Problems with first rebuildable

[cradleinflames]

So, I bought a Vamo V5 and a kayfun lite clone (yeah, I know, I know "I should've got a REAL kayfun!"), built my first coil (1.4 ohms according to the Vamo, 6 wraps of 30 gauge A1 kanthal), put some juice on some organic cotton, threaded it through, and the taste is awful. I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong.

1) The juice is ifill cherry flavor. Had good luck with other ifill flavors, maybe this one just sucks
2) When I received the unit, all I did was soak it in water. Maybe I need to soak it in something else, clean it, etc?
3) I pulled the organic cotton out of the bag, put some juice on it, and threaded it through. Did I need to treat it in any way prior to putting juice in it?
4) The cotton has a slight brown to it but nothing over the top. Did I toast it too much if I'm already seeing brown or is that normal? Maybe had the juice channels clogged by too much cotton, which might have caused it to dry out and burn?
5) Maybe the coil is too thin (it's only 6 wraps wide) and so the cotton is hanging too far over the hole and I'm just sucking up cotton rather than vapor?

I can remove the chimney, fire it up, and see plenty of vapor come off (it's actually putting a decent amount at 10W, from what I can see). For some reason though, it just tastes awful.

Should I thread some more cotton through and put a flavor I know works well? Should I clean the unit more? Treat the cotton in any way before using it?

Any suggestions you can give me would be greatly appreciated! I'm kind of stumped and stuck at this point. Thanks a lot, guys!

-Jay

Oh, if you want me to upload pics of my build/setup so you might be able to identify the issues, let me know. Hopefully, I have enough posts to post either links or attachments.

 

[Choc_Addic]

Easiest to try.

Use the juice that you vape regularly. Rewick, making sure that when threading the wick, it's only dragging a little.
Don't stuff the cotton over the channel, just enough. Try less is more.

Cheers

 

[G-weezy]

After re-wick let it sit for 5 mins. Also use a little fluffy piece of cotton. I mean a little. I had the same problem at first with cotton tasting nasty but now I love it.

 

[ADLinATL]

"3) I pulled the organic cotton out of the bag, put some juice on it, and threaded it through. Did I need to treat it in any way prior to putting juice in it?"

Did you juice the cotton before you threaded it through? I'm pretty sure you don't want to do that. Juice it after. I don't treat (boil) my cotton. I've had one brand of cotton that tasted pretty bad for the first few hits then got better. It was not organic but with organic cotton it tastes fine right away.

It could be just gross juice so it would be easier to tell if you use a juice you know you like. Also watch riptripper and pbusardos videos on the Kayfun builds. They have different wicking methods on the kayfun. I like riptrippers style where you don't push down the cotton over the juice wells but instead stick it to the side walls with juice.

 

[akpostal]

My first rebuildables, wicking was more the issue with a good build on a coil. I found less can be more with cotton.

 

[cradleinflames]

"3) I pulled the organic cotton out of the bag, put some juice on it, and threaded it through. Did I need to treat it in any way prior to putting juice in it?"

Did you juice the cotton before you threaded it through? I'm pretty sure you don't want to do that. Juice it after. I don't treat (boil) my cotton. I've had one brand of cotton that tasted pretty bad for the first few hits then got better. It was not organic but with organic cotton it tastes fine right away.

It could be just gross juice so it would be easier to tell if you use a juice you know you like. Also watch riptripper and pbusardos videos on the Kayfun builds. They have different wicking methods on the kayfun. I like riptrippers style where you don't push down the cotton over the juice wells but instead stick it to the side walls with juice.

Actually, it was Rip's video I watched to learn how to do it. From watching his video, I think I used way too much cotton and had too much hang down. I think that was causing the wool to brown as I think I was blocking the juice channel a bit. After I clipped some off, I got more vapor so I'm assuming it was probably also blocking the hole.

From what I'm reading, it sounds like it might be a combination of using too much cotton, juicing it BEFORE threading it, and just terrible tasting juice.

As per everyone's suggestions, I'm going to:

1) Pull a very thin, unjuiced piece of cotton through
2) Let it sit for 5 min (not entirely sure what this accomplishes but it was suggested)
3) Juice the cotton with my favorite flavor (double apple, it is), making sure very little is overhanging
4) Fill the tank
5) ???
6) Profit

Did I miss anything?

 

[G-weezy]

Trim the cotton overhang where it can touch the juice channel deck. Press the rest of the cotton up against the deck wall. Juice it a little more on the coil. Test fire to see if it does. Just a pulse. Put chimney together. Pulse one more time to see vapors come up. Reassemble like always. Take a few primer puffs without firing. Let it sit and soak in.

When ready just pulse and draw a few times. Until you know that bad taste is gone. After a couple draws you should be good.

I mentioned 5 mins because I usually end of having juice on my fingers. So I wash my hands and by the time I get back say 2-5 mins and it's ready. I actually just got done building different type of coils. Best one I had was the one I originally made the first time. 28 gauge Kanthal wrapped 8,9,10 or 12 times on a 1/16th drill bit. Didn't snap a pix of cotton but I can pm you that later.

This how it looks for me.

 

[cradleinflames]

Trim the cotton overhang where it can touch the juice channel deck. Press the rest of the cotton up against the deck wall. Juice it a little more on the coil. Test fire to see if it does. Just a pulse. Put chimney together. Pulse one more time to see vapors come up. Reassemble like always. Take a few primer puffs without firing. Let it sit and soak in.

When ready just pulse and draw a few times. Until you know that bad taste is gone. After a couple draws you should be good.

