Kayfun Lite, First Build... Wheres the flavor?

[Gfinch]

Okay so I finally had a chance to work with my kayfun Lite clone from Tobeco. I am a newb at coil building FYI. The coil came out good I think, made to ride on top of a Evic and a SVD with a juice that does not do well with high volts. 28g at 9 wraps on a 3/32 drill bit resulting in 1.74 ohms. Nice and tight, wicked with boiled organic cotton. Coil fires beautifily from center to the outside. I think I may have had more trouble with the cotton than anything else. I boiled the organic cotton and let it dry but it did not cooperate when I unrolled it. One side was thicker than the other so I trimmed it a bit while still in the coil. I think one side was still a bit thicker than the other.

The other info is I have only vaped it for a few minutes, the Nic hit is definitely there, just not the flavor I would expect from all I have read about this particular RBA design so I am assuming it is either user error or I need to give it a bit longer. Hoping some of the veterans can offer some suggestions. As always thanks for all the help everyone gives here on ECF.

I am coming to the conclusion also that if I want to chain vape the kayfun I will have to mix something less than my curent 18mg when I get home.

Thanks

 

[Gfinch]

Oh and no more than the normal amount of vapor I would get from my DCT cartos or PT2.

 

[Gfinch]

Bump


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[Randy C]

1.7 ohms sounds kinda high, but maybe not, depending on the voltage. Assuming you have 3.7- 4.1 volts, you may want to loose a wrap or two to get the coil down to the 1.2-1.4 ohm range.

I've also found that a 1/16" coil works the best for me, but just keep playing with it until you find out what works for you.

 

[folkphys]

My method for cotton ball wicks on the KFL:

unroll cotton ball into a long flat sheet.
cut ~2.5" length of it off (usually makes 2-3 wicks)
cut ~ 1/3 of that piece LENGTHWISE
loosen up the 1/3 piece by gently pulling apart the strands
gently compress it into a smooth tube-ish strand (you just don't want too many tufts sticking out)
twist the crap out of one end only, to act as a feeder point
feed twisted end through coil (enough so that it clears the top of the Evap Cylinder and you can trim it off)
if the wick drags against the coil while feeding it, I back it out a bit and pull off tiny wisps until it feeds snuggly but freely
bend the two wick ends upward and screw down Evap cylinder
snip off excess wick ~1/8" above cylinder
press the ends back down onto the juice channels gently
prime with juice
button up the rest of the atty, fill and go

 

[Richard75]

I love using cotton and microcoils in drippers, but with my Kayfun 3.1 and Russian 91%, I actually prefer to use a more traditional coil. In both I've got 2mm silica doubled up, with 3/4 wraps of 30g Kanthal, which comes out to about 1.0 Ohm... and it's one of the best vapes ever, rivaling my Helios with a 0.7 dual microcoil. It will never beat the Helios' vapor production, and the throat hit is less intense, but I'd say the flavor is actually better on my Kayfun/Russian.

Anyway, if you could, show us a picture of your wick and coil? That's the best way for us to find out if there's a problem.

 

[Jellyfish]

The first thing that I would check is the coil position. It should be directly over the air hole and there should be a small gap between the air hole and the coil. I've found that too big of a gap will lessen the flavor, but an easy way to check that is to tighten the air flow down via the AFC screw (I don't have a Tobeco yet but I've got a KFL+ and a Russian 91%). From what you're describing, it sounds more like an air ratio issue.

If it's still a problem, the next thing that I'd look at would be the wick. Make sure that it is not too dense. If in doubt, pull out your existing wick and install a new one. It's an easy process.

FYI, I'm using a 10/9 wrap of 30 GA Kanthal wound on a 1/16" bit and it meters out around 2.0 Ω.

Good luck!

 

[Gfinch]

Thanks for the replies everybody. I am on the road so draining and re-wicking will have to wait until I have a few hours to spare. It sounds like it is maybe the cotton or the wick height. I have the jewelers magnifying lenses for working with small detail as my eyes are not what they once were. As for the cotton I had my suspicions that maybe the wick was in a bit tight and one side was denser than the other side on the juice channels. I think next time I will use one of my unboiled organic cotton balls and see if it comes apart any easier. The boiled ones were a bit of trouble.


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[Bawn]

Ya I had mine working decently today but still not satisfied. It was really good this morning the. Flavor diminished quick and it just taste like nothing. This thing has become more temperamental then anticipated. Kinda bummed. Using it for 24hrs I don't see the hype yet.

