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

[englishmick]

Ok, finished up the nautilus today (thanks to @englishmick for the atty).

This one was a challenge. Here is what it looked like when the probe fell out of its hole and I had to reposition it. Then put it all back together without knocking the probe out again.

Example sample reading:

And final results:

Will add it to the blog in the next couple days. Right now I have a RSST to look at.

Looks like that one was hard work.

The results were a bit of a shocker. I've regularly used a Nautilus at significantly higher power than 3.7 V / 7 W. I just turned one down from 9 W to 7W and it's still a pleasant vape though. Guess I'll just learn to like it that way. Maybe with a little more airflow you could go a little higher.

I was trying to figure out why it gets so hot. The coil is surrounded by cotton, filling the space between it and the body of the head, and some of the cotton is a tightly compressed sheath lining the inside of the head. And the head is set down inside a well in the base of the tank with only a thin layer of juice around it. Maybe there's just not a lot of ways for heat to get out.

I've tried rebuilding those heads with a single horizontal coil and no cotton except a regular wick sticking out of the holes where the juice normally enters. But so far my rebuilds have never been as good a vape as the stock coils. And they are hard to do. Maybe I should try one with SS wire and see what happens in TC. Not worth your testing though because I don't think many people rebuild Nautilus heads.
With as many of those tanks as there are in circulation I hope some information gets spread around.

Thanks for doing it Mike

 

[mikepetro]

View attachment 671217 mike; would you expect a temperature difference between these coils? on the right is my standard which you have already tested(2ohm,32g). on the left 2ohm,28g. in steam engine the left coil is blue and the right coil is red but i perceive more heat from the left coil even though ramp time is doubled. cap heats up faster on the left coil (mass i suppose). someone noted that water content was left out of the 18 variables,which made me think of the variable of coil mass. i'm still seeking less coil temp.
could you test this?

You mention the red and bllue in the heatflux field. If you hover over the flame you will get a helptext that explains it a bit better. I would think the blue would be better in a genny.

 

[mikepetro]

Looks like that one was hard work.

The results were a bit of a shocker. I've regularly used a Nautilus at significantly higher power than 3.7 V / 7 W. I just turned one down from 9 W to 7W and it's still a pleasant vape though. Guess I'll just learn to like it that way. Maybe with a little more airflow you could go a little higher.

I was trying to figure out why it gets so hot. The coil is surrounded by cotton, filling the space between it and the body of the head, and some of the cotton is a tightly compressed sheath lining the inside of the head. And the head is set down inside a well in the base of the tank with only a thin layer of juice around it. Maybe there's just not a lot of ways for heat to get out.

I've tried rebuilding those heads with a single horizontal coil and no cotton except a regular wick sticking out of the holes where the juice normally enters. But so far my rebuilds have never been as good a vape as the stock coils. And they are hard to do. Maybe I should try one with SS wire and see what happens in TC. Not worth your testing though because I don't think many people rebuild Nautilus heads.
With as many of those tanks as there are in circulation I hope some information gets spread around.

Thanks for doing it Mike

True, with airflow on the largest setting the temps were a little lower, but not a whole lot. I picked the middle, well, because it was in the middle. A setting I can see a lot of MTL folks wanting for the restricted hit.

Yeah, around 9W - 10W tasted best to me. After seeing the temps I didnt push it past 10w. Besides, at 10W it fried my probe.

It may be cotton in there but its a funny densely packed cotton that is in two pieces like a clam shell, except for a wrap or 2 around the coil. I didnt measure the gauge of the wire but it was pretty fine. A casual search of my trash can didnt turn it up. Every time I opened the atty up, and that was often, the wick seemed fairly well saturated so I dont think juice flow is the issue. I think we are back to low airflow and fine wire gets hot real damn fast.

Yeah, no way I would try to rebuild those things, too damn small for my large fingers.

If I were to go through the trouble to rebuild, I would use SS430 28g and keep the vertical alignment.

