New Igo-W, first time dripper/builder, limited success

[TjNyc]

So, as I've been generally unhappy with my Aspire BDC's, and having read all the praises of rda's, I decided to take the plunge and try my hand at it. After watching quite a number of YouTube videos and reading How-To articles, I *thought* I had a good idea of what I was in store for... heh.

Anyway, went down to my local AltSmoke and picked up an Igo-W, 32ga Kanthal, 3mm silica wick, and an Ohm meter. Let the journey begin.

My first few attempts were terrible, and when I finally hit on a good 1.5-2.0 Ohm coil, while in the process of tightening down the screw on the post of the rda, I'd inevitably end up shearing the wire in two... another loss. I was beginning to believe I was in for more than I had anticipated. This morning I tried again, and finally had a little bit of success. 4 wraps of 32ga around 3mm silica and Ohm'ing at 1.46





Not great, I know, but at least it was borderline functional. Dry burned to check that the inner coils were firing before the outer coils, great. Dripped in some NicQuid Soho on the wick, popped on the top and gave her a go @ 3.8V...

...well, it produced vapor, although not a whole lot of it. Taste? A little funny. I did clean the entire unit the night before, but something just tasted off, can't really explain it. Maybe it's the silica, I'm not really certain.

Also, please keep in mind that I'm using an... eGo style battery. I figured that if I aimed for a coil between 1.5 - 2.0 Ohms, I'd be golden. I'm just a little underwhelmed with the results thus far.

Going to have to get some organic cotton and give that method a shot.

Is there anything that seems off in regard to what I've done so far? Tips on getting more vapor?

Thanks a ton,
John.

 

[Baditude]

Were your coils glowing evenly (no cold or hot spots along its length)? Any hot legs (the wire between the actual loops and the connectors glowing)? If not, you could be experiencing a short.

I'd suggest building a micro coil. This should help eliminate any possibilities of a short. Open spiral coils like you made tend to develop a hot spot (short). You'll need a pair of tweezers or needle nose pliers to compress the coil, and a microtorch to anneal the wire.

microcoil and cotton wick

An eGo battery is not the ideal power source for a rebuildable atomizer. A regulated mod with variable voltage, or better yet a mechanical mod using an 18650 replaceable rechargeable battery will give much better results. Use only IMR high drain batteries, and if planning to ever make a coil less than 1.0 ohm (sub-ohm), you'll need a 30 amp IMR/hybrid battery.

Battery Basics for Mods

Information Resources for Your First RBA

It's all about personal preference, but IMHO you'll get better flavor production if you use organic cotton instead of silica wick.

 

[derogg]

+1 on the micro coil idea with cotton.( you can use silica also with a micro type coil, just make the ID larger and fish the silica through with a piece of wire) Make sure you have your air holes lined up correctly with the coil. You might need to increase your voltage also (if you can). I have a ego twist battery I use with an IGO L in my rotation. Keep working on it, sometimes its just a little adjustment that makes a big difference.
- Dirk

 

[TjNyc]

Were your coils glowing evenly (no cold or hot spots along its length)? Any hot legs (the wire between the actual loops and the connectors glowing)? If not, you could be experiencing a short.

I'd suggest building a micro coil. This should help eliminate any possibilities of a short. Open spiral coils like you made tend to develop a hot spot (short). You'll need a pair of tweezers or needle nose pliers to compress the coil, and a microtorch to anneal the wire.

[...]

An eGo battery is not the ideal power source for a rebuildable atomizer. A regulated mod with variable voltage, or better yet a mechanical mod using an 18650 replaceable rechargeable battery will give much better results. Use only IMR high drain batteries, and if planning to ever make a coil less than 1.0 ohm (sub-ohm), you'll need a 30 amp IMR/hybrid battery.

[...]

It's all about personal preference, but IMHO you'll get better flavor production if you use organic cotton instead of silica wick.

Coils were glowing from the inner coils to the outer, and no hot legs as best as I can recall.

