'll finish out the tank, and when I check the coil/wick, the coil is dark.
Sometimes the wick is dark, too, but I've found with rayon if I do some trimming, the darkness on the wick goes away.
After 2 tanks, I have to re-wick and dry-burn.

The suspects:
1) I didn't clean the atty when I first got it, because it seemed super clean. Machine oil from crevices?
2) My VG is somehow bad...but I have used two different VGs, one I ordered from eBay, and then I
switched to my local B&M...could both have been bad?
3) I torch my coils before attaching, and dry-burn again before wicking. Too much heating?

I don't use any sweeteners, and when I was buying my juices, I was learning to build on the Kayfun
and learning to use rayon at the same time, so I rarely ran even a full tank through a build.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? TIA!

 

[Topper]

All of your flavors are "dirty for wick" and all knows that. Make something else, not sweetie, may be fruit or tobacco, or other vendor (like FA or HCL) n look at the coil after 5-10ml

Sent from my HUAWEI G700-U20 using Tapatalk

 

[prairie guy]

Possibly the sugars in the flavors is the culprit

 

[k75srider]

I't probley your juice. Try some store bought and see if the same thing happens. I can go through 25 mil of True vannila custard before I rewick with organic cotton. The flavor is starting to get muted but not nasty. Dry burn, rewick, and go.

 

[Millah]

Honestly, I'd say your juice is probably just too thick. Yes, I know you're using Rayon, and Rayon is supposed to be God's wicking material, but I still find that nothing works when a juice is too thick to travel through wick very well.

I've experimented and investigated this on my own for a long time. I've found that there are just some juices that refuse to "move" through a wick and wick very slowly. Even if the juice is getting through the juice channel and onto the lower deck, it still needs to travel up the wick onto the coil. I am very sensitive to when my coil is not fully drenched and saturated, so I can tell very easily when a juice is not wicking as efficiently as it should. And I've experienced the same exact thing with those kind of juices, coil gets gunked quicker and flavor drops off shortly after filling. Those juices I use for dripping, where wicking is not much of a factor.

I'd suggest adding a few drops of distilled water to your mixes to help thin them and travel through wick a little better. 70/30 VG PG is up there in terms of tank juices without thinning a little.

 

[Bunnykiller]

odd... I use a KF 3.1 clone ( HCigar) and 100VG juices... and the coil/wick will gunk up after 10 ml on average... could be your juice is prematurely gunking your coil... alot of the vanilla type juices have sugars in them to soften the bitterness of vanilla ( real pure vanilla is somewhat bitter)

 

[tarkin000]

Thanks guys, I think you are all right.
What's even worse is I just picked up some caramel
Oh well, my build/wick skills are going to be good to go with all this practice

 

[Wern314]

Tarkin i know exactly how your feeling as I'm having the same exact problem. I use a similar setup as you, 28 gauge on 5/64th drill bit at 1.2 ohms on my Kayfun lite. I run this on my nemesis mod and im lucky if i can go through 2 tanks worth of eliquid before i start getting a burned taste with my pulls. When i tear it down my coil is completely caked black but my rayon wick is perfectly clean. I want to add that i vape a sweeter juice (MBV Hawk Sauce) 65/35 pg/vg. Reading this thread on wicking with rayon helped me tremendously http://http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/rebuildable-atomizer-systems/561226-rayon-wick-better-flow-flavor-saturation-nic-hit.htmlat first i wasnt using enough rayon so i was getting dry hits, compared to organic cotton theres a big difference in that you use enough rayon so that you feel it squeak while flossing it back and forth in your coil so that baby is packed tight. Now that i know how to wick it correctly i am totaly sold on rayon, flavor is excellent and it always keeps up with my long lung pulls. The only negative i have is that i can only get 1-2 tanks worth before needing to dry burn coil and rewick. Im a heavy vaper so its a pain at times having to rewick 2-3 times daily.

 

[tarkin000]

Tarkin i know exactly how your feeling as I'm having the same exact problem. I use a similar setup as you, 28 gauge on 5/64th drill bit at 1.2 ohms on my Kayfun lite. I run this on my nemesis mod and im lucky if i can go through 2 tanks worth of eliquid before i start getting a burned taste with my pulls. When i tear it down my coil is completely caked black but my rayon wick is perfectly clean. I want to add that i vape a sweeter juice (MBV Hawk Sauce) 65/35 pg/vg. Reading this thread on wicking with rayon helped me tremendously http://http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/rebuildable-atomizer-systems/561226-rayon-wick-better-flow-flavor-saturation-nic-hit.htmlat first i wasnt using enough rayon so i was getting dry hits, compared to organic cotton theres a big difference in that you use enough rayon so that you feel it squeak while flossing it back and forth in your coil so that baby is packed tight. Now that i know how to wick it correctly i am totaly sold on rayon, flavor is excellent and it always keeps up with my long lung pulls. The only negative i have is that i can only get 1-2 tanks worth before needing to dry burn coil and rewick. Im a heavy vaper so its a pain at times having to rewick 2-3 times daily.

I quoted you in that thread lol

The conclusion I've come to is that all of the flavors I have been using have sweeteners in them that gunk coils no matter what, at least
at the percentages I use them at

If you do find that tail-trimming works out, please let the Rayon thread know! I watch it pretty close...like a hawk

Vape on!

 

[Wern314]

I quoted you in that thread lol

The conclusion I've come to is that all of the flavors I have been using have sweeteners in them that gunk coils no matter what, at least
at the percentages I use them at

If you do find that tail-trimming works out, please let the Rayon thread know! I watch it pretty close...like a hawk

Vape on!

Haha i just realized that now after looking at the other thread my bad, I'm a little slow today. Lol. I plan on experimenting more with the trimming so hopefully i can dial it down to perfection. Heres some pics i just took of my setup. 28ga on 1/16th drill bit reading at 1.2 ohms.

 

[tarkin000]

Haha i just realized that now after looking at the other thread my bad, I'm a little slow today. Lol. I plan on experimenting more with the trimming so hopefully i can dial it down to perfection. Heres some pics i just took of my setup. 28ga on 1/16th drill bit reading at 1.2 ohms.

Thanks for the pics!

Wow, I've been doing really similar builds, almost identical...

My tails look like the second picture, I am going to experiment with more radical trimming.
I wish I could remember which post # from Rayon thread it was, but one person had
tails that looked like commas, and said it wicked fantastic.

I will post pics of what I try and what ends up working!

 

[tarkin000]

Ok, here are my results so far:

First, the 'mildly' trimmed wick, just enough to make a straight line across the deck:


After trimming at an angle, was too scared to make it an arrow/V/comma:


The first draw was magnificent- I could taste my vanilla over the caramel.
Subsequent puffs are muted, although I'm hesitant to blame the trimming;
I didn't dry burn...



It's hard to see from the angles of the pics, but I trimmed 20-25% at least.
I may just keep trimming a little at a time until it starts dry hitting, then I'll know how to trim in the future.