No taste to burnt taste in 10 degrees -- what was I doing wrong?

[tedigram]

I fired up TC for the first time ever on my Smoant Battlestar this week, and it was both an eye opening and very disappointing experience. The quality of the vape itself was so much nicer, I immediately understood how hot my typical VW builds are actually getting. On the other hand, the flavor was all but non-existent.

I was running a Toptank Mini with 26awg 316L, 2.5mm 7/8 wraps at around .5 ohms. In VW mode that build works alright at 17w, I had it set at 16-20 in TC mode at various points. My sweet spot, poor as it was, was around 320F. At 300 the flavor was literally non-existent, at 340 I was unmistakably tasting burnt juice, 350+ was unvapeable. At no point did it become more than 10% as flavorful or satisfying as my typical kanthal build. I tried all possible airflow configurations for each setting.

The heck was I doing wrong? My standard build in this tank is double-twisted 28awg kanthal at .8 ohm running at 17w, which is a fairly cool vape, but I can instantly tell how much warmer it is than I was ever able to get with the SS TC installed, even when it was tasting burnt.

TC can't really be this fiddly, can it? The damn mod only works in 10 degree increments, I couldn't possibly have gotten anymore precise with it.

Now that I've experienced the smooth quality of TC I'm hooked, but I am totally unwilling to embark on another 6 month journey of fiddling with .... to find something that works for me. Is TC really still this user-non-friendly?

*edit* I should note I have no interest in any TC wire but 316 stainless, but I know plenty of people are perfectly thrilled with TC using it, so that can't be the issue.

 

[TDC123]

A couple thoughts...

If you have the full size Battlestar, not the new mini version that recently came out (I have no experience with it either way), my firsthand experience is that it is one of the very best mods for TC vaping with SS. I have many. I have some fairly advanced mods but none of them vape SS well with the factory SS presets like the Battlestar does.

Your temps are way low so something is screwing with the resistance reading. I like a cool vape and 390 is the lowest I can go (470 is the highest, for me) and get anything acceptable so there is a failure somewhere. You could have a bad device but it sounds like your mod isn't reading resistance correctly. You don't have to lock resistance on the Battlestar like you do some mods but for TC to work you need to attach the atomizer to the mod with the coil at room temp and register a new coil. If that initial resistance reading is off you're doomed. Resistance values change as the coil gets warmer and a small error makes a huge difference.

If the intitial setup was done correctly then you probably have an issue with your atomizer or coil. Your positive pin needs to be firmly attached to your positive deck block/section and the threads need to be clean. The Battlestar does like spaced, non contact coils. It can do contact coils or even some mild fused claptons that give other TC mods fits but in order to do so you have to adjust the TCR values. This is something you typically have to do on any TC mod just to get it to vape perfectly. Daniel of the DJSLB youtube channel does lots of testing on mods and toward the end of his videos he will give you the TCR value that seems to work best for a single or dual SS coil. That comes in really handy and has saved me some time many times. Sorry Daniel but I do skip to the end a lot. All your post screws need to be pretty snug and you need to be using high quality SS.

I have done very well with the wire from Advanced Vape supply.

I don't vape at wattages that low so I don't know if that could present issues for TC vaping. I do most of my vaping between 40 and 60 watts. That seems to be where TC shines. With very high wattage setups and bulky coils TC vaping doesn't really fail but it seems the coils are so slow to cool that it can give devices fits.

TC vaping is so worth it. I'm a hardcore flavor chasing kind of vapor who has been at it for about 7 years. I have never failed to get just as much flavor from TC as I do with VW assuming I'm using a quality atomizer that conducts lightning well. Some atomizers don't, even pricey ones.

The easiest place to learn TC vaping is with a small RDTA. The Oumier Wasp Nano is very good at deliverying flavor and very affordable. The flavor is so good from the tiny chambered attys with wicks that saturate so easily that it just makes learning TC even easier. Don't let anyone tell you that TC can't deliver flavor. It can and does. It offers an even more consistent vape. Plus you're taking your harm reduction vaping to the safest level possible.

Successful TC vape setups have these things in common...

Good conductivity between all parts of the setup.

Accurate initial coil resistance settings.

Quality SS wire.

Good Luck,

TDC

 

[tedigram]

That sounds like a likely culprit then. Initially the resistance was reading about .05 ohm higher but my range for vaping was 100 degrees lower, so down in the 240s was when I started to get a burned taste. I took the tank off and re-seated it when it was warm at one point, and that re-locked the resistance to get me into the low 300s range that I ended up dealing with. The opposite of the typical room-temp advice for TC, but then I chain vape and keep the tank pretty warm once it's going, so maybe that was it.

There's no option to not lock resistance on the Battlestar at all, is there? Every time the tank goes on it asks for you to update or hold the resistance, and then just stays at that ohm setting until the next time you take the tank off and put it back on.

I really dislike it actually, I much prefer mods that read the resistance every time you fire (for VW anyway). Or is there some basic feature I've been ignorant of this entire time? Wouldn't be the first, hah.

*edit* Also am I reading that right, bigger builds can be a better fit for TC? When I think TC I think teeny nickel micro-coils, but I haven't kept up with things. I generally dislike big builds because, again I'm a chain vaper and they just take too long to cool down, but I guess with TC that wouldn't be an issue in the same way.