Newbie questions on coil rebuilding

[chrisf8657]

I'm going to look into re-building my Kanger Protank 3 Dual coils.
I just watched an excellent video on how to do it, and have it down.

I'll be getting Kanthal wire, using Organic cotton for wick, and also be purchasing a ohm tester thingy.

My question to the experts is:

What size wire should I use for 1.8 Ohms and how many wraps? How many wraps for 1.5 ohms?
What size screwdriver should I use? I have a jewelers screwdriver set, 3 each for phillips & flat.

Thanks

 

[autobiogphnation]

Start here, http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp?targetr=2&wirelength=70.24278546696796 all you need to do is only what gauge your going to use, what your target resistance is and what diameter coil. It'll give you a good ballpark on how many wraps.
Different gauge wire has different resistance per length, I personally use 30g, I decided on that based on my target being 2 ohms and that gives me a decent sized coil with not too many wraps to be huge (about 8-9wraps, but the diameter of the coil affects how much you need to wrap)

 

[chrisf8657]

Is this thing right? It's telling me 21 wraps of 30g for 3.6 Ohms x 2 (for a 1.8 Dual Coil)

Should I choose smaller wire or something?
Kanger stock coils look to be about 9-10 wraps, but the wire looks tiny.

 

[sedition]

Steam Calculator is really accurate, especially if you have a cheap set of digital callipers to accurately measure thickness of what you're wrapping on (drill bits, etc), leg length, wire thickness and so on. The 21 wraps is likely correct, and high because of the high gauge of wire. When you know what ohms you want to build your coil, you can use Steam to adjust the wire gauge, coil internal diameter and leg length to get the number of wraps down to something you're more comfortable with.

 

[chrisf8657]

Okey thanks!

 

[TCombinator]

Or you can do what I did. Get a factory coil head, see what easily goes through it, make something similar. Put it on Ohm reader and see. You'd be surprised how quickly you get a hang of it. Ohm meter "thingie" is important.

 

[autobiogphnation]

Is this thing right? It's telling me 21 wraps of 30g for 3.6 Ohms x 2 (for a 1.8 Dual Coil)

Should I choose smaller wire or something?
Kanger stock coils look to be about 9-10 wraps, but the wire looks tiny.

Yep its right. I make 1.5 ohm dual coils, which are two 3 ohm coils which is 15 wraps of 30g for me. Basically at the diameter I use, every 5 wraps is 1 ohm.

 

[TCombinator]

Just in case. Here's 1.5 Ohm single coil using 30 AWG around 1/16 drill bit. Kanger 1.5 Ohm single coil 30 AWG - Imgur

 

[iamthevoice]

Two ways around the problem of the coils being too large physically: thicker wire (lower gauge number) or larger diameter coil. In essence, the ohm value of a coil is based on the total amount of material the current has to go through!