Protank Cotton Rebuild, the way I do it
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Mac, finally a day off, and just got back w/ my cotton. First coil done using a 1/16 drill bit (what I had around the house). Tension wound w/ the spool of wire. IDK how many wraps, but at least 8-9, put it on my svd, ohms read 4.0. Wicked w/ cotton and primed , Vaping awesome so far. Reading 3.6 ohms now, so not all wraps must be touching I guess, but working great for a first draft. I've got two other heads disassembled soaking in vodka now that I'm going to tackle once my son goes to bed tonight. Will post more results then.No biggie. That's why I'm here. Tryin' to pay back what I couldn't pay forward.
You should definitely try cotton. CVS organic is just fine. You don't need to wash it. I prefer not to. It messes with the fiber density and often makes it uneven and difficult to thread in a narrow coil.
How much cotton you need or whether to use a flavor wick depends on the coil diameter you select. I've consistently recommended getting a cheap instrument screwdriver set at the $ store, etc. Get two! Some 600 grit wet/dry for metal to even it any burrs or imperfections on the shanks. If you find any out of round try to even it up some. Sometimes the shanks aren't straight. You might want to have that 2nd set. Just sayin'. It's also helpful to have a bit in the size you wind. Sometimes you want to realign the coil or it might be easier for you if the handle of your screwdriver is heavy or tedious to work with. Most are not.
What size you say? Well there are two notable diameters which are common. That's what I test for on this thread primarily because they fit in most clearo slots. And you want to use the bit size that does. Why? So you can keep the legs as short as possible. This keeps resistance as low as possible for the diameter you have chosen. It dramatically reduces the possibility of shorting against the walls of the assembly of you can keep the wire length short and tight. So as low and snug in the slot as possible. But you also want as much wick as possible. More wick, more power you can apply. More flow. More vapor and flavor. Many folks like 1/16" but I prefer the largest diameter which is .07" (about 1.78mm). Some drill sets have a 1.8mm driver. That's the width of the slot but often a few mm's over so that'll work. If not, a small needle or diamond file can take enough of the edge off to allow its use.
Let me pause here to say do not hand wind! Please, do yourself a favor and either using the spool for the wire, a forceps, vice grips or needle nose DO A TENSION WIND as per super_X's tutorial video on my blog. Nothing, absolutely nothing will help you more to get as perfect a coil from the start. Nor make it more durable and consistent in operation. Trust me. Just do it. It'll take you two or three times to feel out when the wire sets together like a screen door spring. So do a few of 'em. Takes seconds. But once you have that adhesion you WILL HAVE A CONTACT MICRO COIL that just works. I still would recommend that you pulse it once once you have it installed in the assembly (before wicking!) or twice and delicately, very, squeeze it even if you don't see any discontinuity between the coils. But if you squeeze too hard you risk pressing them together with more tension force than you wound you may overlap one or both of the end turns. This will result in either shorts or hot legs which foul the resistance and ruin the operation of the coil and your vape along with it. If that happens, toss it. It takes minutes to do another. Hours wasted fiddling hating your luck if you don't.
TEST THE RESISTANCE on the base alone, before you wick. Slight changes in the geometry of the coil may affect it. You want to gain the experience of what your basic build does. What you get. So you can duplicate it the next time. Bare coil is the best method. And the results I publish are bare coil resistance values.
Wicking cotton is more of an art than a science. Cut a section about twice the diameter of the coil and just long enough to work with, about 1 1/2". DO NOT compress it, twist it or try to make a wick of it other than to lightly press it into a uniform roundness. Make a a needle tip from one end and insert that through the coil. Gently tug until you meet resistance (it doesn't want to go further without adding force). It should go in easily until then with a .07" coil Ø (a bit harder to tell with 1/16" as it's more affected by variations in the cotton density itself). When it starts to resist it means you're compressing it too much. Forcing more in can choke the wick and you won't get enough juice. It will run dry and burn. You should get at least 1/4" past that slot usually. Enough that you have to cut off more than the needle to stay within the boundary of the of assembly flange. That's where you cut it. Dampen it thoroughly before installing or firing it or you will scorch and ruin it (maybe even catch it on fire)! And yer done.
