Protank Cotton Rebuild, the way I do it

[pjmarkert]

I do it almost the same way, except I use 1/16 bit and 30 ga kanthal 7 turns. Then I squeeze the coil in tweezers and heat it to make a tight coil. Usually comes out to 1.4 ohms. (micro coil). Plus instead of soaking it, put a drop of juice on the coil, then another drop on the flavor wick before you put the chimney on. I also use the kanger afc and it made a huge difference. About once a week I pull the wicks out with tweezers and replace them.

 

[Joshleeman]

Just started doing this myself with 5 wraps of 32 on a 5/64 bit. The bit doesnt fit between my housing on the aero tank assembly but the cotton is a perfect guide/holder for coil placement. I was wondering what watts do you guys find provides good flavor without that slight cotton burn flavor? Also just made a "hybrid" with 3mm silica through coil and cotton below and above but havnt tried it yet. Havnt been vaping long enough to aquire specific tastes but I noticed some gargling with just cotton through coil so ill try out silica in between cotton.

 

[MacTechVpr]

Wait, the only thing I'm aware of that cellophane is commonly used for anymore is the outer wrapper on... Packs of "traditional cigarettes".
Is the above-described technique a ploy to get us back to buying packs of smokes?

You know ros it never occurred to me to actually use cellophane (might be a good idea tho)…it just sounds so damned less pantywaisted than to see a bunch of grown men talkin' bout Saran wrap. I dunno just one of those quirks of mine, I guess.

:titter:



p.s. I guess half the folks don't actually read this thread but just kind of make up their own topic as they go along.

 

[MacTechVpr]

I do it almost the same way, except I use 1/16 bit and 30 ga kanthal 7 turns. Then I squeeze the coil in tweezers and heat it to make a tight coil. Usually comes out to 1.4 ohms. (micro coil). Plus instead of soaking it, put a drop of juice on the coil, then another drop on the flavor wick before you put the chimney on. I also use the kanger afc and it made a huge difference. About once a week I pull the wicks out with tweezers and replace them.

PJ can you help me out here? Can you explain please why I might want to squeeze and torch this? …





Serious question. Being that it took me all of about 30 seconds to do this?

Normally it's not taken off the mandrel but localized immediately to the bottom of the slot to avoid the risk of any incidental injury to the wind. Terminated as directly as possible and pulsed oxidized in an adhesion state. The coil was removed for purposes of the image only.

I describe the reason why PJ in my post to Emtbreid above and that pertains to the attribute of Kanthal that enables its oxidation which is more uniform rapid and interlaced with similar layers on adjacent coil turns when you've built an actual contact coil.

If you haven't you're going to be using physics to fight physics and make one after the fact and for the life of the coil.

Or you could just start with one.

Just sayin'.

Good luck.

 

[pjmarkert]

PJ can you help me out here? Can you explain please why I might want to squeeze and torch this? …

Serious question. Being that it took me all of about 30 seconds to do this?

Normally it's not taken off the mandrel but localized immediately to the bottom of the slot to avoid the risk of any incidental injury to the wind. Terminated as directly as possible and pulsed oxidized in an adhesion state. The coil was removed for purposes of the image only.

I describe the reason why PJ in my post to Emtbreid above and that pertains to the attribute of Kanthal that enables its oxidation which is more uniform rapid and interlaced with similar layers on adjacent coil turns when you've built an actual contact coil.

If you haven't you're going to be using physics to fight physics and make one after the fact and for the life of the coil.

Or you could just start with one.

Just sayin'.

Good luck.

I pull it off the mandrel, heat treat it then put it back on the mandrel. I tried dry burning it and had a burnt taste because the rubber insulator burned. The tight spaced coils seem to eliminate the gurgling and leaking and boost flavor. I can vape my pt2 (with aerotank base) down to almost empty with no gurgling. I also oxidize the wire before I wrap it. Takes about 5 minutes to do the whole process even with my aging eyes.
BTW you picture didn't show.

 

[MacTechVpr]

I pull it off the mandrel, heat treat it then put it back on the mandrel. I tried dry burning it and had a burnt taste because the rubber insulator burned. The tight spaced coils seem to eliminate the gurgling and leaking and boost flavor. I can vape my pt2 (with aerotank base) down to almost empty with no gurgling. I also oxidize the wire before I wrap it. Takes about 5 minutes to do the whole process even with my aging eyes.
BTW you picture didn't show.

