Nichrome resistances and mech mods question

[Sm0keydaBear]

So I bought a bunch of nichrome and its working alright but I've got a question about the ohms. I understand that nichrome fires up quicker, but does that make nichrome at lower ohms more dangerous? What I want to know is if nichrome will drain the battery as fast as a build with kanthal at the same ohms.

Seeing that nichrome heats up faster, would this make it a problem if the build is very low ohms? I'm in the process of building some coils for different builds and I don't want them to melt or damage batteries. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Sgt.Rock]

Fire up a Ni coil and a Kanthal coil with the same ohms for the same amount of time and your battery doesn't know (or care) what type of coil it is.

It's all about the Ohms.

 

[Sm0keydaBear]

So from what you're saying is, if a coil is around .1 ohms no matter what, hopefully the mod can handle it right?

 

[IMFire3605]

Speaking persay running only on a mech, due to ramp up time, if you are able to pull quicker on Nichrome, thus the firing button is being pressed less time than with kanthal, then yes, the batteries will last longer as they are not having to output milliamp and watt hours for as long as is required for kanthal. The difference might be anywhere from 0.15 to 1/4 more vape time before needing recharge if that is what you are asking.

 

[Sm0keydaBear]

Well I just checked the resistance of one of these fatter coils I made and it's over .2 ohms. I was mainly worried because having dual nichrome coils on my RTA's has extremely lower ohms than I was wanting. From the info that I can gather and the coils I've built with nichrome, it heats up faster but always gives a really low ohm count (Nichrome 80) versus that kanthal A1 I've been building with. I've got a dual-28 gauge Nichrome 80 with 4/5 wraps in my RTA right now and I'm getting .29 ohms. Main reason I was wondering about the resistance is because of the heat up time being so quick. I wanted to make clapton nichrome wires but the resistance was getting too low. Right now I'm using a iStick TC40w so I don't have the best wattage for testing fatter wires right now. Soon in the mail will be the Tesla Two and then I can do some more testing with the fatter gauges.

With nichrome I don't have the best watts to test the fatter builds so I've been keeping it small. I did a clapton 30 gauge kanthal with 38 gauge nichrome and it works ok, but not great at 40w. The vapor seems to a bit muffled and feels like I'm losing flavor with it.

 

[Sm0keydaBear]

Speaking persay running only on a mech, due to ramp up time, if you are able to pull quicker on Nichrome, thus the firing button is being pressed less time than with kanthal, then yes, the batteries will last longer as they are not having to output milliamp and watt hours for as long as is required for kanthal. The difference might be anywhere from 0.15 to 1/4 more vape time before needing recharge if that is what you are asking.

I'm more worried about the coils shorting out and melting, and I'm not trying to have coils be hazardous to health. The resistance factor is is more important to me because I'm having trouble understanding how resistance effects the coils. Starting from kanthal, I know that the coils at low resistance will take longer to heat up, but this also gives me a good flavor that I enjoy. With nichrome, the coil heats up faster, though it seems to have varying different effects as if it's a little more unstable than the kanthal.

EDIT: Almost forgot my main reason for posting this. On steam-engine, it also posts up the sweet spots for different mods. The reason I'm posting is because I'm wondering how the sweet spot can be affected by nichrome. I understand the resistance is lower, but does that also mean that the heating effect has a direct connection to the resistance?

 

[IMFire3605]

Advice wise I would say, check your screws and connections daily when you wake up, make sure everything is tight and tidy. Don't dry fire them to brightly glowing, a little cherry red to burn gunk off is fine but don't do it often, even at all to be safer, the melting point on Nichrome 80 is far below that of kanthal due to a lack of iron in the alloy, it is only Nickel and Chromium. Remember also, a 30amp CDR battery like the Sony VTC3 or LG HB6 that many amps is pulled at 0.14 to 0.15ohms, to do claptons properly with Nichrome 80, maybe 28awg using 34awg as the wrap wire, will be a pain to wind it being how brittle 34awg is. Going to be running on a mech, even with 30amp CDR batteries, 0.25 to 0.35 should be the lowest you should go with any build, can't get that margin with a dual coil, go to a single coil.

Being on a regulated right now, you can add a couple wraps more like a 7/6 wrap, will bump you up a couple notches, give you some more surface area, which should improve flavor and vapor production.

 

[Sm0keydaBear]

With my regulated as soon as I get my mech mod, I'm going to strictly be using Ni200 with temperature control. I find it works a lot better however, after a couple of tanks full of juice, the coils turn black and I have to clean them off. Another newbie question incoming, what can I do with Ni200 coils to prevent them from getting black gunk from juice? With Ni200, that has been the only problem I've had so far.

