opinions on wick
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Observation is also a key part of science.
On a coil build with a lot of wire mass, say triple twisted 26g or quad twisted 28g, if you take a few good pulls and get the atty and coil nice and warm, you can continue to produce vapor without actually firing the atty. The residual heat in the coil and wick is enough to throw off vapor that can be seen and felt in the mouth/throat/lungs. Not as much vapor as when actually powering the coil, and this effect only lasts for a very shot while, but observation tells me that juice is being vaporized without being boiled. I can also look at the coil with the top cap removed, no juice boiling, but vapor rising from the wick.
I live in Portland, OR which is a place known for it's annoying frequency of rain. A common sight is wet rooftops and streets with the sun shining on them, and much like the coil I just mentioned, they too have a nice little trail of vapor rising up from them. The rooftops and the streets are not anywhere near the temperature required to boil water, yet water is still being vaporized in front of my very eyes.
I don't need to know what scientific principals are at work, and I have no interest arguing about them, because the fact is liquids can and do turn into vapor below the boiling temperature of that liquid. If that wasn't the case, this world wouldn't operate the way it does. because all those clouds in the sky didn't get there from boiling water, they got there from water turning to vapor at a temperature well below the boiling point of water.
I'm not making any statements about what temperature the coil reaches, just commenting on the idea that you can't get vapor without reaching the boiling temperature, because observation tells us all otherwise.
happydave,
This has definitely been an interesting thread, I appreciate the effort you've put into it so far! Some good close up pics and vids! (nice coils BTW!)
I too have noticed that little bits of cotton are present on the outside of the coil, I didn't know these came from inside the coil though. I always figured it was just leftover strands from the wicking process, as after I carefully remove them with a needle they never seem to come back.
I just checked several of my cotton builds with a loupe and flashlight and no cotton fibers on the outside of the coils. I took my Igo-W with dual coils, took several vapes, fired with the cap off without blowing, with blowing, I couldn't get any fibers to appear on the outside of the coil.
Two possibilities I could think of:
1. A fresh wick will throw fibers out for a given period of time before it stops. All my cotton builds right now have been vaped on for a decent amount of time, so if the fibers only appear on a fresh wick I wouldn't see them now anyway. If this is the case, doing some extensive juice burns (cap off) could get the build in the condition of no more fibers, but also waste juice and drain batteries. You could use straight VG or PG, but either way that's kind of a hassle.
2. Variance in the type of cotton being used, I've been using q-tip cotton for awhile now after I ran out of regular cotton balls, and the fibers are better than in any other form of cotton I've tried (although honestly I've only tried like 5-6 different types/brands/forms of cotton) there is some inconsistency and sometimes there will be chunks of short/choppy fibers, but most of the qtip is nice long, strong, thick fibers, which could be why I'm not getting any fibers on the outside of the coil.
If you can't get rid of the cotton on the outside by trying different brands/forms of cotton, wouldn't using a spaced coil solve the problem?
Even if there are fibers on the outside of the coil, they shouldn't burn or degrade unless they are dry, right? With spaced coils the wire is more surrounded by wick and liquid more easily covers the outer surface of the wire. Basically with spaced coils you wouldn't have this solid surface of hot wire for the fibers to burn on in the first place.
This has definitely been an interesting thread, I appreciate the effort you've put into it so far! Some good close up pics and vids! (nice coils BTW!)
I too have noticed that little bits of cotton are present on the outside of the coil, I didn't know these came from inside the coil though. I always figured it was just leftover strands from the wicking process, as after I carefully remove them with a needle they never seem to come back.
I just checked several of my cotton builds with a loupe and flashlight and no cotton fibers on the outside of the coils. I took my Igo-W with dual coils, took several vapes, fired with the cap off without blowing, with blowing, I couldn't get any fibers to appear on the outside of the coil.
Two possibilities I could think of:
1. A fresh wick will throw fibers out for a given period of time before it stops. All my cotton builds right now have been vaped on for a decent amount of time, so if the fibers only appear on a fresh wick I wouldn't see them now anyway. If this is the case, doing some extensive juice burns (cap off) could get the build in the condition of no more fibers, but also waste juice and drain batteries. You could use straight VG or PG, but either way that's kind of a hassle.
