opinions on wick
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that only talks about Nextel 312, a family of similar products. XC-116 is a United States patented and protected technology, its not to be internationally exported. other products in the Nextel 312 family may not patented or protected and can be exported freely.
well the chemistry of XC-116 may be along the same lines as the rest of the Nextel 312 family of products. its could be slightly different, we just don't know because its chemical make up is a secret.
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Nextel 312 is the fiber that XC-116, XC-132 etc are woven from. The XC # designates the inside diameter of the finished sleeve. IE XC-116 is 1/16th inch Inside dia., XC-132 is 1/32 inch, XC-38 is 3/8ths inch, and XC-12 is 1/2 inch. XS (Silica based) is a similar product but does not use Nextel 312 fiber the Nextel 312 fiber is the protected item. Nothing that contains Nextel 312 can be exported. Visit Omega's website they even specify that XS is the only material available for export.
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Nice! so now we can start painting a bigger picture here.
i found this health & safety bulletin from 3M, it really sheds some light on the subject. http://www.3m.com/market/industrial/ceramics/pdfs/health_safety_bulletin.pdf
"SteamMonkey" talks a bit about the different types of wicks here on this Reddit post.
i found the information to be rather interesting. SteamMonkey claims that 3M does not want the Nextel fiber being used as e-cig wick but cant figure out why. this was posted 10 months ago so maybe 3M changed there mind about it. http://www.reddit.com/r/electronic_cigarette/comments/1epnbj/monkey_university_5202013_wicks_201/
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I think part of the difficulty here is you seem to be looking at the issue in largely a theoretical way, instead of a practical way. If all variables are known, and known well, that's OK. But personally I feel we are still at the stage in vaping where we are operating blind for the most part. With enough rebuilding experience you get general ideas, what works and what doesn't, but I think it will be awhile before we have enough concrete scientific data of what's going on inside an atty to consider the issue in a theoretical way. I'm talking the realm of thermodynamics, material science, etc, not Ohms law.
I consider that old used cotton, assuming it hasn't been ran dry or something along those lines, is pretty much indistinguishable from fresh cotton. If the cotton was significantly degraded it seems reasonable that used cotton would have some properties different than fresh cotton. But as far as I've been able to tell, there is no difference. It doesn't fall apart in your hands, or seem to be damaged, and the fibers look the same when looked at through a loupe.
I think your concerns are VERY valid in the circumstance of dry hits with cotton. Some dry hits are just charred juice, which I've heard can cause acrolein which is probably why dry hits sting/burn the throat so much. But some people definitely seem to be actually burning their cotton while trying to master their wicking material or atty. In that case I bet all the dangerous byproducts would be present, although hopefully burning your cotton is so infrequent as to be pretty harmless.
I consider that old used cotton, assuming it hasn't been ran dry or something along those lines, is pretty much indistinguishable from fresh cotton. If the cotton was significantly degraded it seems reasonable that used cotton would have some properties different than fresh cotton. But as far as I've been able to tell, there is no difference. It doesn't fall apart in your hands, or seem to be damaged, and the fibers look the same when looked at through a loupe.
I think your concerns are VERY valid in the circumstance of dry hits with cotton. Some dry hits are just charred juice, which I've heard can cause acrolein which is probably why dry hits sting/burn the throat so much. But some people definitely seem to be actually burning their cotton while trying to master their wicking material or atty. In that case I bet all the dangerous byproducts would be present, although hopefully burning your cotton is so infrequent as to be pretty harmless.
What makes you so sure that workings of an e-cig atomizer are such a mystery?
i have been working along side my friend who has a PHD Chemistry (with a background in material science). this person has been with me every step of the way since day one of my vaping experience. we have talked about the properties of e-liquid, the heating wires, volts / watts, battery chemistry, TYPES OF WICK (obviously
) everything we could think of. i own about 5 different working devices, cartos/cartotanks, clearos, RBAs, RDAs, and we have been over them top to bottom. this person has never smoked, but did try a few vapes one time (6 MG from a clearomizer), remarked that the flavor was good and didn't notice much of a buzz and has no interest in picking up the habit.. this person is very inquisitive and loves learning about new things. this person understands and works with some of the most sophisticated scientific equipment on the planet. so i find it hard to believe that some thing as simple as a wick with a heating coil around it, is currently beyond our level of scientific understanding.
i am currently waiting on the EMI shielding for my thermocouple.
I'm not questioning your personal experience or knowledge at all, I'm just saying nobody has yet to actually put these attys though any sort of rigorous scientific testing, that I'm aware of at least. We can do research about the stuff we use in vaping, but that info is usually specific to another application or environment, and that information doesn't always accurately translate to vaping uses.
As far as our understanding of what's going on inside an atty in general (not specifically about dangers of wick materials) think about porting and polishing the heads on a motor. It seems very simple. You make the airpath larger and smoother. But it's nowhere near that simple. Without a specially designed diagnostic tool (a flowbench) it's a nightmare. There are a lot of complex things going on inside there, it's not just air flowing through tubes like it seems.