Now, for me that only lasts a day or two in a Protank. I'm taste sensitive and use dense tobacco. That means constant diaper changes for the Protank and I've got a slew of them. If you're a light juice vaper it's probably going to mean heaven. But if you need more durability than this you need to consider Ekowool or Nextel. Silica decays too rapidly for serious consideration IMO. Again if you're a light user silica is fine but no comparison to cotton for the effort.
So the question is cost. Eko and Nextel in particular can run on a single coil for many weeks, maybe months for the latter, if you have several in rotation. Both can be torched to clean so flavor wicks can be reused for months. Basically we're not going to break the bank with either cotton or the synthetics if they're used properly. However, you have a lot less fiddly with the synthetics. And you can apply my "blow out the wick" maintenance routing to keep the tank flowing like fresh at every refill. You cannot do that with cotton. Cotton doesn't have the directional fiber continuity that the synthetics do. So you can't blow out accumulated pigmentation which is what fowls wicks in the first place.
So what are we talking about here? What is the cost of your time? That's what the wick decision implies. Both of the synthetics provide good flavor. You have to decide what your time is worth to you.
Ekowool is common and there may be price advantages to shopping it. Nextel XC-132 threads extremely easily into .07" and requires a short learning curve vs. cotton. A single foot, about the cost of a pack of smokes, will last you months. And although the flavor is superior with cotton you will enjoy the most consistent vape I have seen having the capacity to clear the wick at each tank fill.
You may find the Nextel product here...XC-132 Ceramic Wick - 12" Heat Cleaned.
And although I don't believe they are building the tensioned contact micro coils I introduced here on ECF, which offers the best performance, they do make assembled Protank coil replacement heads with Nextel ceramic wick! A great opportunity to try the result if you're still not up to speed on making them. Beats wasting the money on silica.
Hybrid Ceramic Kanger T3S, 1.8 ohm
Hybrid Ceramic Kanger T3S, 2.2 ohm
The 1.8Ω head or wind will give you a slightly warmer vape with a bit more power consumption (amps) for the same temperature output (watts).
There you have it breid. I hope this info will be useful to you and all. Please don't hesitate to tap me on the shoulder gain. It's my pleasure really.
Good luck all.
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Forgot to add that with my stock kanger coils, I normally couldn't vape over 5.5-6 watts. I'm up to 8-8.5 now...
What gauge of wire did you use? Based on the high ohms, I'd guess 32? Honestly, I think 30 is a better choice, or try twisting to strands of 32 together (which will be the equivalent of 29 gauge).
Correct, 32. Thought maybe that was part of it, but as I was pulling the bit out of the coil, one side looked a little crooked. I've got 3 heads soaking now, going to try to rebuild those tonight and see what happens.
Is there anything bad w/ having the ohms that high if I'm using variable wattage, aside from the vape not being as warm?
Well, at high resistances the question will be whether your power source can actually produce the voltage needed to get the power you want, and you'll need darn close to 6V to get 8.5 watts out of a 4.0 ohm coil, and around 5.5V at 3.6 ohms. How much voltage can the SVD actually make? I know the MVP will only give you 5.0. Then there's the question of coil stability while wicking it, and coil life.
The SVD will do either variable voltage or wattage. I run it in watt mode at 8.0, at least I am now.
Yeah, it's OK; I had to refresh my memory on the SVD, but it looks like it will push 6V no problem, and even more with stacked batteries. But I still think you should spend $7 on a roll of 30-gauge wire.
Thanks for the quick tutorial. I've finally got some wire and stuff, so I'm going to be rebuilding my Kanger this weekend. Haven't used it in quite some time now, so I'm kind of excited to vape it again with cotton.
Been loving my mini protank 2's with cotton microcoils. Especially after I drilled out the holes to 1/16th...surprisingly good lung
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Hi breid, answered your PM and set you reply.
