Possible Kanthal/Nichrome allergy.

[GoodNews!]

Hey guys, so thanks to a user on another thread, I discovered that one factor behind my "heavenly" Cisco experience may have been that, or at least at one old time, Cisco claimed to use a proprietary coil wire for their atomizers that they have kept entirely secret from both the vaping world at large and Chinese factories.

With every other device under the sun, I have gotten "wicky" or "metallic" tastes from atomizers - the only time I can prevent this is when the coil is wicking so extraordinarily well, all while only being able to use %100VG juice that is thick enough to "coat" the coil while vaporizing, so that very little air reaches the coils themselves, preventing much feedoff flavor from either the coil or wick.

If I don't accomplish this (which my good result is thankfully signalized by a coil/juice that doesn't sizzle or pop), I get throat irritations, HORRIBLE flavor, the whole nine yards. Interestingly enough, the only other atomziers that haven't done this seem to be much older models where the clearomizers came with primer fluid as a "coating" for the wire (and even with this, once that coating wore off like a day later, it'd go back to the horrible tastes and reactions).

What could Cisco possibly be using, and has anyone else experienced this? Like I said, I HAVE to have my coils so coated with juice that they do not sizzle or pop for me NOT to get this flavor and/or reaction. Elsewise, all I taste is metal, singed-sock, or my throat gets pretty tore up. Even with 0%nic. Almost any amount of PG liquid causes coils to sizzle and pop. VG, specifically by VCV, and with the perfect wicking system (the Fluxomizers by GotVapes have such large gaps in the wicking slots that it allows for this) is what prevents this reaction for me.

An additional curse is that with all these steps, at best, the flavor of the liquid doesn't come through very much.

Any advice at all?

 

[cthulhufan]

Resistance wire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You might poke around to see if anyone has experimented with coils using some of the other materials listed there. I am extremely sensitive to metal as in I get a rash from stainless steel watches, jewelry made from titanium, copper etc. Silver, gold and platinum are the only metals that don't break me out. I have not found and trouble using nichrome or kanthal thus far in my vaping. Not saying you don't, man that would suck if you were that sensitive to it...

Good luck.

 

[GoodNews!]

Well, with kanthal, it really seems to depend on the wicking ability or something - I just vaped on a dude's RDA that used Kanthal, had perfectly clean vapor. However, it seems that I'm allergic to it to the small point that if it's not set up in a perfect RDA, that I taste all sorts of junk with it, and my throat will feel it too - that or it has been said that pretty much all disposable head atties and clearomizers use NiChrome, and that may be what I taste - a lot of metal or sort of a "bitter/sweaty sock" type flavor.

What's that one chemical out there that is famous for having a "rotten egg" taste? Is this chemical possibly produced by heating Kanthal/NiChrome? I want to say it's Phospourus, but I think it starts with an F. I can't even be in the same room as that chemical without being able to taste it.

Then again, I don't know, this is all just a theory, I have others, but the experience is just that extreme for me. I've tasted these things and had other vapers taste a few devices and they taste nothing whatsoever wrong. It's just alarming at how severe the effect can be for me. I've even gotten a week-long throat infection from a Chinese e-cig that tasted like pure metal.

For example, when I was a little kid, it was never proven by a doctor, but every time I'd touch a metal doorknob, I'd break out in welts all over just my hands. It went unnoticed and unsolved because my family used plastic dooknobs on all the doors. I still dunno if that's what caused it, but it could have been.

 

[cthulhufan]

Sulphur and rotten egg smell pretty much come to mind...

 

[unloaded]

You don't have allergies, you've got wicking issues. Most of the china made stuff needs tweaking to wick properly, thick VG juices just make it worse. Keep messing with the RBA's you'll get there. I messed with fluxomizers way back and had the best luck using them as drippers. Instead of having the wicks in the tanks I coiled them around the ceramic cup and dripped on them. You might try that to hold you over until you get RBA right. I have one old pic left, I took a shorty and put it in a long tube, but it will give you the right idea.