Thanks for the heads-up. Here ya go...

So my simple question once more is why would I want to torch this as you see it?

The only reason that a grommet could be burning in the first place is if there's a short in the wind. That's why I abandoned hand winding, yikes just realized, just about 8 months ago. I gather that you're winding on a fixed Ø but it's still a hand-wind. But if you are, I'm wondering why any further handling?

As I said it only took about 30 sec's to wind. On the screwdriver, I then tension the horiz. (neg lead) with a forceps into it's final position. I de-wrap an extra turn or two and leave the leads pointing in the direction of their wind (opposing). All this takes a minute including dropping it into the coil head. About 5 min's in toto and yer done. Why do I need to torch again?

I'd like to hear your thinking on this. Me, I've posted often that adhesion is what produces a true contact micro coil, in so many words, anything less is just a reduction in possible efficiency and incrementally more short risk due to imperfections in the wind and in the oxidation process itself. And each minute irregularity in either oxidation or surface angle, contact, etc. is an obstacle to electron flow. It means you'll have a hotspot elsewhere, perhaps below the thermal threshold of vision, a short, as the flow seeks the path of least resistance. You can't improve on the physics of uniform electrical annealing of a coil in a state of adhesion like the above exhibit. And torching the metal will replace the coherent elasticity of tension with the rigidity imparted by torching. Two ways to shape a coil tension and forming. The latter after the fact overrides the former. Just like tension winding deforms the coil shape of a straight wire into a helix.

So what exactly are we accomplishing by torching the above?

Good luck.

 

[Rossum]

You know ros it never occurred to me to actually use cellophane (might be a good idea tho)…it just sounds so damned less pantywaisted than to see a bunch of grown men talkin' bout Saran wrap. I dunno just one of those quirks of mine, I guess.

Well, I hate to be a nit-picker, but cellophane and Saran wrap (or equivalent products) have very different properties. Saran wrap is very elastic, while cellophane isn't. So if I was going to try to follow your written instructions, which had heavy emphasis on the bolded keyword "cellophane", I would actually have tried to use something that resembled real cellophane, not some far more ubiquitous elastic cling-wrap.

However, having tried Ekowool a couple of times in an RBA a while back, I concluded that I prefer cotton, so it's not really an issue for me personally.

 

[pjmarkert]

Thanks for the heads-up. Here ya go...

So my simple question once more is why would I want to torch this as you see it?

The only reason that a grommet could be burning in the first place is if there's a short in the wind. That's why I abandoned hand winding, yikes just realized, just about 8 months ago. I gather that you're winding on a fixed Ø but it's still a hand-wind. But if you are, I'm wondering why any further handling?

As I said it only took about 30 sec's to wind. On the screwdriver, I then tension the horiz. (neg lead) with a forceps into it's final position. I de-wrap an extra turn or two and leave the leads pointing in the direction of their wind (opposing). All this takes a minute including dropping it into the coil head. About 5 min's in toto and yer done. Why do I need to torch again?

I'd like to hear your thinking on this. Me, I've posted often that adhesion is what produces a true contact micro coil, in so many words, anything less is just a reduction in possible efficiency and incrementally more short risk due to imperfections in the wind and in the oxidation process itself. And each minute irregularity in either oxidation or surface angle, contact, etc. is an obstacle to electron flow. It means you'll have a hotspot elsewhere, perhaps below the thermal threshold of vision, a short, as the flow seeks the path of least resistance. You can't improve on the physics of uniform electrical annealing of a coil in a state of adhesion like the above exhibit. And torching the metal will replace the coherent elasticity of tension with the rigidity imparted by torching. Two ways to shape a coil tension and forming. The latter after the fact overrides the former. Just like tension winding deforms the coil shape of a straight wire into a helix.

So what exactly are we accomplishing by torching the above?

Good luck.

When I torch the coil, it does not seem to adhere. Instead the stress is relieved by the heat, taking the spring out of it, so the coils stay tight.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[MacTechVpr]

Well, I hate to be a nit-picker, but cellophane and Saran wrap (or equivalent products) have very different properties. Saran wrap is very elastic, while cellophane isn't. So if I was going to try to follow your written instructions, which had heavy emphasis on the bolded keyword "cellophane", I would actually have tried to use something that resembled real cellophane, not some far more ubiquitous elastic cling-wrap.

