Please Help Patriot RDA and Caravela Mod Issue

[Cullin Kin]

Heylo, sorry if I posted this in the wrong place!

As some of you one the 'What are you waiting for in the mail' and 'Picture of your setup Part 2' I just got my new Black Patriot and Caravela mod yesterday. When I first set it up with my usual build I was stunned by how much more vapor the setup produced than when it was on my Chi You. truly remarkable.

The Caravela has gold-plated brass contacts, the patriot has a gold plated brass center pin. I'm using Sony VCT4 2600mAh/2100mAh 3.7V 30A 18650's and MXJO 2500mAh 3.7V 35A 18650's. All batteries causing the same issue described below.

Now, the problem I am having is it is producing soooo much vapor that every hit is has a taste of burnt cotton. I am on my third rebuild now and I have used a wider wrapping post and added more wraps to increase my resistance and am still having the same problem. I've tried more cotton (to the point where I can barely put the Patriot cap on), tighter wrapping and looser wrapping. No such luck.

How can I fix this? It's really a shame because I want to use this thing to it's full potential with extremely ow resistance but I cannot stop the burnt cotton taste.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to what I can do?

Pictured below is my current build with a .....load of cotton, 26 gauge kanthal wrapped around a large safety pin 9 times.

 

[State O' Flux]

Now, the problem I am having is it - has a taste of burnt cotton.
I have used a wider wrapping post and
added more wraps to increase my resistance and am still having the same problem.
I've tried more cotton (to the point where I can barely put the Patriot cap on), tighter wrapping and looser wrapping. No such luck.
Pictured below is my current build with a .....load of cotton, 26 gauge kanthal wrapped around a large safety pin 9 times.

Over 5 hours and no takers. I've got nothing better to do... so lets look at the possible reasons why.

Cullin... I'm going to use your post as an example to others. No hit on you, 'cause you don't know... but information is the key to a successful interwebnet diagnosis of a problem.

1. You have no measured resistance value. Please look into buying a DMM, a Ω meter/build-box or Ω reading APV. Without at least a most basic ohm meter, you are electrically, completely blind.

2. No mandrel diameter. Please consider using drill bits - so you know the diameter, or buy a 6" digital caliper to accurately measure it, if you choose to use unknown diameter mandrels.

3. No good photo of coil. Photo of the mech is of no value when your problem is the atty build. Coil photos are better when you can see the coil clearly, and be able to, if necessary, count the wraps and estimate the coil ID.
To be honest, as you don't say, and the photo is so far from the subject - I can't even figure out if you've got 1 or 2 coils.

And now... on with the interwebnet - "guesstimate my problem thread" response!!! ;-)

If your "large safety pin" is 3/64" (1.19mm) and you've wrapped a semi-tight 8 wraps, then chances are you're running around 0.60-0.65Ω resistance, OR... you've got two coils and you're running half that... 0.3-0.33Ω resistance.
This is just a guess, because I don't know your leg length. When building at low resistances, leg length can play a dramatic effect on estimation. (My data is generated using the Steam Engine coil modeling program)

Your tiny little coil(s) is (are) cooking off the juice in the equally tiny little cotton surface area faster than cotton (which doesn't have the best capillary action) can wick to replenish it... and so it burns. I call this the "wick to coil surface area ratio"... and yours is too low (on the cotton side) for the amount of heat you're generating.
Adding more cotton doesn't fix it, because more cotton on the outside of the coil doesn't necessarily feed juice faster to the inside of the coil.. more just holds more juice.

So...

1. Use a larger "wrapping post" (mandrel)... something in the 1.5-2.5mm range. The reason is to provide more wick inside the coil and reduce the amount of heat per sq.mm of coil surface. Yes, your resistance will go up, but then I'd rather have a flavorful vape than a portable cotton burner... wouldn't you?
Using your 26 gauge, if you build a 8 wrap coil on a 5/64" (2mm) mandrel, with 4mm legs, your resistance will be approximately 0.8Ω per coil, or 0.4Ω for duals.

2. Fit the wick loose... in other words, don't roll it too tight/compress the cotton excessively. When you pull it through, it should have only slight drag. Add a small "bed" of cotton under the coil... to increase the wick surface area to heating element ratio.
General rule of cotton wick use... looser is gooder than tighter, and sometimes, lesser/looser cotton has better capillary action than a buttload of it jammed in under the cap.

That's all I got. Perhaps others will, after reading this, want to play the guessing game... and maybe, someone will add something that solves your problem.

Good luck sorting it out...

 

[Cullin Kin]

Thank you. Sorry I didn't include all of that information, I had it, but as you probably noticed this thread was posted at 3:00 in the morning and I was delusional.

Got the problem solved. Apparently I death wrapped the coils on my Chi You but because it wasn't as conductive of a mod it didn't matter. Just wrapped the cotton much much looser than I ever have and bingo.

Sorry to waste space with a useless thread admins. You can delete it if you wish!