2. Variance in the type of cotton being used, I've been using q-tip cotton for awhile now after I ran out of regular cotton balls, and the fibers are better than in any other form of cotton I've tried (although honestly I've only tried like 5-6 different types/brands/forms of cotton) there is some inconsistency and sometimes there will be chunks of short/choppy fibers, but most of the qtip is nice long, strong, thick fibers, which could be why I'm not getting any fibers on the outside of the coil.
If you can't get rid of the cotton on the outside by trying different brands/forms of cotton, wouldn't using a spaced coil solve the problem?
Even if there are fibers on the outside of the coil, they shouldn't burn or degrade unless they are dry, right? With spaced coils the wire is more surrounded by wick and liquid more easily covers the outer surface of the wire. Basically with spaced coils you wouldn't have this solid surface of hot wire for the fibers to burn on in the first place.
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there are 2 types of "vaporization". evaporation and boiling.
when you see the "boiling point" of say water. that is the temp that water STARTS to boil at. meaning that some, but not all of it is turning into a gas.
evaporation is a process involving the atoms of a compound or elements becoming energized. the common thing we see every day is water evaporating. some of this is caused by heat, some of it is also caused by light or photons. we will use the hydrogen atom and "water" or h2o for an example. hydrogen has 1 proton and 1 electron. the proton picking up this light energy causes the orbit of the electron to enlarge. this will break the bond hydrogen previously held with an oxygen atom. this sort of evaporation occurs more on the surface of a liquid because the surface is the first to be hit with the photons. when 2 elements share an electron the likely hood that this shared electron will be effected by the photons energy is greatly reduced.
so yes i fully understand that you do not need to "boil" a liquid to make it move to the gas phase.
this is what im working on as of right now.
i know the video is crappy im working on getting it knocked out right now.
but you can see droplets on the wire that travel in the direction that the electrical current is flowing.
they ride the wire until they have enough energy then fly off the wire...
this is 7.3 ohm coil at 3.3 volts... or 1.49 watts.
to the naked eye this makes hardly any vapor, like the tiniest wisp of vapor you have ever seen.
the big issue i am having is that the lens is getting fogged up from the vapor.
after looking at this through the 30x for a while some of the smaller droplets do appear to vaporizer other ones will fly off.
when you see the "boiling point" of say water. that is the temp that water STARTS to boil at. meaning that some, but not all of it is turning into a gas.
evaporation is a process involving the atoms of a compound or elements becoming energized. the common thing we see every day is water evaporating. some of this is caused by heat, some of it is also caused by light or photons. we will use the hydrogen atom and "water" or h2o for an example. hydrogen has 1 proton and 1 electron. the proton picking up this light energy causes the orbit of the electron to enlarge. this will break the bond hydrogen previously held with an oxygen atom. this sort of evaporation occurs more on the surface of a liquid because the surface is the first to be hit with the photons. when 2 elements share an electron the likely hood that this shared electron will be effected by the photons energy is greatly reduced.
so yes i fully understand that you do not need to "boil" a liquid to make it move to the gas phase.
this is what im working on as of right now.
i know the video is crappy im working on getting it knocked out right now.
but you can see droplets on the wire that travel in the direction that the electrical current is flowing.
they ride the wire until they have enough energy then fly off the wire...
this is 7.3 ohm coil at 3.3 volts... or 1.49 watts.
to the naked eye this makes hardly any vapor, like the tiniest wisp of vapor you have ever seen.
the big issue i am having is that the lens is getting fogged up from the vapor.
after looking at this through the 30x for a while some of the smaller droplets do appear to vaporizer other ones will fly off.
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both 1 and 2 are valid points. i do not have any other testing material for cotton at this point so i cant say about about number 2.
the whole deal here, is that under normal operation conditions. (meaning the temps we run our gear at). myself as well as my esteemed PHD chemist friend STRONGLY believe that we are heating these liquids to the boiling point. if this is the case, we are heating cotton wick to the point where it will begin thermal decomposition.