The funny taste you mention with cotton wicks, I'm convinced it is from oils off the fingers while rolling it up. It goes away pretty quickly if you give it a chance. The best luck I've had with silica came from CLouds of Vapor, he gets it from Imeo who makes GG products. No off taste and no torching of wick required. From other sources, if I was lucky the off taste would go away if I torched it first, some I never could get rid of.

 

[GoodNews!]

What's the strangest thing though is 100VG% entirely solves the issue - VCV's juices wick extraordinarily well on the Flux's, while any PG juice sizzles and pops instantly causing the taste quite extremely. It seems to have more to do with a juice vaporizing too fast... I made a typo in the first post, I meant that if a juice doesn't sizzle or pop (VG vaporizes at higher temps), then the taste is clean and no throat irritation.

That's one heck of a cool Flux mod tho.... sadly, the new Flux's have plastic that's glued to the bottom plate, can't take them apart =[.

 

[SirSteve]

Here are a few others, Resistance wire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google resistance wire, I'm sure there are more.

 

[unloaded]

You don't have to take them apart, pull the wicks up through the silicone seal and wrap them around the cup. Remove the tip to drip on them or it will fill your air tube.

I'm not familiar with VGV or their juice. "100% VG" usually means there is no PG in it, it doesn't mean there is nothing used as a thinner to make the juice wick better. You can pick up a bottle of Glycerin at Walmart to see how thick VG actually is. It's next to witch hazel, iso alcohol and such.

 

[GoodNews!]

Well lol, VCV's juices are thick, probably some of the thickest in the liquid world. The only additive to thin it down, or so they say, is distilled water. The PG juices are like water compared to VCV's. And for some reason, VCV's juices, as long as the coil is super wet, vape silently, while PG, it doesn't matter how wet the wick is, at the same ohms and voltages, it seems to sizzle and fry.

 

[catalinaflyer]

Personally, for me that is, my preference is a coil that has that blissful Snap-Crackle-Pop. That sound is how I know I got a perfect micro-coil and that I'm about to have a heavenly vape. However, no matter the coil or how much noise it makes, once it gets some time on it that sound goes away no matter the juice.

 

[GoodNews!]

I know, it's like the strangest thing that the snap, crackle, and pop always correlates with a horrible tasting vape on my end. It's totally not something that the vaping world at large experiences.

Yet, I've never had ONE device, not even disposable e-cigs, that were silent and still gave me a bad vape. Even the disposable e-cigs, right when they start sizzling a little, the flavor goes instantly downhill and at best, just gets pretty bland.

To me, it always just seems to be that this sizzling and popping correlates with some sort of muting in comparison to the extremely flavorful vapes I'll get out of a silent device, like some disposable e-cigs, or the Cisco.

I mean, it took me a lot of studying to connect these two dots - it wasn't something I went into vaping having in my head. But it's a point that has literally, %100 of the time, caused better flavor for me. Even in a Protank, of all things.

In the Protank, I completely cut off the air-flow, caused that puppy to wick like a sunami, and instantly, not much popping, and instantly "better" flavor for what those heads seem to do. The flavor didn't really amp up any, it was just a heck a lot smoother and cleaner.

The Cisco though, I was using PG's, VG's, everything, and the atty rarely popped or sizzled or anything. And it was literally giving me the most saturated (yet not funky - a lot of saturation CAN seem to make juices taste funky) and true-to-life flavors ever was.

The rum taste like sweat tea flavored rum.
The caramels tasted like caramel candy.
The NET's were so heavenly it was unreal.
The menthols tasted like full, pure menthols.
The VCV candy bar was the heavenliest result I've gotten from that juice yet, and that juice is pretty darn good on anything.

I can't explain it. A 3.5ohm coil of all things, at 4.1V's on a Spinner. If anything's crazier than the bad results I've gotten, it's the good ones.

 

[WattWick]

If you're well used to vaping on a specific setup, you can hear if you're about to get a dry hit. My atties give off a fairly steady stream of gray noise/sizzle when they work well. If they start to crackle and pop, I know there's a dry hit coming. Which happens if I somehow fail to keep the wick in my gennies facing down long enough. Too much heat and not enough liquid. Which is essentially one and the same since enough liquid prevents too much heat. So, you probably have wicking issues or hotspots... as no wick can feed hotspots fast enough... that I know of.