I believe the workings of an atty are similar, it seems simple, but there's a lot more going on with the way fresh airflow, the vapor flow, heat distribution, etc all work together.
We know of the variables like airflow, wick type, wick size, resistance and power levels, but it still goes way deeper than that. Lets consider one single variable, wire.
Looking at the coil as one single variable:
Wire material. Kanthal, Nicrome, R41, various new materials being sold as vaping wire. How do they all perform? What do they effect? Well, we comment on vapor, flavor, and TH.
Wire type. round, flat, single strand, twisted with any number of strands, mixes of gauges, braided wire, clapton coil wire, mundy wire. What all does that effect? Well, we comment on vapor, flavor, and TH.
Coil design: round coil, compressed wraps, spaced wraps, big coils, small coils, coils that aren't even coils, coils wicked inside out. What all does that effect? Well, we comment on vapor, flavor, and TH.
I won't even mention wicks. So all those variables, which have variables of their own, which have variables of their own. Pretty much all we comment on is flavor, vapor, th. Heatup time is mentioned along with some other things.
HOW do any of these things make more flavor, better flavor, more vapor, thicker vapor, smoother vapor, etc? Is it smaller vapor droplet size? Larger vapor droplet size? Changes in water content in the droplets, higher or lower? Who knows? Where are the pages and pages of data sheets, numbers and figures, not just people's opinions on what seems to taste better or put out more vapor? AFAIK it doesn't exist. Maybe the guys with PHDs are hiding them.
Vaping is pretty new in general, and the level of performance we are taking these RDAs to is even newer. As time goes on, whatever the product or industry, we learn more and more about it, and I'm just saying we are nowhere near the point of there being nothing left to learn. I think we are at the very start of really mastering atty design and function, not the end. Vaping is well within our ability to understand, but the work put into understanding fully just has not been done yet. In other words the art of vaping is strong, but the science of it still seems to be lacking.
As far as our understanding of what's going on inside an atty in general (not specifically about dangers of wick materials) think about porting and polishing the heads on a motor. It seems very simple. You make the airpath larger and smoother. But it's nowhere near that simple. Without a specially designed diagnostic tool (a flowbench) it's a nightmare. There are a lot of complex things going on inside there, it's not just air flowing through tubes like it seems.
I believe the workings of an atty are similar, it seems simple, but there's a lot more going on with the way fresh airflow, the vapor flow, heat distribution, etc all work together.
We know of the variables like airflow, wick type, wick size, resistance and power levels, but it still goes way deeper than that. Lets consider one single variable, wire.
Looking at the coil as one single variable:
Wire material. Kanthal, Nicrome, R41, various new materials being sold as vaping wire. How do they all perform? What do they effect? Well, we comment on vapor, flavor, and TH.
Wire type. round, flat, single strand, twisted with any number of strands, mixes of gauges, braided wire, clapton coil wire, mundy wire. What all does that effect? Well, we comment on vapor, flavor, and TH.
Coil design: round coil, compressed wraps, spaced wraps, big coils, small coils, coils that aren't even coils, coils wicked inside out. What all does that effect? Well, we comment on vapor, flavor, and TH.
I won't even mention wicks. So all those variables, which have variables of their own, which have variables of their own. Pretty much all we comment on is flavor, vapor, th. Heatup time is mentioned along with some other things.
HOW do any of these things make more flavor, better flavor, more vapor, thicker vapor, smoother vapor, etc? Is it smaller vapor droplet size? Larger vapor droplet size? Changes in water content in the droplets, higher or lower? Who knows? Where are the pages and pages of data sheets, numbers and figures, not just people's opinions on what seems to taste better or put out more vapor? AFAIK it doesn't exist. Maybe the guys with PHDs are hiding them.
Vaping is pretty new in general, and the level of performance we are taking these RDAs to is even newer. As time goes on, whatever the product or industry, we learn more and more about it, and I'm just saying we are nowhere near the point of there being nothing left to learn. I think we are at the very start of really mastering atty design and function, not the end. Vaping is well within our ability to understand, but the work put into understanding fully just has not been done yet. In other words the art of vaping is strong, but the science of it still seems to be lacking.
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right now there is a "vaping arms race" underway.
these companies like Njoy and Blu are conducting really serious tests ($$$)... BUT if they told everyone what they are doing and finding out, it would not be good for business.
last month Njoy picked up doctor Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Professor of Chemistry and Integrative Genomics at Princeton University.
check out this link...
NJOY Expands Senior Management Team; Appoints Chief Scientist and International Regulatory Affairs Executive | Business Wire
they are throwing down some Big Bucks on brain power.
these companies like Njoy and Blu are conducting really serious tests ($$$)... BUT if they told everyone what they are doing and finding out, it would not be good for business.
last month Njoy picked up doctor Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Professor of Chemistry and Integrative Genomics at Princeton University.
check out this link...
NJOY Expands Senior Management Team; Appoints Chief Scientist and International Regulatory Affairs Executive | Business Wire
they are throwing down some Big Bucks on brain power.