RECAP:
here is how this started, i am almost out of silica wick. i was looking around and saw quite a few new products on the market and asked for opinions on some various types. a large number of people came forward and said that cotton was the best choice. i told them i would not use cotton, because i have some evidence that would suggest that you are heating it to the point of thermal decomp. and they proceed to tell me that's its totally fine and "safe". i said something like, "find me someone with a PHD in chemistry / material science, that can PROVE that using cotton is just as safe as silica". username : EddardinWinter comes forward saying he does not have a PHD in chemistry or material science but does run chemical analysis and that he would be willing to help run some tests. i said wow that is great!
and he said he would look into it! i have been dorking around with different types of rigs and looking at things through low power magnification to see what is going on down there and if there is anything we can learn.
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Boiling is the point at which the vapor pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere. Boiling refers to the energy/speed of the particles throughout a liquid, whereas evaporation occurs at the surface. Evaporation requires less heat because the particles on the surface of the liquid have less pressure on them (because they're not surrounded by the rest of the liquid). Some particles will just naturally move faster than others at any given time; when they come near the surface of the liquid, they sometimes escape. And obviously, if you apply heat, more particles near the surface will escape.
I suspect that a lot of the contention in this thread arises from a semantic difference on the term, 'boil.' When you boil water in your kitchen, for example, you typically have a dry heating element under a pan. The dry heating element obviously has to rise to an enormously high temperature to heat a pan full of water to boiling. So it makes little sense to us that the heating element in an ecig could vaporize e-liquid without ever rising to a terribly high temperature itself.
But if you somehow managed to submerge your stovetop heating element in a pot of water, yes, the element would heat, but the heat energy in the element would be almost immediately transferred to the surrounding water. The resultant bubbles would, in effect, steal heat from the element -- just as evaporating sweat cools our skin -- carrying the heat away so that the next batch of cooler water could surround and cool the element. The burner wouldn't become red hot until the water was gone.
In an ecig, the matter is even more counter-intuitive, because the coil of an ecig atomizer only has to heat a very thin layer of e-liquid at any given time. New e-juice, borne by the wick (which is aided by air pressure from the user's pulling on the pv) continuously flows soothingly over the coil to replace what's vaporized. Unlike our submerged stovetop heating element, the ecig coil gets turned off after a few seconds, because we're not heating eliquid for the sake of heating eliquid; we're vaporizing just enough of the eliquid to give us a satisfying pull/hit/drag/whatever -- and no one cares at what temperature the rest remains.
It's therefore plausible (most likely, given the evidence) that a coil can heat any given little batch of eliquid to a temperature much higher than what the coil itself will reach -- or the wick. And all of that's before we even get into the effect of mixing different substances together, which can significantly lower the boiling point of the solution.
The preceding ramblings aside, we have solid evidence that a typical ecig coil operates at 60-70C. Nothing that's come to light in this conversation, entertaining though it may be, refutes that evidence.
We also don't have any compelling reason to believe that the risk of inhaling decomposing-cotton byproducts is any worse than the risk of inhaling silica fibers. From where I'm sitting, both risks range from tiny to non-existent. If and when Eddard returns with test results, I will be very interested to read them (as I am always interested in reading his posts), but as things stand now, there's no reason to be alarmed.
No, you said that anyone who uses a cotton wick is definitely vaping decomposing cotton. You also insinuated that your opinion is a matter of fact. You made the first of those comments before anyone got contentious with you. The relevant quotes follow (posts 6 and 9):
This reminds me of the effects of flooding an RDA, as the submerged coil tries to boil the pool of liquid and causes the whole device to heat up. Tastes horrible and gives off very little vapor.
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There is some tone and condescension in here that doesn't need to be here.
Lighten up
Lighten up
yes very interesting, i have read that about 9 times... Whats up with that in regards to this thread?
