New studies find carcinogens in vg and pg at high temps, even in tootle puffers

[GeorgeS]

Yes, a much higher positive temperature coefficient of resistance than most of the wires we use for vaping non-TC. I saw someone else mention NiFe70 somewhere as well:
Nifethal 70 Wire 30ft Spool
You're ahead of us (well, me at least) on this NiFe wire George. Will be interesting to hear your observations of how it vapes.

I'm not sure about the Kidneypuncher wire - I got mine from Amazon/Temco.

My exploration into "poormans governor" dates back to last summer while I was picking up dirt cheap/fire sale VV mods for my 'vape stash' and it dawned on me that while I had a dozen or more TC wire gauges and types I had never bought any Kanthal or basic NON-TC wire. (I now have 28/30/32AWG Kanthal-A1 in stock)

My vaping story goes directly from eGo and Nautilus type stuff directly to TC controlled rebuildables. I completely skipped the VW phase.

The VMAX won't fire anything remotely "subohm" so my choice of wire and gauge was to enable a >=1.4ohm coil with TC wire. (SS430 it is about +14 wraps stuffed into a Lemo2)

Just about all I use anymore is NiFe48 FLATWIRE I get from Germany. NiFe70 vapes just as well as any other HIGH TCR wire. (but back to the 'governor')

My main gripes with the gear I started with were chain vaping would make it hotter to the point of singing the wick and destroying the atomizer and those atomizers cost more than the DIY juice I was using.

So I figured why not use TC wire to rebuild the atomizers?

My first experiments with 37AWG NiFe70 were with a STM RBA. I quickly learned 37AWG was a PAIN to work with. You have to wrap it AROUND the screws and be careful not to break it while securing. Wicking was yet another challenge. I was able to make two builds in the STM's but later figured THAT wire was bound for a Kanger EVOD tank or similar. (then I found the el-cheapo prewound coils for a song on FastTech and moved onto other things)

If you think about it:

SS430 1.4ohm cold, 1.747ohms hot (200C), 11.42W cold, 9.15W hot (25%)
Ti-01 1.4ohm cold, 2.324ohms hot (200C), 11.42W cold, 6.88W hot (65%)

A 25-65% (or more) difference in power delivery is fairly significant. My concept here is that while the coil may still continue to get hotter, the rise rate will slow down as it does.

The "trick" here was to wind up something that the antique mod would fire and then dial in the voltage for a decent vape.

As far as temperature is concerned, I believe we can interpolate the measured resistance of the coil to find the temperature. I recall some of my builds pushing 4ohms (hot!). (granted THAT might of been with 1.8-2.0 ohm builds but still)

 

[David Wolf]

I'm not sure about the Kidneypuncher wire - I got mine from Amazon/Temco.

My exploration into "poormans governor" dates back to last summer while I was picking up dirt cheap/fire sale VV mods for my 'vape stash' and it dawned on me that while I had a dozen or more TC wire gauges and types I had never bought any Kanthal or basic NON-TC wire. (I now have 28/30/32AWG Kanthal-A1 in stock)

My vaping story goes directly from eGo and Nautilus type stuff directly to TC controlled rebuildables. I completely skipped the VW phase.

The VMAX won't fire anything remotely "subohm" so my choice of wire and gauge was to enable a >=1.4ohm coil with TC wire. (SS430 it is about +14 wraps stuffed into a Lemo2)

Just about all I use anymore is NiFe48 FLATWIRE I get from Germany. NiFe70 vapes just as well as any other HIGH TCR wire. (but back to the 'governor')

My main gripes with the gear I started with were chain vaping would make it hotter to the point of singing the wick and destroying the atomizer and those atomizers cost more than the DIY juice I was using.

So I figured why not use TC wire to rebuild the atomizers?