 

[IMFire3605]

That is a problem as old as vaping, with these culprits...

1) Heat, hotter the coil, carbonizes a lot of things in liquids you vape, airflow and slower wicking add to this as the coils cool via evaporation, slower the evaporation, faster heat builds up
2) Sweeteners, sweeter the liquid, more carbon and crystalization of the sweeteners occur on the coil and in the wick
3) Thicker the liquid, higher VG liquids, it is also a sweetener, but it wicks slower than PG based liquids, 1 and 2 are impacted by this
4) Colored liquids, darker the liquid, more impurities that do not vaporize collect on the coil and in the wick, lighter, clearer liquids do not suffer from this, coffees, tobaccos, and several others are big culprits in this category
5) Tobaccos contain at least 2 of the three from 2, 3, and 4, like RY4's a tobacco (dark), caramel and vanilla (sweet), also whole tobacco alkaloids (WTA) and naturally extracted tobacco alkaloids (NET) have extra impurities so are extremely hampered in category 3 and 4
6) Savory liquids, yogurt, milky, creamy, custards, candies, bakeries, sweet cinnamon, coffees like capucinos, lattes, and other such flavors (donuts, cheese cakes, cakes, strawberry custards, etc) all suffer from categories 2 to 4, more complex and savory the worse they are on coils and wicking.

 

[Sm0keydaBear]

Thanks for that. I wasn't sure exactly what it was. I was thinking my coil was burning itself so thank goodness it wasn't that!

 

[WharfRat1976]

Ni is great to work with and runs a bit hotter than kanthal. I just can't stand the taste of it. It throws off a bad taste for me.

 

[Sm0keydaBear]

Ni is great to work with and runs a bit hotter than kanthal. I just can't stand the taste of it. It throws off a bad taste for me.

Kanthal tends to give me a flavor that is somewhat like cereal and I love it. With my nichrome and Ni200 builds, the flavor isn't so much in the face, and tends to be lighter flavor. However with those kanthal builds, I always get that great flavor with them. Right now I'm in the process of trying all the different wires and trying to find what works best and kanthal seems to be balanced out very well. However with the lower wattage devices, I have a harder time achieving that great flavor, but they all have their perks. The quicker heat up time on the nichrome is very nice when you have lower wattage devices since it take less time to heat up and less time to cool down. With the big kanthal builds and lower wattage devices, obviously they heat up too slow and stay heated up for a very long time.

Last but not least, the Ni200 with temperature control produces tons of vapor for me. With kanthal and nichrome since I'm a mouth to lung person, I can puff until the 10s shutoff timer on my devices shuts off while not getting too hot. With the Ni200, it's a lot more like puffing on a cigarette. The vapor turns out great and very dense. Each one of these three (Kanthal, Nichrome, and Ni200) are good in their own right. Only one I can't suggest for newbies and low wattage regulated devices is the nichrome. Tried using some on the iStick Mini and it almost always gives me low ohms. 20w devices can probably use it, but if they're unable to fire under 1 ohm like the iStick Mini, then you can't use it (for normal micro coils, usually. Keep it over 1 ohm and it works, but IMO not effective).

 

[Hans Wermhat]

The great thing about N80 is you can build with more wraps and keep the same resistance. I use 24G N80 in most of my RDA's and build 8 wraps @ 3mm for a mech. Comes out around .3 ohms. As long as you have a 30A battery, it's safe. In a regulated mod, you can build with as many wraps as you can fit in the RDA. Even 12 wraps will fire up at 50W nicely. When you build claptons, you increase the overall amount of metal in the coil and raise the resistance, but you have to throw a LOT more wattage at a pair of claptons. They are hard to beat for clouds and flavor if you can power them though.
TC isn't my thing. I gave it a whirl and was totally underwhelmed. 2 perks to it: you don't get dry hits and you can pick what temp you vape at. Downside, your production slowly tapers off like a battery dieing as the wick dries out and the Ni200 wire is extremely brittle and hard to work with. I got smaller clouds and less flavor with it, so I gave up on it quickly.

 

[Bunnykiller]

from what I remember.... Nichrome wire was used as a fuse to ignite Estes Rocket motors...

 

[Sm0keydaBear]

from what I remember.... Nichrome wire was used as a fuse to ignite Estes Rocket motors...

Funny you say that because one day when I was firing up nichrome, I thought to myself that it would make an excellent TNT detonator wire lol