However, having tried Ekowool a couple of times in an RBA a while back, I concluded that I prefer cotton, so it's not really an issue for me personally.

Ok, ok, I get it. I lived in too many parts of the country where the terms were used interchangeably. My bad. Crickey.



Bottom line, wicking into an appropriate diameter is a difficult thing. But cotton cannot be the only answer. Some of us don't like it. Others like myself are taste sensitive and start to taste it degrading or accumulating scorched pigment. It changes both the flavor and texture of the vape. So what do you do ros? Get creative and I tried to find cellophane at a point of desperation but settled for…whatever's in the kitchen drawer. And it works marvelously as the compressing friction reducing aid for small diameters and large. Cellophane might be better in some instances. Just never got around to it as this worked so well. I still run off a half-dozen conventional or mixed coils at a time (that I use for parallel tests) using this method. An archive image of different wind styles side-by-side, on Nextel XC-132, for 1/16" Ø coil…

I guess we'll have to settle for the flexible stretch plastic clinging sandwich wrap wick thread or somethin akin to it…I don't know what. Maybe the title will suffice, I hope. There's enough confusion with the dang micro coil already.

Good luck ros.

 

[MacTechVpr]

When I torch the coil, it does not seem to adhere. Instead the stress is relieved by the heat, taking the spring out of it, so the coils stay tight.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Not sure I get your meaning pj, sorry. But yes stress is relieved by heat. The springiness you refer to is the minimal tension already existing in the coil from the factory as the product has already been made into a coil…on the spool. Heating it (torching) ERASES any tendency to adhesion (as to remain a coil even coming off a spool) and builds in rigidity instead.

Coils don't adhere with torching or compression. There remain difficult to perceive gaps. So in truth they are not microcoils by super_X_drifters definition but approximations somewhat less efficient by varying degrees. It depends on how much torching, how much compression, etc. may be applied to correct the inconsistencies. But some imperceptible incongruity may remain. These all affect electron flow. These gaps can also contribute to deformation during wicking (or operation). Then suddenly you find your grommet burning and it's not evident why.

The reality is hand tensioning a coil into existence isn't perfect either. Your pull must be constant or you can introduce the same issues. You shouldn't let off in pressure unless you're practiced enough to resume the exact same pressure in the wind or you will get interruption gaps.

Were all human and subject to error. Let's face it, sh!!t happens. But the reason I feel this system of winding is superior is the ease of accomplishing it. Especially for beginners as a modicum of tension is all that's required to achieve adhesion. Done consistently end-to-end, in less than 30 seconds, and you get the result in my photograph. And when slight separation of the coils occurs during installation, and it happens, it's not disaster. The coil doesn't have to come out to be re-formed or re-torched. Simply aligning the leads in their orientation of exit from the wind will cause the coil to snap back into as close to the original orientation as the current geometry (localization) will allow. And that's why it's essential to leave the coil on the bit it was wound and locate it solidly to the bottom of the slot so as to not lose this advantage. It always wants to be the original coil that was made, in adhesion, if this is accomplished.

Seems to me and consistently from much experience that if you pulse that coil, the latter one, in adhesion it stands a far and away better chance of firing as a microcoil from the get go. With it, the singular advantage that there is a bonding of the developing alumina oxide layers with each burn. You can aid this with mild compression but its unnecessary. In fact hand pressure is more of a risk than an aid as we can easily trash the coil with the slightest wrong gesture. Pulsing is all that's required to perfect a coil in adhesion.

Still no worries. It took 30 seconds to wind.

So I would ask your honest opinion do you think the coil example in the pic needs to be torched?

Or would you use it as is? Isn't it what we've all been trying to get to by forming through torching and compression?

That's my question.



p.s. pj btw I sympathize, I'm blind as a bat too. I've often had to photo things and blow them up to see what I was doing. These days I can gladly do a microcoil practically with my eyes closed. And that's what I'd like more users to be able to do.

 

[Emtbreid]

One day, Mac. One day, my coils will be that pretty!

Resuming practice soon, I have a package arriving this Thursday.... My Nextel

 

[Emtbreid]

Ok, ok, I get it. I lived in too many parts of the country where the terms were used interchangeably. My bad. Crickey.