 

[AkiraFZ]

I would agree with the first two points wholeheartedly.

As for SS, I am not a metallurgist, but I have read up on the wires I use. I think SS is probably a good choice for someone new to TC, but I am comfortable with other wires too once you learn what you are doing. The trick is to read up on the metal and find out at what temp it creates dangerous oxides and stay below that temp. Even SS can give off bad stuff if you make it red/white hot.

"If" you are using TC then you wont get any dry hits. Assuming that, then I am comfortable with using TI wire (as well as NI, or TU, SS, etc). The dangerous oxides in TI only come out at temperatures well over 1000f, if you dont have any dry hits you wont ever see that kind of temp. You dont want to dry burn the coils above 1000f either though. With TI, if you see any powder on the surface of the wire you got too hot and need to throw that coil away.

The key with most TC wires is dont let them get over 1000f, I stay in the 700f-900f range.

• Prevent dry hits, a good TC mod prevents that.
  
• Dont dry burn (to clean your coil) above 1000f.

You're correct with points one andtwo, AkirafZ. Nickel and titanium are both safe at temperatures below ~800F so if you're set at 450F, or lower, no real problem there. I don't want to contradict Mike, but I'm not comfortable going over 800F and never dry burn any coil, TC or conventional. Titanium can produce oxides at high temperatures, but even then the documented case of cancer was in a person exposed to huge levels of dust in his working environment and he was a heavy tobacco user as well. I'm not familiar enough with tungsten or NiFE to offer any advice on them other than what Mike mentions.

Thank you mikepetro and awsum140 for clarifying the issue.

One thing I am not following quite well is that the deference between Dry Hits problem and Dry burn problem. Dry hits are not good because the material you insert in the coil, such as cotton, is producing bad thing? And high temperature Dry Burns are not good because the coil itself is producing bad thing?

 

[Mazinny]

Ok, finished up the Nautilus today (thanks to @englishmick for the atty).

This one was a challenge. Here is what it looked like when the probe fell out of its hole and I had to reposition it. Then put it all back together without knocking the probe out again.

Example sample reading:

And final results:

Will add it to the blog in the next couple days. Right now I have a RSST to look at.

Surprising results Mike, especially taking into account Kurts study which showed extremely low aldehyde production with the Nautilus up to 13 watts (he used a 2.2 ohm coil ). Is it possible that due to the design of the coil ( vertical with cotton on the outside ), the placement of the probe itself decreased air flow, and increased temperature at the coil location ? Just a thought.

 

[homeuser6]

mike , sorry for the delay,i was out shooting with the kids and grandkids
". I would think the blue would be better in a genny."
that's 10 wraps of 28g,same everything else. 28 tends to wrap tighter on the wick because of its stiffness but the target is still 2 ohms. everything same except for the coil mass. my perception is hotter vapor. or do i imagine this. i prefer cooler vapor, no throat hit. by steam engine that would be accomplished in blue range but heat flux concept is not working for me. only you can say if my perception is wrong. there is no auto time limit ,the button stays pushed till vapor is produced. if the higher mass coil stays cooler, i will go with it. if not, i will doubt the utility of the heat flux calculation as applied to my rig. maybe you can see that i am looking for a build where evaporation cooling can keep up with electrical heating(a kind of equilibrium, but closer to 420 or 400f than 450)like tc without a circuit board.i expect more mass is harder to cool than less mass. so why is more mass blue and less mass red. i could gain some insight into what factors matter with your help. feel free to expound if you wish.

 

[mikepetro]

Thank you mikepetro and awsum140 for clarifying the issue.

One thing I am not following quite well is that the deference between Dry Hits problem and Dry burn problem. Dry hits are not good because the material you insert in the coil, such as cotton, is producing bad thing? And high temperature Dry Burns are not good because the coil itself is producing bad thing?

Correct.

In a dry hit both the coil and the wicking reach unsafe temperatures.
In a dry burn, if too hot, the coil can reach unsafe temperatures.