Ok, so over the weekend i have looked a number of various ways to look at how hot an e-cig atomizer will get, under normal operating conditions. lets go over what i found.
infrared / laser temp guns are inexpensive and wildly available. here are the issues i have with using this device for the purpose of reading the temp of e-cig atomizers.
the Target area required to get an accurate reading is rather large for what we are doing. generally in the range of 3 - 5 mm.
the heating wire (kanthal) is under a millimeter wide. so when you try to get a reading with one of these, the best you are going to do is hit a fraction of the wire and mostly the wet wick with the infrared beam. the meter will try to make the best guesstimation it can. but most of the data it has to look at is the wet wick and this will effect the final reading. also when the wick and coil are being powered they are spitting out vapor. vapor will also effect the final reading
this type of IR beam temp guns are great for food preparation and automotive diagnostic because you have a large target area for the IR Beam
Now, some devices have the ability to focus the IR beam. these are much more accurate but also cost quite a bit, somewhere around $10,000 USD. however the vapor produced would still probably effect the final reading.
http://support.fluke.com/raytek-sales/Download/Asset/IR_THEORY_55514_ENG_REVB_LR.PDF
The Thermocouple. i noticed some people reference the thermocouple data from a test the FDA conducted.
the FDA test does not say anything about this thermocouple or where it was installed, just that it was installed "inside" and it was some type of thermocouple its not a really great description IMO.
a Grounded thermocouple can not be used directly on a live circuit because it could cause a short.
further more a thermocouple is a very sensitive piece of equipment in that it can be effected by EMI or ElectroMagnetic Interference.
they can be rather small, so it sounds like the people that conducted the FDA test found a good spot to install a thermocouple that would give them a reading for comparison purposes only, basically to try and rule out a temperature variance when conducting the test.
infrared / laser temp guns are inexpensive and wildly available. here are the issues i have with using this device for the purpose of reading the temp of e-cig atomizers.
the Target area required to get an accurate reading is rather large for what we are doing. generally in the range of 3 - 5 mm.
the heating wire (kanthal) is under a millimeter wide. so when you try to get a reading with one of these, the best you are going to do is hit a fraction of the wire and mostly the wet wick with the infrared beam. the meter will try to make the best guesstimation it can. but most of the data it has to look at is the wet wick and this will effect the final reading. also when the wick and coil are being powered they are spitting out vapor. vapor will also effect the final reading
this type of IR beam temp guns are great for food preparation and automotive diagnostic because you have a large target area for the IR Beam
Now, some devices have the ability to focus the IR beam. these are much more accurate but also cost quite a bit, somewhere around $10,000 USD. however the vapor produced would still probably effect the final reading.
http://support.fluke.com/raytek-sales/Download/Asset/IR_THEORY_55514_ENG_REVB_LR.PDF
The Thermocouple. i noticed some people reference the thermocouple data from a test the FDA conducted.
the FDA test does not say anything about this thermocouple or where it was installed, just that it was installed "inside" and it was some type of thermocouple its not a really great description IMO.
a Grounded thermocouple can not be used directly on a live circuit because it could cause a short.
further more a thermocouple is a very sensitive piece of equipment in that it can be effected by EMI or ElectroMagnetic Interference.
they can be rather small, so it sounds like the people that conducted the FDA test found a good spot to install a thermocouple that would give them a reading for comparison purposes only, basically to try and rule out a temperature variance when conducting the test.
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If we are not inhaling Acrolein, then we are not boiling the VG. That's why I posted it. Also, I looked at my wicks/coils with a magnifying glass and saw absolutely no strands of cotton poking through the coils. My coils are pinched together VERY tightly, so that could be why, but I saw nothing that looked like stray pieces of cotton.
This build would most likely show stray strands of cotton more than my other builds, because the twisted wire does leave some gaps and I see none in this build either. This is was only fired a few times before this picture was taken.
This build would most likely show stray strands of cotton more than my other builds, because the twisted wire does leave some gaps and I see none in this build either. This is was only fired a few times before this picture was taken.