I don't have a torch yet, but I attempted to wrap a new coil around a Q-Tip stick after cutting one end off. I got them as close as I could without a torch. Used organic cotton (the non bleached one, but the "Organic Cotton whitened with hydrogen peroxide" type). Dry burning revealed a center glow moving outward as it should. The coil ohm'd at 1.93 ohms. Threaded cotton, snipped the long legs, wet and tucked.



This is producing quite a lot more vapor at a lower voltage. Thank you!

The taste is a little, well, cottony, but this should cease after a bit, yes?

I'm going to have to get some 28ga or 30ga Kanthal, instead of this 32ga, so I can create more wraps for the same resistance. And a torch for tighter coils.

And yes, my eGo batteries are going to become backups soon (that is if my wife doesn't kill me first as I buy even more stuff).

Thank you for those links as well -- very informative.

Take care,
John.

 

[icyberia]

Try getting a drill bit set from your local box box hardware store. They should have them from 1mm and up, that will give you lots of options to wrap everything from micro to macro and beyond. Also, wrapping on a metal bit, like I do, allows me to temper the wire with a bic lighter.

 

[derogg]

You don't need a torch. You can use a lighter, stove or your battery to heat up the coil and squeeze them together. You tube is great. I'm glad you are having sucess.
- Dirk

 

[Pcut]

I love my igoW rda, but as baditude suggested an ego battery may not be the best power source. If your using the same wire the same wick the same air flow and the same battery as your tank you should know what to expect. The beauty of the RDA is you can experiment with different setups. Try different gauge wire and maybe some cotton wick but most importantly put it on a battery/mod that can handle the electrical current your experimenting with.. Good luck!

 

[Forkeh]

I agree. An ego is not really the way to go with these. You're just not going to get max performance with a low power battery. You're drawing minimal volts, and you're not going to get any better of a vape on a 1.4-2 ohm coil with an RDA than you would with a stock device of some sort. My advice if you want to get into rebuildables, get yourself a nice VV or VW regulated mode with a decent low ohm capability. Or maybe a mechanical, but do be aware that mechanicals, you really have to know your stuff. They can be unsafe if you don't know what you're doing.

As for the build itself, I've always found that compressed coils work a whole lot better than spaced coils. Also, I've never ever built a coil around my wick. I find something cylindrical of appropriate gauge to wrap around, and then wick the coil after it's already installed, checked, and dry burned. It's super easy to wick a coil on an RDA, especially if you use cotton. And personally, I prefer cotton over silica.

 

[TjNyc]

My advice if you want to get into rebuildables, get yourself a nice VV or VW regulated mode with a decent low ohm capability. Or maybe a mechanical, but do be aware that mechanicals, you really have to know your stuff. They can be unsafe if you don't know what you're doing.

If you would be so kind, what regulated mods would you suggest? I know this probably comes down to personal preference, and from what I've briefly glimpsed in these forums, the ProVari and Innokin MVP and VTR seem to come up quite often.

Thanks again,
John

 

[derogg]

If you would be so kind, what regulated mods would you suggest? I know this probably comes down to personal preference, and from what I've briefly glimpsed in these forums, the ProVari and Innokin MVP and VTR seem to come up quite often.

Thanks again,
John

How much do you want to spend? And what do you want to do?
Prices range from not much to $100+
I have a vamo V5 cost about $40 if i remember correctly. A provari is top dollar, a DNA30 box mod is top dollar. If you want to do sub ohm builds and have a lot of bells and whistles it will cost more. The three you have listed all seem to have a good following. Everyone is going to have their opinion. I would think about how much you want to spend and then see what is a good device in your budget that will perform for what you will be using it for.
- Dirk

 

[Grimwald]

I use an igo-l on a variety of batteries...including egos.

I find 30ga wire just doesn't heat up as fast as 32ga. I use 5 wraps of 32ga on a 5/64 drill bit...that's an inside diameter of about 2mm...gets abot 1.8-2.0 ohms. I roll a thin cotton wick from a cotton ball and leave a tail on both sides of the coil. Lay those 2 tails down into the well area and snip off the excess. This covers most of the well with cotton.

That's what works best for me.