Bottom line, wicking into an appropriate diameter is a difficult thing. But cotton cannot be the only answer. Some of us don't like it. Others like myself are taste sensitive and start to taste it degrading or accumulating scorched pigment. It changes both the flavor and texture of the vape. So what do you do ros? Get creative and I tried to find cellophane at a point of desperation but settled for…whatever's in the kitchen drawer. And it works marvelously as the compressing friction reducing aid for small diameters and large. Cellophane might be better in some instances. Just never got around to it as this worked so well. I still run off a half-dozen conventional or mixed coils at a time (that I use for parallel tests) using this method. An archive image of different wind styles side-by-side, on Nextel XC-132, for 1/16" Ø coil…

I guess we'll have to settle for the flexible stretch plastic clinging sandwich wrap wick thread or somethin akin to it…I don't know what. Maybe the title will suffice, I hope. There's enough confusion with the dang micro coil already.

Good luck ros.

Confused, do you still need to use plastic wrap to wick a coil with Nextel, or would that only be necessary if using a 1/16th drill bit to wind your coil ...

 

[MacTechVpr]

Confused, do you still need to use plastic wrap to wick a coil with Nextel, or would that only be necessary if using a 1/16th drill bit to wind your coil ...

Short answer: No! But it does require a bit of practice and patience with 1/16". And some may just find it easier to thread XC-116 into 1.8mm with some help from plastic wrap.

First note, all the winds I refer to are of a pulsed oxidized tension wound contact micro coil installed and terminated on a clearomizer assembly. I can't suggest you may see similar results from anything less. The coils from hand winds are just too unstable to be predictable. That's why so many use cotton as it is utterly pliable and conforms to its container.

The nominal outside diameter of Nextel (mic'd it again to be sure) is quite close to .07" (1.778 mm). So we're talking about threading into an undersized coil. However, XC-132 works amazing at 1/16" at smaller wire diameters. It's a great combination for atomizers like the Kanger Mini. But as I've explained often on this and other threads it's about temperature. Lots of combinations of resistance, wire and wind counts for all the Kanger's and all the clearo's. And a given wattage can be achieved in an abundance of ways. I just seem to like as much wick as possible in the fatter Protank. Now with the Aero base the airflow can easily be graduated through its vacuum phases to best take advantage of the thicker wire like 28-29 AWG to increase wick coverage and vaporization. I think the smaller tanks are diminished in nuance by such efforts and not particularly improved for vapor either. But if you want to go 1/16" on the KPT be prepared to spend a bit more time.

The process is the same with 1/16 as with a slightly higher diameter. DO NOT torch Nextel prior to insertion. This may be forgiven in larger coil diameters but at this precision it will dry to an extent that it may severely splay and certainly flake. There is always some moisture level in the wick and its actually helpful as it sustains some of the wick's stiffness and form. Since it is more rigid than Ekowool and certainly silica XC-132 can be guided slowly with very slight pressure through 1/16". It will not fold or bend if you clasp it between fingertips as close as possible to the slot, press very slightly and rotate gently in the direction of the coil wind. The wall of the assembly, the slot itself, helps support the wick during installation.

The challenge is the initial insertion as with Ekowool and silica (impossible). Both XC and Eko may begin to splay. However, with Nextel you will be able to tuck errant sections of the thin braid plate or strips into the coil (if they develop). A small flathead screwdriver is useful for this. Don't stop if this happens. Just trap the wick against the flange of the assembly with the thumb of your other hand. Release the wick and tuck splays with your threading hand. Once done proceed adding pressure and a slight rotation.

A few smaller splays you may ignore as they fold or bend back onto the braid neatly. Once the bulk of the coil except an occasional few fibers remain you may gently apply pressure and XC will snake through. It's quite amazing and surprising how much lubricity the surface of the braid has. Eko in contrast is downright gnarly in its braid. You would need something like a cling plastic to get it into such a smaller diameter. However, I have used the flexible plastic wrap method with 2mm (hollow) Ekowool successfully into this diameter. The picture above may have been such a variation of Ekowool.

The whole insertion process whether on a Protank or using XC=116 into a larger diameter for a dripper takes less than a minute. It's a pleasure compared to other media which can be quite challenging. I've spent an hour or more often trying to beat silica into it's own size. And contrary to loose coils we see every day with silica it works well, quite well, in its own diameter. It doesn't like compression. But it is a candidate for evaluation alongside Ekowool and Nextel. I actually recommend sampling it for purposes of comparison. The flexible wrap approach makes this substantially easier. Even for most of us klutzes.

Good luck.

