Thoughts on the Wick, the Coil and the Battery for the DID.
THE DESIGN OF THE DID:
The whole DID’s stainless steel body including the SS inner tube is grounded to the battery’s negative end. The grounding connections for 4 out of a total of 6 DID parts are connected to each other by treads; (1) the SS Bottom Connector, (2) the SS Inner Tube, (3) the SS Top Connector, and (4) the SS Top Cap. The SS Body Tube (5) is clamped between (1) and (3). The last piece, (6) the Bronze Center Pole is floating inside (1), (2) and (3); isolated from the DID’s body but connected to the positive end of the battery. Four o-rings are used to seal the e-juice and cushion the treads; two little ones for the center post and two big ones for the top and bottom connectors. That said, the DID is the most simple, secure, reliable, durable, rebuildable and pocket-friendly Genesis styled atomizer to date, especially with the screw-on top cap with the air hole perfectly aligned in front of the wick. The standard sized mouthpiece receptacle gives user the option to use their own favorite piece. I have lost a few clearimizers’ mouthpieces on the plane and on golf course, leaking all over me. An integrated mouthpiece with a top cap would be bullet proof to those conditions.
THE VAPING CHAMBER:
Even though stainless steel does not conduct electricity as well as bronze, but due to the vast surface area, the grounding should be sufficient and could conduct electricity properly. The three big nuts are connected to the bronze center positive pole in the vaping chamber. The lower nut is for securing the center post to the unit, due to the fact that the center post is floating and the insulators are soft. The advantages of having a bigger lower nut are physical reliability, durability and ease of access for disassembling the whole unit. The top two nuts are for securing the wire, when screwed toward each other (locking nuts). The advantages of having bigger upper two nuts are the conductive reliability of the wire to the center post and getting the positive connection closer to the wick. Loose electrical connection generating random arks (flicker) with high instantaneous current will cause trouble. Since bronze is conductive and the wire is resistive, one does not want too long of a resistance wire hanging in the air between the positive post and the wick for obvious reasons. Be aware that as the wire is wrapped around the post in a clockwise fashion (the better practice), when tightened, it will pull the wick closer to the nuts. Clockwise wrapped wire, when tightened, will be pulled inward towards the center post, instead of being pushed away.
CHALLENGES:
The essence and the beauty of Genesis styled atomizer is by using Stainless Steel Mesh for wick, because it is durable, reliable, clean, non-combustible and rebuildable. The brittle glass-fiber wicks broke down easily and ruined every one of my clearmisers; they are glass after all. However, SS Mesh is conductive and it could cost problems in four areas; not exclusive only to the DID. If the wick made by the conductive SS Mesh is not properly oxidized, having a thin layer of insulation substance coating the wick, it will connect to (1) the wire, (2) the DID body via the wick hole, (3) the body from inside of the tank via the top of the bottom connecter and (4) the positive post via the upper two nuts.