When the metal gets too hot it can create oxides, which are not safe to inhale. In some metals, like TI, these oxides form on the surface of the metal and you could be vaping them with every hit afterwards.

 

[mikepetro]

Surprising results Mike, especially taking into account Kurts study which showed extremely low aldehyde production with the Nautilus up to 13 watts (he used a 2.2 ohm coil ). Is it possible that due to the design of the coil ( vertical with cotton on the outside ), the placement of the probe itself decreased air flow, and increased temperature at the coil location ? Just a thought.

I placed the probe on the outside of the coil, not in the aiir path.

 

[mikepetro]

Surprising results Mike, especially taking into account Kurts study which showed extremely low aldehyde production with the Nautilus up to 13 watts (he used a 2.2 ohm coil ). Is it possible that due to the design of the coil ( vertical with cotton on the outside ), the placement of the probe itself decreased air flow, and increased temperature at the coil location ? Just a thought.

One thing to note about the Nautilus study I did vs Kurts, Aspire changed the design of the coil from horizontal to vertical. I used the newer vertical style as that what came with the atty. Dont know what style kurt used, very well could have been the older style.

Plus, the higher resistance of his would have burned cooler.

In any event I am only measuring temperature, not aldehydes. The Wang study implies a correlation, but I cant directly measure aldehydes myself.

 

[awsum140]

Thank you mikepetro and awsum140 for clarifying the issue.

One thing I am not following quite well is that the deference between Dry Hits problem and Dry burn problem. Dry hits are not good because the material you insert in the coil, such as cotton, is producing bad thing? And high temperature Dry Burns are not good because the coil itself is producing bad thing?

To further clarify, a dry hit happens when the flow of liquid is not high enough to keep the wick wet while firing the device during regular vaping. A dry burn is normally done with the atomizer (a rebuildable atomizer) disassembled and no wick in the coil. The purpose being to burn off the "gunk" to clean the coil rather than rebuild completely.

 

[englishmick]

One thing to note about the Nautilus study I did vs Kurts, Aspire changed the design of the coil from horizontal to vertical. I used the newer vertical style as that what came with the atty. Dont know what style kurt used, very well could have been the older style.

Plus, the higher resistance of his would have burned cooler.

In any event I am only measuring temperature, not aldehydes. The Wang study implies a correlation, but I cant directly measure aldehydes myself.

I got used Nautilus tanks initially and they came with dual horizontal coil heads. Those heads came in at least 2 resistance levels. Some were quite low resistance, can't remember exactly what now. Maybe they used thicker wire. There was space around the outside of the coils for airflow in that design. Different size juice holes. Plenty of variations.

My grandson bought heads from BM shops until recently. You can still get horizontal coils there. But on-line I could only find the newer vertical coils at 1.8.

I think you can use other types of head in a Nautilus.

It's certainly possible that Nautilus changed the head design and came up with a design that gives better flavor but runs at higher temps.

Given the limited information we have my take away is that I'll use the Nautilus tanks at a little lower power than previously. Can't hurt and it might help.

 

[Rossum]

Surprising results Mike, especially taking into account Kurts study which showed extremely low aldehyde production with the Nautilus up to 13 watts (he used a 2.2 ohm coil ).

In any event I am only measuring temperature, not aldehydes. The Wang study implies a correlation, but I cant directly measure aldehydes myself.

The Wang study established the temperatures at which aldehydes can form using a "reactor" in which all of the PG/VG was kept at those temperatures for extended periods of time.

Mike's studies have established that coils can easily exceed those temperatures, and if you want to be sure that your coil temps stay below those thresholds, you should use TC.

But what has not been established is that significant amounts of aldehydes do form during the very short period of time that our liquid is in contact with non-TC coils, particularly in atties that use modern wicking materials as opposed to silica. In fact, studies by Kurt and Dr. F seem to show that they do not.

I think the only way we're ever going to get a real handle on the potential hazard of non-TC vaping is to measure coil temps like Mike has, while sampling the actual aerosol produced and analyzing it for aldehyde content at the same time.