I mentioned 5 mins because I usually end of having juice on my fingers. So I wash my hands and by the time I get back say 2-5 mins and it's ready. I actually just got done building different type of coils. Best one I had was the one I originally made the first time. 28 gauge Kanthal wrapped 8,9,10 or 12 times on a 1/16th drill bit. Didn't snap a pix of cotton but I can pm you that later.

This how it looks for me.

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it! I had originally gone off rip tripper's build but after watching a few others, I'm going to try Pbusardo's method of tripping the cotton at the top and then stuffing it down. One thing I wasn't able to do, which I will tomorrow, is fire the coil several times with a butane torch. I don't have one and it's midnight now so I'm going to pick one up tomorrow.

You explanation about letting the juice settling (and taking a few puffs without firing) makes a lot of sense now! It's possible I didn't have enough juice in there, along with my coil being new and not being broken in, that caused the taste to be off. If the juice itself sucks, i think those three things have the potential to make it taste awful so I'm going to take all that into consideration and try again tomorrow.

Thanks again!

 

[G-weezy]

Don't need a torch. I use a lighter. Instead of squeezing them together and trying to light it, just hold on to one of the leads with your finger or another plier and light the coil without compressing it. Let it get red hot and then compress it. Shape it until you like it. Mount the coil and adjust by firing the mod to get it hot. Then re shape to get the hot spot out using your PV to light it.

 

[The.Drifter]

Maybe this coil build will help you...

For this build I went with 2 strands of 30G wire that I twisted then pretorched,
6/7 wrap over a 0.098 Gage pin (2.5mm drill) to get a solid 1.2 ohm coil,
but there are plenty of videos showing other build methods.

Make sure you raise your coil off your deck to avoid shorting your build.

Test Firing before wicking: You can pinch your coils together at this step with tweezers to tweak your coil to get a nice firing glow from middle to the ends.

Glow the coil up, release the button, then squeeze the coil together, do this several times til you get it firing from middle to ends.

Dont fire your coils with dry cotton or you will just burn your cotton up.

Wicking the coil: I use Walmart Cotton balls, no boiling. I just unroll the ball and cut out a small section to use.
The key is light and fluffy, roll just one end enough so you can pull it thru your coils, then trim with scissors.

Light Juice Wrap: I just juice slightly to make the cotton easier to form to the RBA.
You want to try to keep the cotton along the back wall and leave the little juice groove exposed.
Try to keep the cotton as fluffy as you can and try not to compress it too much.

Final Wick tucked in chimney after a little tweaking:
Now I prime the Wick by juicing the wick til its starts coming out of the groove at the bottom of the chimney.

Final test Firing:

From here, I just assemble and fill the tank.

Hope this helps

 

[G-weezy]

Nice pics Drifter. That should be a sticky icky.

 

[The.Drifter]

Nice pics Drifter. That should be a sticky icky.

Thanks bro I've been running that build for over 2 weeks and it's still performing like a champ.

Lots of coil surface area in contact with that cotton, so the flavor is great with this build. I raised my coil more than others builds I have seen because I actually removed the airflow adjustment screw and get a massive amount of air intake that way, so the extra room raising the coil allows better airflow around the coil for me, producing massive clouds at 1.2 ohms.

I like micro coils too, but when just starting out, a larger diameter coil is easier to learn on when trying to wick with cotton. Makes it easier to thread a fluffy strand of cotton thru

 

[G-weezy]

I hear ya. Yea my coils are dinky compared to that one. Hmmm back in the room to build me a bigger one. Lol. I also raise mines up a bit bit I see yours over the screws. I also see that sometimes if the coils are at an angle there's a mini fire by the screws. Not a lot but it heats up as well.

 

[usr/]

Drifter and g-weezy nice Master coil building and detail!

 

[The.Drifter]

I hear ya. Yea my coils are dinky compared to that one. Hmmm back in the room to build me a bigger one. Lol. I also raise mines up a bit bit I see yours over the screws. I also see that sometimes if the coils are at an angle there's a mini fire by the screws. Not a lot but it heats up as well.

Sound like one of your legs is shorting out if it's glowing to the screw.

Your coil should be the only thing that glows when you test fire, the legs should remain normal.

After you juice your cotton wick, you shouldn't see any glow on the coil or legs when firing

 

[G-weezy]

It's when I'm changing wick. Might be the juice left over flaring up. Just twisted some Kanthal wires. Ooh yea!! Lol. Them Sony VTC5 just came in and everything sits flush.

 

[The.Drifter]

It's when I'm changing wick. Might be the juice left over flaring up. Just twisted some Kanthal wires. Ooh yea!! Lol. Them Sony VTC5 just came in and everything sits flush.

I hear ya, I get juice flare ups sometimes too when changing wicks and glow-cleaning the coils.
I now know you actually meant a mini "fire" and not describing hot legs LOL

I would love to see some pics of your build when done Since you ran a micro coil as your last build, I would love to hear your opinion of this build compared to the previous in regards to flavor and vapor production.

I should note that I use high VG juice concentrations, usually 80% VG or more, so this build helps wick the "thick" stuff

 

[G-weezy]

Your gauge size. What size is equivalent to drill bit wise?

 

[The.Drifter]

Your gauge size. What size is equivalent to drill bit wise?

That would be a #40 number drill or a 2.5mm metric drill. Closest fractional drill bit would be a 3/32 drill at .0938 inches.

Using the .098 size should also allow you to use 2.5mm Silica or Eko-Wool wicks instead of cotton, and still have nice coil contact using those types of wicks.

However, for me, cotton is King in terms of flavor and wicking ability

 

[G-weezy]

Cool. Got those. Don't know why I didn't just measure using inches on my caliper. Brain fart!!! About to build me a coil. Will report back shortly.