I'm no expert. Just thinking out loud.

 

[unloaded]

You sound like you might like a high voltage/ high resistance setup. You can run one at the exact same wattage as a low resistance setup and get a much different experience. It was all the rage when it first hit the scene and a lot of people still prefer to vape that way. LR and sub ohm seem to get all the headlines now and many newer vapers probably don't even realize there are quite a few ways to skin this cat. I tried it myself but I prefer a hotter/quicker/harsher vape. It might be exactly what you're looking for though. Also I saw your thread about the faulty ohm meter, I'd suggest something like a Vamo. It's not much more than the meter, you can check ohms with it and as just your voltage or wattage to your taste. It will also work with your RBA's and you can coil them LR or HR and compare for yourself. You won't be able to do sub-ohm setups but it doesn't sound like that's your cup of tea anyway. I mainly vape sub ohm on Reo's now but I've still got an old Vamo I use to check ohms and sometimes loan out. You can find them on China sites for about $25, you'll need batteries and a charger though. They are well worth it to me.

 

[GoodNews!]

A lot of possibilities to consider!

The Vamo is one of my top choices for now, I'm trying to decide between the Vamo and MVP 2, but for builds, the Vamo is slowly winning out.

For me, like if I get a mostly silent, but barely hearable stream of "sound", then that always seems to give the best flavor me. It's not %100 silent, but it's not loud and popping and cracking and throwing a fit. It sounds smooth as pie.

The only juice that seems to make cheap atties vape that way, for me, is the VCV juice. The juice has a super high thickness - it actually takes 24 hours to fully saturate silica strands. But once it does, it's almost impossible to get a bad vape from it - at least, the Fluxo's work super well with it, where PG, even one drop of it mixed with the VCV, causes the juice to vaporize harshly,

The mystery is that I don't seem all that sensitive to PG - though it is a possibility. Same with nicotine, both PG and nicotine was heavenly in the Cisco, and neither seem good to me on anything else. For some mystery reason.

 

[TheJakeBailey]

I'm not saying that your hypothesis is correct, but because you think it is, I would go with the mvp2. No rattlesnake to make you think your coil is popping.

 

[GoodNews!]

Well, I 've learned there may be a difference between the rattlesnake sound of an older battery mod conducting elecricity, and the popping of thin liquid or the snapping sound like plastic being burned, or those "cherry poppers" you get at firework stands. Any amount of PG sounds like that. VG doesn't for me.

Like right now, I'm doing an experiment with the Flux. When I vape it upside down or horizontally, the VG wicks great and doesn't make a sound. When I vape it upright, even for just a couple seconds, the liquid will pop and sizzle, and give an extreme socky taste.

So I'm not sure if it's the current of the battery or the atomizer itself... Any opinions ?

 

[catalinaflyer]

Well, I 've learned there may be a difference between the rattlesnake sound of an older battery mod conducting elecricity, and the popping of thin liquid or the snapping sound like plastic being burned, or those "cherry poppers" you get at firework stands. Any amount of PG sounds like that. VG doesn't for me.

Like right now, I'm doing an experiment with the Flux. When I vape it upside down or horizontally, the VG wicks great and doesn't make a sound. When I vape it upright, even for just a couple seconds, the liquid will pop and sizzle, and give an extreme socky taste.

So I'm not sure if it's the current of the battery or the atomizer itself... Any opinions ?

Sorry to say this but it doesn't mean it's an "older" anything because it rattlesnake's. Manufacturers use different methods for changing the voltage of a Lithium battery to the output selected by the user. Some use a 33mhz chip which is absolutely detectable by the human ear while others use chips with a much higher modulation which becomes undetectable by the human ear and once it gets high enough it becomes invisible to even measuring equipment.

PWM has absolutely nothing to do with the age of a mod, it is based on the electronics selected by the manufacturer. There are very expensive "modern" mods that utilize a 33 MHz chip and at the some time there are much less expensive units that utilize much higher frequency chips up to 800 MHz.

 

[bender817]

What nic are you at? What wick material are you using? What gauge/type wire are you twisting to 3.8ohms?