 

[TheElyrian]

If you would be so kind, what regulated mods would you suggest? I know this probably comes down to personal preference, and from what I've briefly glimpsed in these forums, the ProVari and Innokin MVP and VTR seem to come up quite often.

Thanks again,
John

I run an IGO-W5/MVP combo almost daily and love it.

 

[DJKevinMichael]

i keep seeing torch and or lighter recomended for anealing (is that a word) for micro coils i use my mvp 2 and a set of tweezers pulse the mvp till coil is glowing LET GO OF THE BUTTON and then use the tweezers to compress and work out the hot spots even holding the coil compressed and blowing on it to cool faster.

 

[Deezyboy]

I've never even been able to get my rbas or rda's to work on an ego or similar styles, my guess is that the small batteries are too weak


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sputtertoo]

If you would be so kind, what regulated mods would you suggest? I know this probably comes down to personal preference, and from what I've briefly glimpsed in these forums, the ProVari and Innokin MVP and VTR seem to come up quite often.

Thanks again,
John

On a budget I would suggest the MVP, I know plenty of people who love theirs, next it seems the Vamo is good, I only know one person who owns one personally and she likes it alot. Next, I've actually been thinking about picking up the Innokin SVD, as a around town vape, since I've left my provari in random places way to many times lately. Just remember with the second two you have to budget batteries and a charger.

 

[Ryedan]

The coil ohm'd at 1.93 ohms.

View attachment 351186

This is producing quite a lot more vapor at a lower voltage. Thank you!

The taste is a little, well, cottony, but this should cease after a bit, yes?

Yes that cottony taste goes away after a bit. It should not take long unless you've got too much cotton in there and it looks good to me

That coil looks pretty good too. I know micro coils are all the rage these days and I understand why. I use them too and they seem to produce a bit better than open coils like you're using. But I have experimented with these too and they do very well for me. IMO changing to a micro coil is not going to give you that much more performance.

It's hard to tell because the picture is taken pretty much looking down from the top of the atty, but I think your coil is very low in the atty, close to the deck. You will get better performance if you have the coil high enough so it's in line with the air hole in the cap. You also need to align the air hole with the coil rotationally. Basically you want the coil close to the air hole without any chance of it touching the inside of the cap (to avoid a short) and you want to see the center of the coil when you look in through the air hole. The further away your setup is from this the less vapor and flavor you get with more TH.

Your coil is 1.93 ohms and you say you are at less then 3.8 volts. At 3.8 volts you're drawing 2 amps and making about 7.6 watts. 7.6 watts is not much for a RDA like yours, it will handle more without burning juice and the flavor and vapor will increase.

Your battery will go up to 2.5A max. At 4.8V you'll be drawing about 2.5A. I would increase the voltage in small steps until your vape becomes burnt tasting or goes past what you like, or you get to just under the maximum voltage on the dial which is 4.8V.

The biggest advantage in having a more capable mod in this case is that you can increase the power (watts) which is what happens when you increase the voltage.

Here's a online Ohm's law calculator. Plug in resistance and voltage, hit 'calculate' and it will tell you the amps and watts.

 

[TjNyc]

Yes that cottony taste goes away after a bit. It should not take long unless you've got too much cotton in there and it looks good to me
[...]
It's hard to tell because the picture is taken pretty much looking down from the top of the atty, but I think your coil is very low in the atty, close to the deck. You will get better performance if you have the coil high enough so it's in line with the air hole in the cap. You also need to align the air hole with the coil rotationally. Basically you want the coil close to the air hole without any chance of it touching the inside of the cap (to avoid a short) and you want to see the center of the coil when you look in through the air hole. The further away your setup is from this the less vapor and flavor you get with more TH.

Your coil is 1.93 ohms and you say you are at less then 3.8 volts. At 3.8 volts you're drawing 2 amps and making about 7.6 watts. 7.6 watts is not much for a RDA like yours, it will handle more without burning juice and the flavor and vapor will increase.

Your battery will go up to 2.5A max. At 4.8V you'll be drawing about 2.5A. I would increase the voltage in small steps until your vape becomes burnt tasting or goes past what you like, or you get to just under the maximum voltage on the dial which is 4.8V.