 

[Eskie]

I think the only way we're ever going to get a real handle on the potential hazard of non-TC vaping is to measure coil temps like Mike has, while sampling the actual aerosol produced and analyzing it for aldehyde content at the same time.

That is precisely the next step required. Hopefully we'll have that information in the near future.

Still fun to hear the different temps even without that. I would have never though a Nauti coil could get that hot under common power settings used.

 

[Mazinny]

The Wang study established the temperatures at which aldehydes can form using a "reactor" in which all of the PG/VG was kept at those temperatures for extended periods of time.

Mike's studies have established that coils can easily exceed those temperatures, and if you want to be sure that your coil temps stay below those thresholds, you should use TC.

But what has not been established is that significant amounts of aldehydes do form during the very short period of time that our liquid is in contact with non-TC coils, particularly in atties that use modern wicking materials as opposed to silica. In fact, studies by Kurt and Dr. F seem to show that they do not.

I think the only way we're ever going to get a real handle on the potential hazard of non-TC vaping is to measure coil temps like Mike has, while sampling the actual aerosol produced and analyzing it for aldehyde content at the same time.

Thanks Ross, i've been following the thread on and off and i'm familiar with what's going on. What i find surprising is comparing temperatures reached with the PT2 and Nautilus in Mikes testing, with aldehyde production in Kurts testing. Both seemed to reach high temperatures around 8 watts or so, but one ( PT2 ) produced significant amount of aldehydes in Kurts testing whereas the other ( Nautilus ) did not.

 

[Mazinny]

One thing to note about the Nautilus study I did vs Kurts, Aspire changed the design of the coil from horizontal to vertical. I used the newer vertical style as that what came with the atty. Dont know what style kurt used, very well could have been the older style.

Plus, the higher resistance of his would have burned cooler.

In any event I am only measuring temperature, not aldehydes. The Wang study implies a correlation, but I cant directly measure aldehydes myself.

I have never used the Nautilus, but i thought the coils were always vertical. Surprised to hear otherwise. I think Kurt did his testing in mid to late 2015 if memory serves.

ETA : just checked Kurts test, and he did use a vertical coil :

The overall design is visually similar to the Protank, but the replaceable coil-head is larger and the coil is vertically oriented, longer and of thicker gauge, and in contact with more wicking material (poly-fill).

 

[awsum140]

Hmmmm, maybe related to the poly-fill? I don't think it wicks as well as silica, but could be wrong on that, and definitely not as well as cotton or rayon. It could also be related to poly-fill not being as heat tolerant and starting to "degrade".

 

[Mazinny]

That is precisely the next step required. Hopefully we'll have that information in the near future.

Still fun to hear the different temps even without that. I would have never though a Nauti coil could get that hot under common power settings used.

oh yeah, a lot of testing needs to be done yet. Not only newer studies, but the older studies need to be replicated as well.

 

[mikepetro]

Hmmmm, maybe related to the poly-fill? I don't think it wicks as well as silica, but could be wrong on that, and definitely not as well as cotton or rayon. It could also be related to poly-fill not being as heat tolerant and starting to "degrade".

Whatever the fill was, the coil seemed well saturated every time I opened it up, which was often as the ^$%#$@$# probe kept falling out.

 

[Rossum]

Thanks Ross, i've been following the thread on and off and i'm familiar with what's going on. What i find surprising is comparing temperatures reached with the PT2 and Nautilus in Mikes testing, with aldehyde production in Kurts testing. Both seemed to reach high temperatures around 8 watts or so, but one ( PT2 ) produced significant amount of aldehydes in Kurts testing whereas the other ( Nautilus ) did not.

I suspect wicking plays a vital role in all this, with the PT being silica, while the Nauti has something better, although I'm not sure exactly what.

 

[awsum140]

It might have been saturated by the time you got it opened up, but what about while closed and vaping? Kind of hard to determine in a tank like that, but something was going on.