Metallic Taste on Various Kanthal Vendors

[LikesToGoFast]

Hello and Good Day,

I just received a new spool of Kantahl A1 from a reputable vendor and noticed all by builds have a metallic taste. This was not the case on the previous spool I was working from. When I made my order I added a spool of ribbon to my order to experiment. I have now switched from the round to the ribbon in all my builds and no metallic taste is present. I cant tell you how many coils I have built, but I can say that I have gone through around of 100' of 28 from various vendors. This last batch is the only one that I have experienced this metallic taste from.

I was wondering has anyone else noticed that all Kanthal A1 is not the same?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Dakota Jim]

I always pretorch my wire to remove any possible machining oil residue which will cause a taste. Also causing taste on builds is anything I handled prior to building coils as this deposits that flavor on the wire for the first few heatings ie: soap, hand lotion, cheetos etc. So now I just wash my hands and then use a tiny amount of VG as a lotion on my fingers before wrapping coils to attempt to neutralize any possible flavor transfer.

 

[Fisheeboy]

I know this isn't quite on topic here but I've been searching the web for about 24 hrs trying to find a good place to get some kanthal. I've never built a coil but I'm gonna be starting in about a week or so when all my stuff gets delivered. I am clueless. Is the ribbon wire the better way to go? Dude, will you help a brother out here? Where can I go to get some good kanthal? And I really don't want a metallic taste like you mentioned.

 

[*deleon517*]

I also get mine from the ebay/amazon seller lightningvapes. That seller is very popular and hasn't let me down yet. Also when starting out you may want to get 30-32 gauge as it's easier to build coils above 1 ohm when starting with those gauges.

 

[LikesToGoFast]

I also practice pre-torching and wrap in the cleanest environment that I can. My technique for wrapping coils also never lets my hands touch the part of the coil that comes in contact with the cotton. After wrapping the coil I also compression torch my coils before I mount on whatever atty I am building up.

Most of the wire we all use is built for the some sort of furnace or oven like heating process. The tolerances for making this wire is not very strict. I normally try and build to the hundredths of ohm. I can do this rather repeatable when using wire from a single spool, but switch it up, and it takes me a few wraps to narrow down the inconsistencies between lots of kanthal in the same size.

Again though this last lot I have taste like I vaping with a penny in my mouth.

 

[Susan W.]

I torch my Kanthal too. If I don't I get a metallic taste for a while but it goes away after about 20 vapes.

 

[LikesToGoFast]

Ribbon is a bit harder to work with than wire... It is a bit springy and the coils dont resist compression as well as wire. Now saying that... I have just recently switch to using ribbon and I love it. I ordered my supplies from here...

Temco Industrial Power

Ribbon I have
is part number RW0322

 

[Fisheeboy]

This is great info. I'm taking notes. I was going to go with 28g because that's what I keep seeing people referring to but as a newb to this it sounds like maybe I should be trying 30g.
LikesToGoFast, sounds like you've been doing this for a while.. Could it be that this last spool you got has some kind of contaminate in it? Some other alloy or something like that. I would think that something like a contaminate could cause a metallic taste.

 

[Dakota Jim]

I know this isn't quite on topic here but I've been searching the web for about 24 hrs trying to find a good place to get some kanthal. I've never built a coil but I'm gonna be starting in about a week or so when all my stuff gets delivered. I am clueless. Is the ribbon wire the better way to go? Dude, will you help a brother out here? Where can I go to get some good kanthal? And I really don't want a metallic taste like you mentioned.

this has all of the wire - Kanthal, Nichrome and ribbon

items in TEMCo Industrial Power Supply store on eBay!

 

[LikesToGoFast]

I know that there isn't really any tight regulation on what makes Kanthal A1 wire... in order for Kanthal A1 wire to be called "Kanthal A1" it has to made up of the following... its normal composition is 5.8% Aluminum with a the balance being Iron... its minimal composition is 20.5% Chromium, 5.8% Aluminum andthe balance being Iron... its maximum composition is .08% Carbon, .7% Silicon, .4% Manganese, 23.5% Chromium, 5.8% Aluminum and the balance being Iron... Everything above and every in carnation between whats above is considered A1 Kanthal... I don't know about you, but to me they are different types of wire... I am convinced that on occasion you can get a composition that will taste off to some, maybe not all, but some can taste the difference.

 

[0to9]

Kanthal have high resistence than nickel-chromium wire, you need less loop.

 

[TonyMSP]

I'm also new to RBAs and mechanical mods. I'm currently using a Nemesis with a Kraken. The last coil I built was SS mesh with 28g kanthal. It had the most disgusting metallic/chemical taste. I dumped that tank, and cleaned out the atomizer. I haven't attempted to use that same atomizer yet and simply switched to my other Kraken. The odd part is that my current build is very similar to the bad tasting one. Still not sure what the deal with this was. I'll keep experimenting with coil builds.

 

[Fisheeboy]

I know that there isn't really any tight regulation on what makes Kanthal A1 wire... in order for Kanthal A1 wire to be called "Kanthal A1" it has to made up of the following... its normal composition is 5.8% Aluminum with a the balance being Iron... its minimal composition is 20.5% Chromium, 5.8% Aluminum andthe balance being Iron... its maximum composition is .08% Carbon, .7% Silicon, .4% Manganese, 23.5% Chromium, 5.8% Aluminum and the balance being Iron... Everything above and every in carnation between whats above is considered A1 Kanthal... I don't know about you, but to me they are different types of wire... I am convinced that on occasion you can get a composition that will taste off to some, maybe not all, but some can taste the difference.

Sounds like there is plenty of room for some inconsistencies during manufacturing. I would think that on most occasions it will be good wire but once in a while there is bound to be that one that has a funk to it.