My first experiments with 37AWG NiFe70 were with a STM RBA. I quickly learned 37AWG was a PAIN to work with. You have to wrap it AROUND the screws and be careful not to break it while securing. Wicking was yet another challenge. I was able to make two builds in the STM's but later figured THAT wire was bound for a Kanger EVOD tank or similar. (then I found the el-cheapo prewound coils for a song on FastTech and moved onto other things)

If you think about it:

SS430 1.4ohm cold, 1.747ohms hot (200C), 11.42W cold, 9.15W hot (25%)
Ti-01 1.4ohm cold, 2.324ohms hot (200C), 11.42W cold, 6.88W hot (65%)

A 25-65% (or more) difference in power delivery is fairly significant. My concept here is that while the coil may still continue to get hotter, the rise rate will slow down as it does.

The "trick" here was to wind up something that the antique mod would fire and then dial in the voltage for a decent vape.

As far as temperature is concerned, I believe we can interpolate the measured resistance of the coil to find the temperature. I recall some of my builds pushing 4ohms (hot!). (granted THAT might of been with 1.8-2.0 ohm builds but still)

That's an interesting trek you've made on your vaping journey! I frankly never thought of using small gauge higher resistance TC type wires on power control to help regulate power/temperature to the coil as it heats up, though I have used 316L SS just for comparison to Kanthal and Nichrome for flavor and longevity comparison. Pretty unique and maybe original concept you have there! Reminds me of the self regulating heat trace cable we use at work for keeping pipes from freezing

 

[GeorgeS]

That's an interesting trek you've made on your vaping journey! I frankly never thought of using small gauge higher resistance TC type wires on power control to help regulate power/temperature to the coil as it heats up, though I have used 316L SS just for comparison to Kanthal and Nichrome for flavor and longevity comparison. Pretty unique and maybe original concept you have there! Reminds me of the self regulating heat trace cable we use at work for keeping pipes from freezing

David, the key take aways here are:

• Fixed or VV mode
• High TCR

While I was using high resistance in my experiments to 'shoehorn' TC wire into my old VMAX V5's any medium to high TCR wire will work. Recall the TI wire (TCR=366) had 3x the power reduction at temperature than SS430 did (TCR=134).

Also while I have dozens of mods that can be operated in VW mode I never use that mode so I'm unclear as to how the different mods regulate or not VW.

• Read coil ONCE when tank is attached (no re-reads when watts are changed)
  
• Read coil every time the fire button is pressed (or watts are changed)
  
• Read coil at some sample rate continually

It should be noted that out of the three options, only the first one is safe. As the latter two could set up a thermal runaway.

Hence the old mantra: "TC wire should only be used in TC mode".

IMHO: Fixed (mechanical) or regulated VV mode can be safe with TC wire. When you think about it, the cotton wick would be in FLAMES long before NI200 or TI-01 ever reached a temperature where nasty stuff is generated.

 

[David Wolf]

David, the key take aways here are:

• Fixed or VV mode
• High TCR

While I was using high resistance in my experiments to 'shoehorn' TC wire into my old VMAX V5's any medium to high TCR wire will work. Recall the TI wire (TCR=366) had 3x the power reduction at temperature than SS430 did (TCR=134).

Also while I have dozens of mods that can be operated in VW mode I never use that mode so I'm unclear as to how the different mods regulate or not VW.

• Read coil ONCE when tank is attached (no re-reads when watts are changed)
  
• Read coil every time the fire button is pressed (or watts are changed)
  
• Read coil at some sample rate continually

It should be noted that out of the three options, only the first one is safe. As the latter two could set up a thermal runaway.

Hence the old mantra: "TC wire should only be used in TC mode".

IMHO: Fixed (mechanical) or regulated VV mode can be safe with TC wire. When you think about it, the cotton wick would be in FLAMES long before NI200 or TI-01 ever reached a temperature where nasty stuff is generated.

Very good points about VV vs Power mode. Pretty sure that my istick30 and 30W TC check resistance periodically since if I unscrew the atomizer while it's ok it will show "0.0 or 0.00" ohms (which is screwy since it's not a short it's an open so it would be better to show 9.99 or display "no atomizer" like it does when I press the fire button, so you're right if I were trying to use TC wire to regulate without TC best to use voltage control. However if you have TC for the type of wire best to just use that.