That's all I meant, the depth of that type of research will be far superior to anything we as consumers are going to be able to accomplish by playing around with rebuildables, regardless of how seriously we take rebuildables.
I dunno about that, I'm taking Dave's word over anyone else!
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with some very basic tools i can prove that you should not be vaping on cotton because you are over heating it.
in this test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZiehGlZWWU
you can see that the core temp reaches about 150 degrees C. now the outside of the wick is going to get hotter than the inside because the closer you get to a source of heat the hotter the reading will be. this is a pretty generic rig, 2 ohms at 3.3 volts and again at 4 volts.
the wick does not appear to be burned at all.. but that does not mean thermal decomposition is not occurring.
next time i see my Chemist friend (matter of hours) i will ask how safe they think it is to vape with a k type thermocouple embedded in the wick. if they think its fine i will drill another whole in the RDA cap and run the thermocouple into the cap and wick and vape it well we check the temp.
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I just don't see you as having proven that cotton wicks are degrading to any appreciable degree.
If you get some vapor tested and it's positive for dangerous quantities of cotton byproduct that will be some pretty solid evidence. Even then questions of build can come into play (some builds may, others not) Until then you are guessing and it shouldn't be represented as fact.
Cotton wicks are saturated in juice, does this have an effect on it's decomposition? Are you qualified to say yes or no? Cotton degradation is oxidation, is it not? Being saturated in juice would hinder oxidation as it acts as an oxygen barrier I would think.
I'm not against looking into this stuff at all, just the huge leap of hypothesis to fact that's going on.
Well I guess we have no idea what their research goals actually are, it could just be to make an ecig that costs 50 cents. Point is they have resources that I seriously doubt HappyDave or anyone else has.
Cotton as it breaks down forms new chemicals
these chemicals that are a byproduct of the thermal decomposing cotton wick will interact with the chemicals used for flavoring the e-liquid. the list of compounds that could possibly be produced is rather large.
or at least that is what a good friend of mine who has as PHD in Chemistry from Princeton University told me.
so basically your cooking the cotton in a bath of e-liquid.
these chemicals that are a byproduct of the thermal decomposing cotton wick will interact with the chemicals used for flavoring the e-liquid. the list of compounds that could possibly be produced is rather large.
or at least that is what a good friend of mine who has as PHD in Chemistry from Princeton University told me.
so basically your cooking the cotton in a bath of e-liquid.
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is it even worth the risk? i know cotton is dirt cheap and seems to produce a good vapor. but its an organic fiber, it has some comparatively crappy limitations for what it can handle temperature wise. and when it does thermally decompose it turns into a hot mess of new compounds.
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Jeez, we're exsmokers! I think we're making mountains out of molehills here.
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one thing that i have been a bit puzzled about. is if cotton is an excellent wick, why don't we see the big manufacturers sending out products with cotton wick pre-installed. you would think that kanger and joyetech would be shipping devices with cotton wicking. yet we don't see that. i cant a find a single manufacturer that sells attys equipped with cotton wick.
when i was a smoker, i did some rather hazardous work for a living. i'm alive today because i made an effort to keep myself safe well working it in that environment. saw a number of people in my line of work seriously hurt themselves i would say about half of people could have suffered no injuries what so ever had they been using the proper safety gear. like the guy that lost 4 toes, when steeled toed boots are given to you by your employer you should use them...
Hey Dave,
don't mean to interrupt, or get in the middle of anything...... but, I'm looking for an opinion....
I use a Protank II, and I've been rebuilding my coils with silica inside the coil,
and a couple strands of cotton yarn on top for flavour wicking.
I'm curious as to your opinion on using cotton only as a flavour wick, and not inside the coil...
any opinion? Would be glad to hear it.
Thanks,
g
Its kinda like, you're telling us its dangerous to use cotton for wicking BEFORE you actually have proof of said danger. Gonna need more to go on than your word that you and your buddy with the PhD are gonna prove it.
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I must disagree with this bolded statement. No matter what your test shows, it won't prove anything. It could provide strong evidence in support of your theory that cotton can decompose when used for wicking...but that is a long, long way from proving what you claim a test can prove. Prove is a very strong, very absolute word.
I think my link of the patent has provided strong evidence that the 150 degrees C is not a 'hard' danger number for short-term exposure of cotton. The process demonstrates that cotton (in solution) can withstand 190 degree C exposure for a period of at least 35 minutes without decomposition. For short bursts of exposure (like we have when using it in a wick) the number could be significantly higher than 190 C.
As to the why manufacturers don't use wick, I dunno for sure, but.... Maybe silica is easier to work with for repeatable processes. It is easier for me to wick with silica. I use cotton for flavor, not convenience. Perhaps more importantly, silica lasts longer than cotton for wicking. I change out my cotton wicks every other day. Silica can last for weeks. So if I am selling pre-built coils, don't you think that the purchasers are going to want a coil that lasts for three or four (or more) times longer? So using silica for that reason alone makes sense.
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