 

[Emtbreid]

That's good. If it's that easy in 1/16, then it should be a breeze going into the 5/64 coils I plan on using.

 

[pjmarkert]

Not sure I get your meaning pj, sorry. But yes stress is relieved by heat. The springiness you refer to is the minimal tension already existing in the coil from the factory as the product has already been made into a coil…on the spool. Heating it (torching) ERASES any tendency to adhesion (as to remain a coil even coming off a spool) and builds in rigidity instead.

Coils don't adhere with torching or compression. There remain difficult to perceive gaps. So in truth they are not microcoils by super_X_drifters definition but approximations somewhat less efficient by varying degrees. It depends on how much torching, how much compression, etc. may be applied to correct the inconsistencies. But some imperceptible incongruity may remain. These all affect electron flow. These gaps can also contribute to deformation during wicking (or operation). Then suddenly you find your grommet burning and it's not evident why.

The reality is hand tensioning a coil into existence isn't perfect either. Your pull must be constant or you can introduce the same issues. You shouldn't let off in pressure unless you're practiced enough to resume the exact same pressure in the wind or you will get interruption gaps.

Were all human and subject to error. Let's face it, sh!!t happens. But the reason I feel this system of winding is superior is the ease of accomplishing it. Especially for beginners as a modicum of tension is all that's required to achieve adhesion. Done consistently end-to-end, in less than 30 seconds, and you get the result in my photograph. And when slight separation of the coils occurs during installation, and it happens, it's not disaster. The coil doesn't have to come out to be re-formed or re-torched. Simply aligning the leads in their orientation of exit from the wind will cause the coil to snap back into as close to the original orientation as the current geometry (localization) will allow. And that's why it's essential to leave the coil on the bit it was wound and locate it solidly to the bottom of the slot so as to not lose this advantage. It always wants to be the original coil that was made, in adhesion, if this is accomplished.

Seems to me and consistently from much experience that if you pulse that coil, the latter one, in adhesion it stands a far and away better chance of firing as a microcoil from the get go. With it, the singular advantage that there is a bonding of the developing alumina oxide layers with each burn. You can aid this with mild compression but its unnecessary. In fact hand pressure is more of a risk than an aid as we can easily trash the coil with the slightest wrong gesture. Pulsing is all that's required to perfect a coil in adhesion.

Still no worries. It took 30 seconds to wind.

So I would ask your honest opinion do you think the coil example in the pic needs to be torched?

Or would you use it as is? Isn't it what we've all been trying to get to by forming through torching and compression?

That's my question.



p.s. pj btw I sympathize, I'm blind as a bat too. I've often had to photo things and blow them up to see what I was doing. These days I can gladly do a microcoil practically with my eyes closed. And that's what I'd like more users to be able to do.

I would use that coil as is, i never even thought about adhesion. I just heat them because I never seem to get the coils very tight when I hand wind them. I am thinking of building a mini version of a coil winder like we used in the electronics industry years ago. Using a drill chuck with a crank mounted horizontally on a stand. We used to wind some really nice tight radio coils that way. With the starting part of the wire secured to the mandrel with some type of clamp, you can put a lot of tension on the wire as you turn the crank. Only reason I have stuck with heating the coils is that they have worked extremely well in my protanks at 1.4 ohms and 7.5 watts. If I can wind nice tight coils without the torch that would be great.
Only reason I burned the insulator before is that I didn't realize I had my mod cranked to 12 watts.

 

[MacTechVpr]

I would use that coil as is, i never even thought about adhesion. I just heat them because I never seem to get the coils very tight when I hand wind them. I am thinking of building a mini version of a coil winder like we used in the electronics industry years ago. Using a drill chuck with a crank mounted horizontally on a stand. We used to wind some really nice tight radio coils that way. With the starting part of the wire secured to the mandrel with some type of clamp, you can put a lot of tension on the wire as you turn the crank. Only reason I have stuck with heating the coils is that they have worked extremely well in my protanks at 1.4 ohms and 7.5 watts. If I can wind nice tight coils without the torch that would be great.
Only reason I burned the insulator before is that I didn't realize I had my mod cranked to 12 watts.

Thanks pj for that wonderful comeback and historical example. For for being such a good sport about my pestering. Appreciate your like on my blog and the wick blow out article. For newb's it's a blessing to be able to keep that wick reasonably clean. Well, for all of us. I get objections from vape shop owners from time to time but soon they realize a happy vaper is a good customer.