 

[Rossum]

On a fixed voltage device (like a mech or regulated VV) the output voltage remains the same as the resistance of the wire is going up. Hence the coil draws less power as it gets hotter and eventually stops getting hotter.

Most people who are using SS wire on mechs or fixed-voltage mods build to a lower cold resistance and look for their hot resistance to be about what they're used to. This gets them faster ramp up.

Building to a "normal" cold resistance will of course limit coil temperature to a somewhat lower value than a fixed resistance wire would get to, but it's by no means cool enough to prevent problems. You can easily see this by virtue of the fact that a dry coil SS coil will still glow.

 

[Rossum]

Hmmm, that small of a resistance change doesnt seem like it would have that huge of an effect, but I guess it would have some.

When I tested SS430 in wattage mode, I got pretty high temps at 15-20w. And it got hotter with chain vapes or restricted air/juice flow. I didnt see much limiting effect there, but then I didnt compare it to kanthal either.

Wattage mode on a DNA negates this effect because a DNA calculates resistance and adjusts its output to maintain constant wattage continuously, the entire time the it's being fired. This behavior is actually an important claim in Evolv's VW patent and every DNA since the Darwin has done this.

I remember Brandon laughing/dissing the early DNA30 clones because their implementation of VW did not include this; they calculated resistance once, just before firing and did not compensate for dynamic changes in resistance at all.

 

[GeorgeS]

Most people who are using SS wire on mechs or fixed-voltage mods build to a lower cold resistance and look for their hot resistance to be about what they're used to. This gets them faster ramp up.

While the SS31xx wire most folks use would be fairly to completely worthless for a poor mans governor not all folks that use fixed or VV mods build low for "ramp up".

Than again I'm a odd duck and build for low energy and use 28-32awg wire. (thin wire ramps very fast!)

I only offered my experience in the thread as others were wondering what non TC users could do to potentially limit their coil/juice/vapor temperature.

 

[mikepetro]

While the SS31xx wire most folks use would be fairly to completely worthless for a poor mans governor not all folks that use fixed or VV mods build low for "ramp up".

Than again I'm a odd duck and build for low energy and use 28-32awg wire. (thin wire ramps very fast!)

I only offered my experience in the thread as others were wondering what non TC users could do to potentially limit their coil/juice/vapor temperature.

A novel approach, and a great suggestion.

Can you give us instructions on how you would determine what resistance to shoot for with TI or NiFe wire for a given voltage?

 

[awsum140]

I was thinking that with the significantly higher TCR of NiFe a much better, more accurate over the range of vaping temperatures, can be easily achieved. The variations introduced by all the other factors, inconsistent alloy, mod resistance and so on, would be mitigated quite a bit when compared to low TCR wires like Ni and Ti especially.

Given your efforts and results, GeorgeS, I may do some experiments with a mini CE3 and NiFe. Great concept!

 

[GeorgeS]

The variations introduced by all the other factors, inconsistent alloy, mod resistance and so on, would be mitigated quite a bit when compared to low TCR wires like Ni and Ti especially.

Ummm.... according to SteamEngine TI-01 has a TCR of 366 and Ni200 a TCR of 600. Otherwise hardly what I'd consider "low TCR wires".

Otherwise I'd agree that using a medium to high TCR wire type with a <= 1ohm hot resistance generally might provide a smoother vape than other build options.

 

[GeorgeS]

A novel approach, and a great suggestion.

Can you give us instructions on how you would determine what resistance to shoot for with TI or NiFe wire for a given voltage?

Sure. I'll revisit this tonight when I'm not time constrained.

 

[mikepetro]

Well, I made a fellow vaper's day today. Pickings are slim in this town, not many juice choices. So I took all the leftovers from last weekends juice trial and combined/adjusted them to make a 800ml bottle of 60/40 pg/vg 18mg/ml Mild Tobacco (a flavor I know he likes) and gave it to him. His eyes bulged "DAMN, that looks like a years worth"......

