Noob question about wire material types (and also a quick coil question)

[Mala]

Hi guys and gals,

I've just started rebuilding my own coils and am enjoying this new hobby quite a bit I'm starting slow, I currently only have my ohms meter, wicking materials, a few tools and 28 gauge (Kanthal A1) wire in stock and am looking to expand my rebuilding supplies.

When shopping online (I browse FT a lot) I see a few different wire option types and am curious as to the differences between them. I'm confused as to what the differences between Kanthal A1, Kanthal Nichrome A1, Kanthal Nickel A1. It seems these are different alloys but what are the difference of these in vaping? Is one better than the other? Do they affect flavor, performance, durability, etc??

Any clarification would be helpful!

I'm looking to move up in gauge thickness but not to subohm. I love the build my Lemo came with, it's a thicker gauge than the Kanthal 28 I have, being about 6 wraps nice and tight with a diameter of approx 3-4mm. Atty has a resistance of 1.1 and I would love to be able to rebuild the same kind of coil. Eventually I may try something in the 0.8 to 1 ohm range but that's not for right now.

The quick question about coils: I see two types of coils and am curious to know more about them. Some are wrapped nice and tightly with all coils touching snugly together whist others require proper spacing. What are the factors that determine which type of coil build is better?

Thanks a ton in advance for any help!

 

[sparkky1]

The coils that are spaced apart evenly are called standard and the tightly pinched together are micro, the standard would be better suited for higher VG juice as it will burn the wick a little hotter and the micro being the opposite.Much of the coil build performance will be dependent of the battery, wattage and wicking....

 

[Rat2chat2]

I have only used the Kanthal but if you put in the search bar Kanthal vs Nichrome, lots of technical stuff comes up that might help. I don't want to learn if there is anything better than what I am using because I bought 100 feet of it and want to use it before I find something else I want.

 

[sparkky1]

A1 kanthal, unless you have an RDNA mod

 

[Rickb119]

The way I understand it, 7 watts (or any watts for that matter) will be at the same temp for either a regular coil or a contact coil. The main difference is in the contact area. The more area the coil contacts the wick, the more vapor (and flavor) will be produced.

I believe that a coil is considered micro if the ID is 2mm or less. With a small ID and more wraps, you get more contact area.

For my Protank coils I use 30g A-1 Kanthal. 11 wraps around a 1/16th bit gives me 2.0 ohms.

You could play around with different size wire and ID's to see what works best for your set up. Here's a good place to get the wire. Shipping if free. Resistance Wire

 

[twgbonehead]

temco (from RickB's link) is the best place for Kanthal.

Another great coil material is Nichrome80, which I've gotten here:
Nichrome 80 in 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 Gauge AWG 25' 50' 100' 250' 500' 1000' | eBay
(Great seller, in my experience, and very good pricing!)

You see a lot of confused wire descriptions out there. There is no such thing as Nicrome A1, Kanthal Nichrome, or Kanthal Nickel.

Stay away from the nickel. The wires most people use are one of these three:
Nichrome 60
Nichrome 80
Kanthal A1
(There's also titanium, but don't go there, at least not yet).
Of the three, Nichrome 80 is my favorite, followed by Kanthal, with Nichrome 60 at the bottom.

 

[93gc40]

I would NOT buy wire from fastech.. Not that the wire is bad, just that you have no way to really know what you are ordering. The descriptions are wrong or confused.

Stay with Kanthal A1 for now. Mainly cause it is the easiest to work with and easiest to find and buy.

Play with steamengine, Once you understand it better you will see the affect of different gauges of wire at different ohm using different powerlevels, mods and batteries.

Basically Vaporiztaion is about heating fluid till it starts to convert to a gas. Steam... Now to get big clouds, you just need to heat a bunch of fluid real fast, Easy wind a big fast low ohm coil and pump as much power into it as you can. Problem is you burn up most of the flavor making steam. To get good flavor, you might need to vaporize the same amount of fluid, over the same period of time but with less heat. How do you do that, with MORE surface area. More wire, gives more area to cook juice on. More wire also requires more power.