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are you sure Acrolein is produced at the boiling point of VG? can i see some data that would show or at least suggest that when VG is boiled at 290 C it produces Acrolein? i have looked and could not find anything....
as for the strands of cotton popping through.
there are a lot of variables involved in the mechanics of that occurring. the type of cotton you use, how you roll and twist the wick. if you boil the cotton or not all may or MAY NOT effect it. IDK at this point what the deal is there, just to many variables. i have not even begun to narrow down the list of variables.
username: UncleChuck did noticed these strands popping out after he built his rig, but with use the few he first saw burned up and no more appeared to be poking though. i would image as the "gunk" layer forms on the wick it would help hold the strands of cotton down and under the coil.
i just want to note that this "gunk" layer forms on any type of wick that i know of.
i will build a new rig with the gauze and see if it happens again. i also have q-tips and cotton balls now.
as for the strands of cotton popping through.
there are a lot of variables involved in the mechanics of that occurring. the type of cotton you use, how you roll and twist the wick. if you boil the cotton or not all may or MAY NOT effect it. IDK at this point what the deal is there, just to many variables. i have not even begun to narrow down the list of variables.
username: UncleChuck did noticed these strands popping out after he built his rig, but with use the few he first saw burned up and no more appeared to be poking though. i would image as the "gunk" layer forms on the wick it would help hold the strands of cotton down and under the coil.
i just want to note that this "gunk" layer forms on any type of wick that i know of.
i will build a new rig with the gauze and see if it happens again. i also have q-tips and cotton balls now.
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QUESTION: are you saturating the wick with e-liquid before you install it in the coil?
I'm using sterile rolled cotton from CVS. I roll my wicks with two fingers and then insert it through the coil, leaving one side unrolled. Then I trim and add juice. Then I always go through at least 6-12 drops of liquid before actually vaping on the new cotton.
just ran a 28 awg kanthal micro coil, 8 wraps on 2.5 MM drill bit. used at 3.3 volts. vapor production was not great but it worked.
i over the course of the 50 drags i took. i only saw fibers popping out at the very beginning after about 10 drags the fibers had burned up.
going to run it now that 4.3 volts (if it tastes burned i will turn it down and let you know what i ended up at for voltage) and see what happens..
so at 4.1 volts 50 drags later, still nothing
and again at 5 volts, got 1 strand to pop through.
at 5 volts i had to pop it open and directly coat the wick and coil every other drag to prevent it from tasting funky.
the one thing i did do differently is push the coils together harder after a dry burn at a higher voltage.
this did help the coils hold together better. this might be the KEY to making sure you keep the fibers inside the coil...
NOW i have a different problem. where the wire micro coil tube ends the wick that was touching that end dried out, fell on the coil and burned... correcting this issue is no problem just make sure you don't have wick over hanging the coil
when i ran the test that resulted in fibers popping out of the coil, it did not taste weird or bad.
i over the course of the 50 drags i took. i only saw fibers popping out at the very beginning after about 10 drags the fibers had burned up.
going to run it now that 4.3 volts (if it tastes burned i will turn it down and let you know what i ended up at for voltage) and see what happens..
so at 4.1 volts 50 drags later, still nothing
and again at 5 volts, got 1 strand to pop through.
at 5 volts i had to pop it open and directly coat the wick and coil every other drag to prevent it from tasting funky.
the one thing i did do differently is push the coils together harder after a dry burn at a higher voltage.
this did help the coils hold together better. this might be the KEY to making sure you keep the fibers inside the coil...
NOW i have a different problem. where the wire micro coil tube ends the wick that was touching that end dried out, fell on the coil and burned... correcting this issue is no problem just make sure you don't have wick over hanging the coil
when i ran the test that resulted in fibers popping out of the coil, it did not taste weird or bad.
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currently im waiting on the parts i need to build a ungrounded, EMI shielded k type thermocouple.
that is capable of being embed in a wick.
that is capable of being embed in a wick.
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the wire is here, so i can now run tests using an ungrounded, non EMI shield thermocouple well i wait for my other stuff to arrive!
i plan on running a few tests on this one in the photo so i get an idea of how accurate this will be. then building another and running the tests to get some points of reference..
i plan on running a few tests on this one in the photo so i get an idea of how accurate this will be. then building another and running the tests to get some points of reference..
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