It is easy to solve problems (3) and (4); lift the wick up a little out of the tank (or insolate the bottom part of the wick) and don’t bend the wick towards the nuts to touch them. If we solve problem (1) then problem (2) and (3) will be irrelevant, because, when the wire is not connected to the wick (at least the coiled portion of the wick), “so-what” if the wick is connected to the ground via the wick hole (2) or the inside of the tank (3). But, if one can isolate the wick from (2) and (3), it would help in the shorting situation because then the current has nowhere to go but come back to the wire to go to the grounding nut. The shorting spots of the wire to the wick, the dark wire, can be seen easily during the DRY burn. In this case, when wick is not grounded, there has to be multiple shorts to produce the dark wire, because if there is only one spot of the wire that is shorted to the wick, current will continuously travel through the wire. Side benefits of isolating the wick from the body (ground) is that heat lost to the body and the vaporizing delay when the wick is cold will all be minimized
MAKING THE WICK AND THE COIL:
The difficulties of making a proper wick are in four areas: (1) edge poking, (2) coating, (3) scraping and (4) loose wrapping. For (1), as we all know, the inner edge of the mesh should be folded before one rolls the wick for easier rolling and not letting the threads from the cut edge poking through the wick and cause the short. It is also a good idea to fold both edges, because the threads from the outer edge of the wick could also cause problems. In that case, why not fold all four edges; top and bottom as well? The tips of needle-like threads, if they poke out, are almost impossible to coat against even the slightest scraping (fiddle) from the wire. The side benefit of folding the top and bottom sides is creating gap between layers of the wick, making the wick absorb more e-juice. For (2), coat the wick by heating the wick bright red first, to remove foreign substances and produce a rough surface for bonding then burn the e-juice on it repeatedly. Quenching the wick with water will harden the wick, make it brittle, and splash off the coating. As long as after the last torching, letting it cool slowly, the wick will be relaxed again. For (3), don’t wrap the resistance wire too tight for it to break off the coating or scrape off the coating when tweaking. Wrapping the coil too loose (4) will generate inconsistent results with gurgling and popping noises; red spots from the “wire not touching the e-juice” will burn, not vaporize, the e-juice when it gets splashed on. The objective, an art form, is to let the wick supply the e-juice, let the coil vaporize the e-juice by getting them close but not touching each other.
UTILIZING THE ADVANTAGE:
There is one important advantage of Genesis styled atomizer which is often overlooked; the size of the wick and coil. Compared to all the mizers; cartomizer, atomizer and clerimizer, Genesis styled atomizer COULD HAVE by far the largest coil and wick. This inherited advantage will out-perform all others from the standpoint of throat hit, dry hit, vapor production, flavor and continuous operations (chain vape), provided that one builds the wick and coil correctly. What puzzles me is that if one has a large wick hole, why not use a big wick? Also, if one has a big wick, why not use all of it? I believe the DID has the largest wick hole (3.5mm) available on the market today and because of this, it COULD even out-perform all other Genesis styled atomizers easily. I have seen pictures of skinny wick with neatly built coil that only occupy one third of the available wick height in the vaping chamber of the DID with the coil wires very close to each other. To fully utilize the DID, I would use a large wick utilizing the whole wick hole and I would always use the two top nuts, adjusting them as high as the DID is allowed for, firmly secure the wire by tightening them toward each other, and get the power closer to the wick without touching it. By using the longer wick height for the same number of turns of a coil, besides providing a larger e-juice grazing space for each turn of the wire, the side benefits are that the increased gap between wires will alleviate the possibility of wires shorting each other (no fiddling is needed) and will not create as much gunk as compared with close-gapped wires. Well, SS wick does not create much gunk anyway, but with wider spaces between wires, one doesn’t even have to clean the wick as often by dry burning it, if at all. For all my misers, I need to dry burn them every time I refill the e-juice, because their coil is small and the heating wires are VERY close to each other. The gunk they created was just unbelievable. For thick juices they sometimes cover the whole wick; you cannot even see the coil after awhile, literally like the frosting on the cake.
THE RESISTENCE:
Another strange thing is that if one has a larger wick AND a Variable Voltage Device, why use 3 or less turns for a coil? It is obvious that less wire provides less heating element to juice contact area, resulting in either less vapor or burning taste. From Ohm’s law: P = V * I and V / I = R. By adjusting V and I, one could achieve the same wattage. If one uses a Variable Voltage Device, why not use the increased coil resistance to lower the current and use higher voltage to accomplish the same wattage?
P = V * I -- > V / I = R
8 = 3 * 2.7 -- > 3 / 2.7 = 1.1
8 = 4 * 2.0 -- > 4 / 2.0 = 2.0
8 = 5 * 1.6 -- > 5 / 1.6 = 3.1
8 = 6 * 1.3 -- > 6 / 1.3 = 4.6
On the other hand, the lower voltage device has to have lower resistance coil to accomplish the same wattage, but sacrifice with higher current demand from the battery housing. For non-regulated battery housing at 3.7V, to achieve higher watts, the only solution is to lower the resistance of the coil, and the DID could help with that too.
