No love from stainless steel

[Old Curmudgeon]

I just started with SS from AVS and the flavor is sub par. The coils look corroded after one day, and for some reason they gunk up faster than kanthal.

I've watched their vids on priming ss and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Dual claptons
3 or 4 mil with 5 wraps spaced
Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[Myk]

IME SS gunks up slower than kanthal and lasts a very long time. When dirty, dry burn, rub them with a paper towel and almost good as new.
I also don't get the lack of flavor, I'm a flavor chaser and TC, SS is pretty much all I use now.

No idea what we could be doing different other than claptons. My kanthal claptons were pretty good for flavor so that would be hard to beat, but I can't say my SS claptons are worse.
If "mil" means mm we pretty much have the same build where I have dual SS claptons, mine is in a Dripbox 160 doing TC (I'm not having luck using claptons for TC in other places where I've tried).

You didn't really give any info on what you do so just throwing this out there because of a scare going around keeping people from doing it, and the only thing I can think of that would hurt flavor and cause gunking. You have to dry burn claptons in my experience or you will get hot spots, even with spaced coils.

 

[Letitia]

I just started with SS from AVS and the flavor is sub par. The coils look corroded after one day, and for some reason they gunk up faster than kanthal.

I've watched their vids on priming ss and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Dual claptons
3 or 4 mil with 5 wraps spaced
Any advice would be appreciated!

You might want to mention what juice, gear, and wattage you are using. I have been using AVS wire and coils for over a year and have had nothing but good performance.

 

[APathos]

Kind-of sounds like too much wattage. If your coming from kanthal, use about the same wattage for the same build (not resistance). ss 24g 9wrap .44Ohm is 35W; kanthal 24g 9wrap .85Ohm is 35W; for the same heat flux. You might use a little higher wattage for ss, but that would be because the ramp up is slower.

Also when building, either I don't pulse, or only pulse till I see rainbow colors. If all color goes out of the coil, I pulsed it too hot.

 

[Old Curmudgeon]

You might want to mention what juice, gear, and wattage you are using. I have been using AVS wire and coils for over a year and have had nothing but good performance.

So far I've tried it on my Aromamizer and my Combo Rtda. I vape bakery flavors mostly and yeah I know they can be troubling in the gunk department. Also I vape around 30 to 35 watts.

I do the slow pulse going up at 5 watt increments until I get a dull glow to work out the hot spots and make sure everything is heating up evenly.

I'm sure it's user error on my part, not the fault of AVS.

 

[rob33]

check your wire, SS wire doesn't do what you are experiencing.

 

[rob33]

So far I've tried it on my Aromamizer and my Combo Rtda. I vape bakery flavors mostly and yeah I know they can be troubling in the gunk department. Also I vape around 30 to 35 watts.

I do the slow pulse going up at 5 watt increments until I get a dull glow to work out the hot spots and make sure everything is heating up evenly.

I'm sure it's user error on my part, not the fault of AVS.

I think you are doing nothing wrong, try another spool of SS wire, verify your clapton wire is all SS.

 

[Old Curmudgeon]

Also when building, either I don't pulse, or only pulse till I see rainbow colors. If all color goes out of the coil, I pulsed it too hot.

Interesting. Should the coils maintain the colors throughout their lifetime? Mine loose the rainbow after a few days when I rewick so maybe I'm getting them too hot.

 

[Letitia]

It is normal to lose color. You might try setting your ramp higher especially if you are using the thicker wire like 22g. My tri core fc wire from AVS ramps faster them the plain clapton does.

 

[rob33]

Interesting. Should the coils maintain the colors throughout their lifetime? Mine loose the rainbow after a few days when I rewick so maybe I'm getting them too hot.

I've tried both ways prefiring and both work. I vape some sweet juices also, my wick still looks good after 2 weeks if I get lazy its still white when dry. The coil will darken but not have any gunk on it. Hope this helps ya

 

[Alter]

I clean my SS wrapped clapton using a glass dropper. Heat the coil, scrape off the chunkies, heat up the coil a bit(not red) then a drop or two of water, blow off the water and scrape then repeat as necessary. I also remove the build from the atty(STM) then replace it so I get the entire coil cleaned along with the burnt cooties that are dropped from the scraping into the airflow that cause taste later. I break the STM RBA down and qtip/alcohol clean The taste of burnt in a fresh wick really sucks. I've had enough SS TC builds that just don't perform like they should and wishy washy that I now use kanthal as core and SS as wraps. I have 34 nichrome use also as wraps but rarely use it so no opinion on the nichrome from what I've read about noxious fumes if not heated properly even though it has less resistance than SS so i'd make better wraps.

 

[stols001]

I clean and pulse SS wire, but don't glow it read hot. I also use ceramic tweezers to scrape gunk off while pulsing, and q-tips dipped in alcohol for the underside and inside the coil. I'll also scrub it with a toothbrush.

I think they my SS gets cleaner that way and given the issues, well, for me it's worth it. I don't find SS flavor to be inferior, but I am not using claptons either just simple round wire. I find my SS wire RTAs to be more flavorful than some of my drop ins, although of course that isn't a fair comparison.

I do think with exotic builds, as there is more mass in the coil, sometimes flavor may require more wattage to heat up the build, but other than that I don't have a ton more to offer.

Anna

 

[Letitia]

What ever wire makes your juice taste good is the only wire you need. Not everyone loves ss or ni80 or kanthal ,etc.

 

[Solaire]

I have all kinds of wire collected over the years and 99% of it is SS so you could say that's all I use nowadays.
I'll coil my atty , usually single coil and just do some very light and quick pulses until I get a little "Rainbow" effect happening , they are good to go for my liking.
Wick the bugger and prime it then a swift pulse to draw that liquid into the coil prime agin , top cap goes on squonk action happens, let it sit for a sec and happy days are here agin...
Boom off to the racers humans...