From the looks of your pic it looks like you wound 18 turns of 32. Sure you posted the right one? That coil will melt your grommet and your vape. And surprised you can't taste that barbecue, LOL. Rossums got the right idea, 30g, is a happy medium to hit resistance targets high and low, cool and warmer. You can get to the same heat result with either voltage or wattage. The difference is that VW is more like cruise control where the chip adjusts the voltage as require to achieve the desired wattage. Which is to say temperature. Or, what we were trying to set in the first place.
Check out the the resistance tables
To hit your desired wattage/temp of 8-8.5W @ 4-14.2v with 32g you only need about 5-6-turns for ~2.0Ω. I don't have a validated result for 32g, the same for 30g is...30AWG, 9/8 1.58mm i.d., m.c., tight = 1.99Ω.
Looking at your pic again and the >4Ω result I'd have to say that's not 32g either.
???
Get back to us so we can get that muted monster back in the bottle.
Good luck.
Yeah, the biggest problem with the Minis is that they need to be refilled every hour or two.
LOL, every few minutes or so.
Great little tank though. And sometimes blows away the KPT for flavor and vapor off a Magneto.
I only vape around 3-5ml's of 6mg a day so mini PT is perfect for carrying around. I can't imagine how much you guys must vape if you're really going through those in an hour or two.
so, the muted monster is no more. Tossed it and tried again. This time, tight 4/5 wraps or so, did what you said about tightening up the loose end (no pic this time, was in a bit of a hurry...sorry). 2.0 ohms unwicked. 1.8 ohms wicked and in the tank Vaping. So far, so good. Flavors a bit better, but the coil is only 20 or so mins old, so we'll see.Hi breid, answered your PM and set you reply.
From the looks of your pic it looks like you wound 18 turns of 32. Sure you posted the right one? That coil will melt your grommet and your vape. And surprised you can't taste that barbecue, LOL. Rossums got the right idea, 30g, is a happy medium to hit resistance targets high and low, cool and warmer. You can get to the same heat result with either voltage or wattage. The difference is that VW is more like cruise control where the chip adjusts the voltage as require to achieve the desired wattage. Which is to say temperature. Or, what we were trying to set in the first place.
Check out the the resistance tables
To hit your desired wattage/temp of 8-8.5W @ 4-14.2v with 32g you only need about 5-6-turns for ~2.0Ω. I don't have a validated result for 32g, the same for 30g is...30AWG, 9/8 1.58mm i.d., m.c., tight = 1.99Ω.
Looking at your pic again and the >4Ω result I'd have to say that's not 32g either.
???
Get back to us so we can get that muted monster back in the bottle.
Good luck.
So far, still so good. Had flooding and gurgling, so added some cotton in the top. Still getting a little bit of liquid dripping through the 510 to the battery connector, but it's really not too much. At first, adding extra cotton as a flavor wick gave me airflow issues, but that's subsided.
Yeah I would just guess you need to use a little bit more cotton. When I started rebuilding these I saw any kind of leakage go down to all but zero. On the same note, I believe Mac said even he had some trouble getting cotton to work well. I personally have a fair amount coming out the sides of the cup and then tuck it around the sides of the coil head after it's installed in the base (after moistening with juice). I haven't yet ever really had any flooding issues, but I did have some setups that would give me a dry hit if I started chaining -- I think this was due to cotton in the coil itself being too thick.
Doing real good Mr. M (sorry changed your name again).
Bound to happen as I mentioned with 1/16 as the cotton breaks in, you'll get a little seeping over the top of the wick. Depending on how thick the wick you installed you may need a top wick. Yes true, until that top wick saturates you may get a slightly tighter pull. All makes sense M.
But once you get the wick balance right you'll have good saturation, won't go dry anymore and you'll be able to move to your 8-8.5W temp target without too much trouble.
Just keep the wind and termination taught and it'll improve each time you do one.
Good luck and just shout out if you need.
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