With lower current, it will be easier on the battery, the battery housing and the coil. With longer wire to increase the resistance, one can afford to use larger diameter wire to balance it a bit and the side benefits are that the thicker wire has more current carrying capability, more e-juice contact area, and more heat tolerance, in turn more durable. Kanthal A-1 32AWG (came with the DID) or thicker is better.
Note: Since we are dealing with single digit ohms here, the grounding and the center post connection become critical. For example, if the coil has 2 ohm and the grounding and center post has 1 ohm each, one would only get 50% of the wattage to the coil and the other 50% shared between the body and the center post of the DID.
THE DREADED E1/E2 ERROR:
I have a Provari V1 and upgraded it to V2. If one looks at the specs of the two, one would notice that V1 has a current limit of 2.5A and V2 increased it to 3.5A.
Back to the Ohm’s law: P = V * I, and V / I = R.
P = V * I -- > V / I = R
21 = 6.0 * 3.5 -- > 6.0 / 3.5 = 1.7
10 = 2.9 * 3.5 -- > 2.9 / 3.5 = 0.8
Note: At 6.0V, the highest voltage setting, anything below 1.7 ohm will trigger the E1/E2 Error and at 2.9V, the lowest setting, anything below 0.8 ohm will trigger the E1/E2 Error.
For those who saw the E1/E2 error, it is a blessing, because the Provari is protecting one’s mizer and battery by shutting itself down when it sees either one of the three conditions: (1) a short, (2) the voltage setting is too high, (3) the coil has too low of a resistance. If the battery voltage is low, with advance warning (flashing) before it shuts itself down, without showing E1/E2 Error. Unlike the “2 Cent Vape Safe” Provari’s E1/E2 error can be reset after the troubled mizer is removed from the unit. Provari is not fussy or tricky. Provari is very smart and it is protecting us at all times without additional cost. Actually, for the DID, there is not much to protect, except for not popping the coil and for not disintegrating the coating on the wick. Without a multi-meter to measure the coil resistance, drop Provari’s voltage down to 2.9V (the lowest voltage setting) BEFORE measuring or firing up a newly built wick on the DID.
THE BATTERY:
Speaking of protection, even with my Provari V2, I fried two of my Li-Ion batteries and damaged the Provari V2 during dry burn. Li-Ion batteries are designed for flashlight (especially using LEDs), small electronic devices and the like, but not for heat generating devices used in the e-cig applications. Most Li-Ion batteries are rated at 1C (Coulomb), so my fried 1,600 mAh 18500s are rated at 1.6 A. Since the Provari can handle the current of 3.5A (output current), before E1/E2 Error occurred, for 21W (max at 6V), from the battery (a 3.7V device after all), when fully charged at 4.2V, the current to the Provari (input current) has to be 5.0A. P / V = I. If the battery is at the 3.2V stage, when Provari V2 is flashing (low battery warning), it has to provide 6.6A. Just for reference, the Darwin’s maximum output wattage is 12.7W, the Kick is 10W, the Provari V1 is 15W and the Provari V2 is 21W. For vaping, especially if you like using high wattage, use only IMR batteries, because they are rated at 10C or higher. Be careful with high current battery in a device without a current limit protection though, because when the mizer is shorted, the high drain battery will generate a lot of heat instantly. This is the reason why all battery housings for vaping have gas-escaping hole to prevent blow up. If you are interested in how the C rating is defined:
Click here
CONCLUSION:
I have been without “analog cigarettes” for over 7 months now, but during this time I have been constantly frustrated and wasted a lot of time and money on those unreliable and unpleasant clearimizers. I hope that my findings could help those who need it, especially the new DIDers.
TO BE CONTINUED:
Wicking and Vaping.
. By the way Jim, I hope you'll be able to pace yourself as everyone here cares about your well being more than your product. The DiD is amazing and I love it very much, but I'd hate to see one of friendliest people on this site get overworked. Wish I lived near you to lend a hand but, I'm way across the pond lol.
