My wicking preference for a long time was white Peaches & Cream cotton yarn from Walmart. I had used cotton balls prior to that, but found the yarn to be superior, because all of the fibers are aligned much better than cotton balls, and it is consistent -- for example, I always know that my 3/32" coils needs exactly two strands of yarn.
I make my own juice, and decided to switch from mixing by volume (using syringes and pipettes to measure and dispense the correct volume of each ingredient) to mixing by weight (dripping ingredients directly into a bottle sitting on a 0.01 gram resolution scale). I ordered a suitable scale from Amazon (an AWS LB-501) with some unused credit, and still had some credit left over and needed to get my order over $35 for free shipping, so I also picked up an 80-count bag of Koh Gen Do Japanese cotton pads to try.
And I can't even believe how much better it is. It is very easy to work with, wicks faster than cotton balls or cotton yarn, and seems to be much less sensitive to heat. I can run my RDA's at 20-25% higher wattage on the exact same build without any burning from the wick not being able to pull enough juice to the coil. The taste seems a bit more neutral as well, although I never had any problems in that regard with other forms of cotton, so I may be just used to cotton in general.
A pack of 80 pads costs just $12: Amazon.com : Koh Gen Do Organic Cotton 80 sheets for Skin Care : Beauty
This is enough to last years, even if you rewick at least one RDA daily. You peel apart each pad in half to give you 160 pads, and cut or pull off (I prefer cutting, it's more precise and repeatable) a strip 1.5 - 2 times the diameter of your coil. Each resulting strip is long enough to make two wicks, even in RDA's with extremely deep juice wells that need very long wicks to touch the bottom. Some of my RDA's with shallower drip wells I can make even three wicks out of each half-thickness strip.
I almost always use 3/32" (2.4 mm) coils, and with this diameter coil, I get 15 strips from each pad. I use dual coils 95% of the time, and each day rewick 2 or 3 of the RDA's in my current rotation. Even with a 10% failure rate (which is much higher than reality due to how easy it is to work with this stuff):
80 pads x 15 "full" strips per pad = 1,200 "full" strips
1,200 "full" strips x 2 "half thickness" strips x 2 "individual wick" strips = 4,800 wicks
4,800 wicks minus 10% for messups = 4,320 wicks
4,320 wicks will rewick 2,160 dual coil RDA's
2 dual coil RDA's rewicked daily = 1,080 days = ~3 years
3 dual coil RDA's rewicked daily = 720 days = ~2 years
Extremely cost effective, super easy to use, and (in my opinion) gives the best results of any wicking material that I have tried (and I've tried all of the commonly used materials except for ceramics)? $12 for enough material that will last a few years even if you are a heavy rewicker like I am? What's not to like?
Don't hesitate. Pick some up, especially if you already use and prefer another form of cotton for wicking. I'm kicking myself for not trying it earlier. I'm also kicking myself for not getting a scale to mix my juice by weight earlier, and for waiting so long to start mixing my own juice in the first place (I just started three months ago), but that's a discussion for another thread.
I make my own juice, and decided to switch from mixing by volume (using syringes and pipettes to measure and dispense the correct volume of each ingredient) to mixing by weight (dripping ingredients directly into a bottle sitting on a 0.01 gram resolution scale). I ordered a suitable scale from Amazon (an AWS LB-501) with some unused credit, and still had some credit left over and needed to get my order over $35 for free shipping, so I also picked up an 80-count bag of Koh Gen Do Japanese cotton pads to try.
And I can't even believe how much better it is. It is very easy to work with, wicks faster than cotton balls or cotton yarn, and seems to be much less sensitive to heat. I can run my RDA's at 20-25% higher wattage on the exact same build without any burning from the wick not being able to pull enough juice to the coil. The taste seems a bit more neutral as well, although I never had any problems in that regard with other forms of cotton, so I may be just used to cotton in general.
A pack of 80 pads costs just $12: Amazon.com : Koh Gen Do Organic Cotton 80 sheets for Skin Care : Beauty
This is enough to last years, even if you rewick at least one RDA daily. You peel apart each pad in half to give you 160 pads, and cut or pull off (I prefer cutting, it's more precise and repeatable) a strip 1.5 - 2 times the diameter of your coil. Each resulting strip is long enough to make two wicks, even in RDA's with extremely deep juice wells that need very long wicks to touch the bottom. Some of my RDA's with shallower drip wells I can make even three wicks out of each half-thickness strip.
I almost always use 3/32" (2.4 mm) coils, and with this diameter coil, I get 15 strips from each pad. I use dual coils 95% of the time, and each day rewick 2 or 3 of the RDA's in my current rotation. Even with a 10% failure rate (which is much higher than reality due to how easy it is to work with this stuff):
80 pads x 15 "full" strips per pad = 1,200 "full" strips
1,200 "full" strips x 2 "half thickness" strips x 2 "individual wick" strips = 4,800 wicks
4,800 wicks minus 10% for messups = 4,320 wicks
4,320 wicks will rewick 2,160 dual coil RDA's
2 dual coil RDA's rewicked daily = 1,080 days = ~3 years
3 dual coil RDA's rewicked daily = 720 days = ~2 years
Extremely cost effective, super easy to use, and (in my opinion) gives the best results of any wicking material that I have tried (and I've tried all of the commonly used materials except for ceramics)? $12 for enough material that will last a few years even if you are a heavy rewicker like I am? What's not to like?
Don't hesitate. Pick some up, especially if you already use and prefer another form of cotton for wicking. I'm kicking myself for not trying it earlier. I'm also kicking myself for not getting a scale to mix my juice by weight earlier, and for waiting so long to start mixing my own juice in the first place (I just started three months ago), but that's a discussion for another thread.