 

[metamorpheus]

It's funny when I was reading this yesterday all I could think was..I guess I'm not the only one

I have an R100 and tried the vertical nano dragon first at .6 ohms. VP was good and the flavor was good for a bit until the cotton gunked. I rewicked and I would get dry hits when I hadn't vaped for a while and picked it up so I gave up on cotton due to its inconsistency and lack of resilience as well as some leaking issues maybe from filling. Went to XC-116 with 28Ga which was good but I was trying to chase clouds with it and was determined to find the perfect setup for clouds/flavor equal to a dripper. Made a dual nano coil from 30 gauge at .6 ohms with some rolled cotton. Filled it from the top, inverted and screwed it on, fired it up...Awesome flavor and great VP hell yeah!.....6 puffs later and it tastes burnt, Damn you Russian, the fogger is treating me better!
So instead of the nano coil I made a vertical micro dragon at around .7 ohms. This was pretty good but after top filling a few times the cotton wasn't making good contact with the coil anymore and I got the kanthal flavor + burnt cotton..ughh. I tried a .8 ribbon wire micro dragon, 24 Gauge micro dragon, 30 Ga micro dragon, braided 32 gauge micro dragon..done with cotton to coil in this forever.

Next I tried the XC-116 again with 28 gauge touching wraps(.6-.8 dont remember now) and a cotton wick from the floor below the deck, up around the side of the XC-116 on top, back down to the floor, and back up to the other side of the ceramic. This was good and I wasn't getting dry hits, but again the flavor of it was lacking compared to my fogger and the cotton inside was still getting carmelized and messing up the flavor over time...

A few builds later and right now I've settled at 1.04 ohms with 5 wraps of 28 gauge around 4 strands of XC-132 in a horizontal configuration. The flavor is great now and while the vapor production is not like the dripper I'm fine with that.

Summary in my opinion:
.The kayfun is not geared towards crazy vapor production. With sub ohm you need really good airflow. When you open up the airflow all the way, you sacrifice vacuum and less juice gets into the air chamber. You can open up the juice control, but you can run into problems with leaking from the air intake when you lay it down on its side. The flavor is sacrificed in the lower ohm range with this device as well.

.Ditch the cotton and save it for your drippers where the deck can be easily accessed and you can manually wet your wick to avoid random dry hits. It's a major pain in the ... to change wicks every other day or whenever you want to change flavors. It detracts from the convenience of having a tank.

.Try some kiln treated XC-132(like the SnG product) out with 4 strands and a macro coil(larger diameter, but compressed wraps). This wick will outlast your coils and provide a very consistent flavorful vape. It's relatively expensive, but it's worth every penny to me. The smaller diameter pieces have a greater capillary action than one big piece such as the 116. It's also easier to free hand wrap it without choking the wick. It's easier to dry burn instead of having to change the wick and worry if the rolled cotton is going to be too thick, thin, long, or short.

.Move your wick tails to the sides of the juice holes in the chamber, choking off the intake will not help you out with your flavor problem.

.Play with the height of your wick/coil above the air hole. Too low or high and it will will diminish the flavor and or vapor production. Too low will make the draw really tight.

.Open the chimney slightly if the vape still doesn't taste saturated, but if you open too much it could gurgle and leak.

.I haven't done testing to confirm this but I think the small diameter of the stock drip tip accelerates vapers tongue. You could be saying "wheres the flavor", but if you pass it to someone else they may think it tastes great. I say this because with a wide bore ghost modder tip on my dripper I don't notice as rapid of a drop on my perception of taste. The vapor from the R100 drip tip makes my tongue feel kind of numb where the vapor stream touches it.

.Build on you'll get it eventually. It was kind of annoying to get to this point knowing I dropped 120 on this atomizer and my fogger v3 had a better flavor for 40 after s/h.

 

[Phone Guy]

I've been using the peaches and cream cotton yarn with amazing success. I don't boil it like others. I see no need. Maybe I'm lazy or stupid or both?

Can't comment on the coil, I've rebuild mine but had tremendous success with the kayfun 3.1 es, especially compared to my experience with the Fogger.

I agree 100% about the small hole on the drip tip. I use the tip from the Fogger on my kayfun. Works MUCH better.

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[mackman]

I just got the Tobeco Kayfun Lite. I cleaned, it removed the coil that came with it and built like you a 1.7 micro coil (only because the coil that came with it was a 2.2 ohm) with organic cotton to test it. For me the flavor was there but the but clouds,no. I get as much or more from some carto tanks. So I played with the air control and the vapor production is good but not overwhelming. I did notice a big increase in the TH over other devices with the same juice. I positioned the coil directly over the air hole just off the deck so the TH shouldn't have been that intense.
When I get some time I'll build some low and sub ohm coils and try cotton, peaches and cream and silica, different coil heights from the deck, play with the AFC and see what happens.
Overall I like it for a Chinese clone the machining is pretty good the materials OK and it performs well; just needs to be tuned to the individual I think.
I like the fact I can lay it down and not worry about leakage and that it has AFC. For the price its a keeper.

 

[Bawn]

So at 5:30am I rewicked it again and saw that one side leg was touching the deck. I think that's where the off taste was coming from. Also raised the coil off the deck more and is working well right now. Just hope it stay that way.