The biggest advantage in having a more capable mod in this case is that you can increase the power (watts) which is what happens when you increase the voltage.

Here's a online Ohm's law calculator. Plug in resistance and voltage, hit 'calculate' and it will tell you the amps and watts.

Thanks for the tips -- I've been quite cautious with voltage as I have a weird issue of burning Aspire BDC coils quite quickly... like second tank burned taste issues. At the rate I was going through coils, it was, I felt, becoming wasteful. I'm at 4.3 - 4.5 volts currently and am quite pleased with the performance -- my single coil is vaping better than the Aspire BDC's I was using previously.

The next coil I build, I'll be more mindful of the placement of the coil in relation to the air hole on the Igo-W's cap. Never really imagined how important this was prior, but thankfully, now I know.

I'm currently looking into a VTR or something along those lines -- I'd like to stay regulated. From what I understand, although RDA's work decently well on regulated devices, they really shine on mech mods, but that is something I don't want to step foot in right now, I believe. My thinking is that if I go down that route later on, I'll already have the batteries and charger on hand, so not a large investment down the road.

The ProVari's look nice too, but I fear that my wife would knock me out with it if I bought one... not something that I wish to endure right now.

Thanks again for the tips and suggestions, as well as to everyone else who replied to my initial post -- very much appreciated!

- John.

 

[Ryedan]

Thanks for the tips -- I've been quite cautious with voltage as I have a weird issue of burning Aspire BDC coils quite quickly... like second tank burned taste issues. At the rate I was going through coils, it was, I felt, becoming wasteful. I'm at 4.3 - 4.5 volts currently and am quite pleased with the performance -- my single coil is vaping better than the Aspire BDC's I was using previously.

The next coil I build, I'll be more mindful of the placement of the coil in relation to the air hole on the Igo-W's cap. Never really imagined how important this was prior, but thankfully, now I know.

You're welcome TjNyc. Glad to hear it's working out for you

I'm currently looking into a VTR or something along those lines -- I'd like to stay regulated. From what I understand, although RDA's work decently well on regulated devices, they really shine on mech mods, but that is something I don't want to step foot in right now, I believe. My thinking is that if I go down that route later on, I'll already have the batteries and charger on hand, so not a large investment down the road.

Yes, you certainly don't need a mechanical mod to run RDAs or RBAs well. In the end it's all about how much power you want to use. If your power supply is providing that you're good. There are also the new high power regulated mods on the market these days if you want a bit more power and don't want to go mechanical.

The ProVari's look nice too, but I fear that my wife would knock me out with it if I bought one... not something that I wish to endure right now.

LOL, I totally get that TjNyc

 

[Tbev]

I'd recommend a vamo over the others I have 5 of them, got my whole family of Heavy smokers off cigs,

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

 

[TjNyc]

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the assistance you guys have provided -- everyone here is awesome.

So, I'm still trying to get a nice, clean coil. Picked up some 30ga Kanthal and shelved the 32ga for the time being. The 30ga seems a bit easier to work with, thankfully. Also picked up some Shiseido cotton (100% organic, untreated, unbleached -- just hope it didn't come from the Fukushima area :/) to be as pure as possible regarding wicking material.

Anyway, this was my last attempt this morning, 30ga on a 3/32 bit -- Ohm'd out at 1.84. Was shooting for 2.0'ish ohm's, but good enough for the time being.





_Still_ can't get a proper micro coil tho! I've tried torching (well, have a gas stove and used that), as well as pulsing until red hot and crimping with tweezers. The damned thing still introduces spaces between individual coils. The coils burn dead center and move out equally tho, so I can't complain too much. I'm getting neater with the coils, just have to work on getting rid of the spaces between coils somehow.

The Shiseido cotton is brutal -- wicks like a ...., and absolutely no cotton taste like the other organic cotton I used previously. Awesome stuff... and clean.

Also have a Sigelei Zmax V5 in Gun Metal from Sweet-Vapes.com in the mail... should be a nice step up from my eGo style batteries. Can't wait!

I'm really digging RDA's... not only do things function and taste better, but it's just plain ol' fun.

- John