Yeah we old codgers remember a lot of stuff. I didn't, and suffered the first few weeks I quit back in Jun of last year. Then faded memory returned and I remembered an old line engineer pull out a pin vice and drill blank to hand wind a tension coil many decades ago. That was the inspiration for this solution. Then the worst happened. I recalled my high school science teacher. So now y'all stuck with me. LOL

Fact is I had to put this simple procedure together or I was going to fail after trying to quit 8 times and suffering tremendous weight gain and the resulting adverse effects on my health. After being an athlete and health nut otherwise most of my life this was disaster. I had given up. Vaping has changed my life and I am trying my best to help others change too…and faster! With better results.

I hope you'll try my method. If not possible, I have muscle control issues myself, a small jig can certainly help. But I've been able thankfully and taught hundreds of people personally to do this simple wind in under a minute. And still doing research with others here on ECF and elsewhere on how to optimize on the oxidation characteristics and behavior of Kanthal. We still have a long way to go but this industry and technology have evolved incredibly fast in the past year since the introduction of the microcoil by super_X_drifter right here on ECF. Russ, we thank you. Bless you and yours. You too pj, and

Good luck.

 

[pjmarkert]

Thanks, great Idea, pin vise and drill bits, i will try that with your method.

 

[pjmarkert]

This is the coil winder I remember Manual Coil Winder Power Transformer Winding Machine Digital Counter Chuck | eBay

 

[MacTechVpr]

Thanks, great Idea, pin vise and drill bits, i will try that with your method.

Absolutely a great idea pj. Drill blanks are high precision, uniform in roundness and cheap as dirt. A good pin vice'll run ya maybe a 20 on eBay to get between 1.2 and 2 mm (or a wider spread). I haven't used one for my posts because I try to use tools and methods that just about anyone can find in their kitchen drawer. I'm writing to absolute newb's on this thread. And I want them all to start getting the best vape ever right now.

But you're right. What I saw was the most straightforward way then, back in the day when the phone co knew how to do just about everything right, and it remains the most practical now. I will grant you if it's hard for some fumble thumbs like me or those who lack the hand strength to hold a small screwdriver and coil, a small art jig will suffice.

All the luck pj.

 

[Axismundixl]

So, been a little absent this week. Work as a 911 dispatcher keeps me fairly busy, without too many days off. The latest coil I built started having issues, so I put it down and went back to stock coils for the last few days.

I'd just about sworn using cotton as a wicking media off. Typically, when I top off my tanks, I rinse the bottom plate and coil under hot running water. I noticed after doing this w/ my cotton coils that they just didn't perform right afterwards, and lasted 24 hours at the most before I got frustrated w/ them and pulled the old cotton out, rewicked the coil.

I had it in my head that maybe cotton was just not for me, so I decided that yesterday when I got paid, I was going to pick some ekowool up from my local vape shop and give that a go. The guy gave me the smallest diameter they have, which is 2mm, and for the life of me couldn't get it into the small coil. Not really surprised, given the coil I made was probably close to 1.6/1.7mm. But that's not the point for this post. Whilst at my local place, I came across something truly magical, and seeing that they had them back in stock, decided to buy one.

View attachment 313541

The Kanger airflow control valve. Yes, I know they've been mentioned before here and there, but these things truly are magical, and seeing what it did for me in this context, that's why i'm mentioning it. I immediately put my stock coil on it, and immediately noticed how much better the airflow was opened all the way. I also noticed that it practically eliminated the gurgle/juice leaking on the battery/flooding. When I got home this evening, I decided to test it out on one of my cotton rebuilds. To my absolute amazement, this coil which i'd completely written off is performing flawlessly. A phoenix risen from the ashes, if you will... or something. Now, being as inexperienced as I am w/ coil rebuilding, and wicking w/ cotton, I'm in no way saying that the issues I had were caused by anything but operator error, but feeling as good as I do about this coil right now, I felt compelled to share this experience w/ you all. If anyone hasn't tried these adjustable valves on a protank 2, I highly recommend it. As always, YRMV, but it's doing the trick for me, and it's reaffirmed my belief and faith in the reliability of using cotton.

My only regret about the valve? Not buying more of them!

Sounds like your airholes are partially blocked or something. Over time liquid tends to crystalize and block THE airholes. Just use a needle to clear them