 

[Eskie]

Well, I made a fellow vaper's day today. Pickings are slim in this town, not many juice choices. So I took all the leftovers from last weekends juice trial and combined/adjusted them to make a 800ml bottle of 60/40 pg/vg 18mg/ml Mild Tobacco (a flavor I know he likes) and gave it to him. His eyes bulged "DAMN, that looks like a years worth"......

That's generous! Well done!

 

[mikepetro]

I did something like that once. Poured colored juice in a Genny tank with three different ceramic wicks to see which ceramic wicked better.

60 grit alumina oxide won.......

Ooops, it was only 2, not 3, wicks. I finally figured out where I stuck that video. Hey it was 4 years ago, remember the T-Shirt!

 

[zoiDman]

Well, I made a fellow vaper's day today. Pickings are slim in this town, not many juice choices. So I took all the leftovers from last weekends juice trial and combined/adjusted them to make a 800ml bottle of 60/40 pg/vg 18mg/ml Mild Tobacco (a flavor I know he likes) and gave it to him. His eyes bulged "DAMN, that looks like a years worth"......

Right on Mike. That was a Cool Thing to do.

 

[mikepetro]

So if I could measure the vacuum inside the tank while we draw, what value would that bring?

We already know what the temps are from my previous two rounds of testing. Some of those temps surprised me as to how low they were. Nonetheless, that was inside of a real atty under normal puffs, so if the boiling point was being reduced due to vacuum, we saw it in that testing. Is there any value in quantifying the amount of vacuum of different airflow settings?

 

[awsum140]

I would think that would be kind of hard to quantify. Just the "strength" and duration of draws will vary wildly from person to person and atomizer to atomizer, not to mention moment to moment. Add in the air flow setting variations and it gets a little murky at best.

 

[Andromendous]

Didn't go through the whole thread, so sorry if its already been pointed out, but, if the pg in a juice gets "boiled" much quicker than vg, and most of it is gone by the end of a tank,... Wouldn't the flavor be gone too?? 99.9% of flavor is in PG. I've never noticed my juice getting thicker at the bottom, or lack of flavor at all. Also, i thought that when a juice steeps, the molecules Bond together, wouldn't that make it impossible for one to boil off before the other?

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk

 

[GeorgeS]

The following is my picks from three different rigs: Mechanical (with LG HG2), VMax V5 and iStick20 clone.

The numbers are: Voltage, Current, Resistance and Power. These represent cold resistances.

Personally for the Mech I'd try to hit 0.3 to 0.6 ohms (63W is to much in my book). The Vmax is limited by current and resistance so hitting 1.6 ohms might prove to be a challenge in the smaller RBA's. The iStick clone I'd target 0.9 ohms cold.

For the two VV mods I picked 4V as to leave room to turn the voltage up. The Vmax can output 6V (I forget the max voltage on the iStick clone).

The three wire types I'm going to try to fit are:
- Resistitherm30, Nife30, TCR 320
(I have no stock of this so it will be on paper only)

- Ti-01, TCR 366
- Nife48, TCR 404

While I know I can stuff quite a few windings in a Lemo2, I'll also try the STM RBA and maybe if time permits an Anyvape RBA that fits Atlantis style tanks.

V I R P
4.2 15 0.28 63
4.2 20 0.21 84
4.2 25 0.17 105

3.2 11.42 0.28 36
3.2 15.23 0.21 48
3.2 19 0.17 61

4 2.5 1.6 10
4 3 1.33 12
4 3.75 1 15

4 3.75 1 15
4 4.5 0.89 18
4 5 0.8 20

 

[Eskie]

So if I could measure the vacuum inside the tank while we draw, what value would that bring?

We already know what the temps are from my previous two rounds of testing. Some of those temps surprised me as to how low they were. Nonetheless, that was inside of a real atty under normal puffs, so if the boiling point was being reduced due to vacuum, we saw it in that testing. Is there any value in quantifying the amount of vacuum of different airflow settings?

I don't think iit is vacuum as much as airflow speed. Sure there is a small pressure differential, but it's the act of drawing and the airflow rate that matters most.