Protank Cotton Rebuild, the way I do it
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When one has only 32 gauge 'wire' and 2.5mm / 3.0 mm Silica 'wick'........ given to me ny the son-in-law after he gave up rebuilding for the T3S Clearo and unopened PT2 and PT Mini ...... experimenting seems like the only option. However, now at least I have a starting point (I hope).
My main issue is that no matter the juice-maker ..... no matter the flavor ..... tobacco aside ...... or, more accurately "ESPECIALLY TOBACCO" the flavor I get seems greatest with the initial 10 hits and then it is just 'vapor'. I get the 'throat HIT that quickly becomes 'throat BURN' and my disappointment grows.
Perhaps too much nicotine? Too many 'hits' without allowing the "stock factory 2.2 ohm" setup to soak up the juice?? I have yet to venture beyond a "coffee flavor" because the "fruits" all sound 'gross'! I supposed I eventually need to experiment - but at this point I'm still not sure.
I don't know how rebuilding will go, but until I give it a shot I will never know! So - soon - when the time is right I'll give it a go! Then -- maybe a flavor or three will follow; I just hope I can actually TASTE it! The coffee has been a weak taste at best; maybe coils will help??
Senile Old Man Don ........ feeling more so every time I read about the success of other folks!
My main issue is that no matter the juice-maker ..... no matter the flavor ..... tobacco aside ...... or, more accurately "ESPECIALLY TOBACCO" the flavor I get seems greatest with the initial 10 hits and then it is just 'vapor'. I get the 'throat HIT that quickly becomes 'throat BURN' and my disappointment grows.
Perhaps too much nicotine? Too many 'hits' without allowing the "stock factory 2.2 ohm" setup to soak up the juice?? I have yet to venture beyond a "coffee flavor" because the "fruits" all sound 'gross'! I supposed I eventually need to experiment - but at this point I'm still not sure.
I don't know how rebuilding will go, but until I give it a shot I will never know! So - soon - when the time is right I'll give it a go! Then -- maybe a flavor or three will follow; I just hope I can actually TASTE it! The coffee has been a weak taste at best; maybe coils will help??
Senile Old Man Don ........ feeling more so every time I read about the success of other folks!
Happy Holidays Don. No, not too much nicotine. And I don't know if you're talkin' about brand new head or a washed one. But you're describing my first two weeks vapin' with a Vivi Nova really well. That's for darn sure. I'll say at least you inherited some good kit from your in-law. It should serve you well once you build a few good ones, far better than the factory coils. That was the good news.
The other is you have a few hard days ahead. But that time can get cut short, way short. You're on a good thread here and you should start at the top with the installation procedure. However, I'd like to suggest a short-cut for you making the coils so that you don't end up sellin' yourself short followin' the herd of newb's here copyin' the factory coil you're already so fond of.
The wicks you got are too darn big for any coil you're likely to squeeze into any of your gear. Folks do it, with sloppy hand over hand winds over a noodle wick. Then they moan and complain how badly their stuff works. Million of 'em here. You'll see. You'll get a mess of shorts and inefficient vaporization just like you now describe. I'd like to steer you to the right way but you're going to need narrower wicking material, like: 1.5 mm silica or Ekowool. I'd say 2mm, and like it better, but you can't thread it into anything. I prefer the Nextel XC-132 made by 3M which I talk about here and on the http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/clearomizers/486794-protank-microcoil-discussion.html thread which is a bit more advanced.
On that thread Don is a picture. And that picture tells a story, I think you'll figure out. This and my descriptions of hand winding coils directly off the spool (or forceps, needlenose, etc.) with tension throughout the thread along with the install instructions is what will save you weeks…because its a proper electrical coil, to start with. This procedure and coil will save you from many of the problems these clearo's have and allow you to put together an install routine that's gonna give you better than factory. But more important, it's easier for a mature person like ourselves to apply reliable hand tension than fiddling' trying to wind a coil on the equivalent of a limp candlewick. Anyway, you'll see what I mean in the photo's. And I guess you will have to try it in the meantime. You'll thank me.
The other thing is what you wind on. You need a critter called a 3/43" screwdriver. I know, weird. But that's what a…sorry, an asian calls a 1.75mm screwdriver shank. They're tryin' to help, really. It happens to be the largest bit you can get down in the slot for the Kanger wick assembly. Why you need it? Well, 'cause you probably blind as a cross-eyed donkey like me up close. And threading a coil that small needs all the help it can get. I think you'll agree once you make one.
So there you go…
Screwdriver, wicking material and the above procedure and you should be able to make yourself a pretty good replacement coil. I want to say, within a couple'a three tries. You should be good.
'Till then you'll need to make good with what you got. And that means hand windin' the noodle. All I can say is good luck. Use a needle to give it some backbone and at least get started trying the install procedure. You should be pretty good at it by the time you choose the right wick. Or, you can take a stab at getting that 2.5 mm into a 3/32" bit. Not too many winds, that's a big coil. You'll have to drop it carefully with a needle in the middle as far down as the wick will fit. No "top wick", you won't need it. If you do so within a few days Don you are going to be one right fella, I promise. Then get the right stuff for your rebuild.
If you need my help just tap me on the shoulder, ok Don? I'm a PM away.
Don't give up, and good luck.
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MacTechVpr, that was inspirational.
I am going to attempt to rebuild by first head for an EVOD clone when my materials come in. I ordered 100' of 32GA Kanthal and 12' of 2mm Ekowool. What size drillbit/screwdriver would be recommended?
I also have a PT3 and a 5pk of PT3 coils on their way. Are these all interchangeable, or was that PT2/EVOD coils?
I am going to attempt to rebuild by first head for an EVOD clone when my materials come in. I ordered 100' of 32GA Kanthal and 12' of 2mm Ekowool. What size drillbit/screwdriver would be recommended?
I also have a PT3 and a 5pk of PT3 coils on their way. Are these all interchangeable, or was that PT2/EVOD coils?
Thank ya hump, I certainly do appreciate that. We should all be trying to do it the best way and get the vape we want. Or, we can keep on buyin' what they're sellin'. And that don't seem to be makin' too many of us happy, is it? Just wanna see us all get over, is all.
You'll like the Evod with a good reliable coil. Not a bad vape. Simply one of the most reliable in the Kanger line. I have a few handy for when I definitely don't want to be hassled for a while, out and about. The 3TS, same thing, just more liquid. Just can't stand that clear drip tip. The Mini's outstanding but it seems to burn juice like a Hemi. It does look pretty on an eGo though.
Happy Holidays hump. Good luck.
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I just wish they would remove the "measurements" form the T3S ..... make it look better. Heck - I FILL the thing and vape; I don't need to know if I have 2.4ml or "gurgle level" in the tank - I KNOW when I have made an "oops".
Still have not attacked a coil as yet, but it's close! I can feel the wire in my fingers already! Stuffin that 2.5 or 3.0 wick in ...... well I am a bit worried, but have zero to lose since it was a freebie!
Senility Central Officer of the Day ............ Old Man Don
Still have not attacked a coil as yet, but it's close! I can feel the wire in my fingers already! Stuffin that 2.5 or 3.0 wick in ...... well I am a bit worried, but have zero to lose since it was a freebie!
Senility Central Officer of the Day ............ Old Man Don
LOL
Thanks for pipin' in and no worries, we got your back here. Thanks for the ack's.
Good context to look back upon…once you get that first one down. Let us know your results. I agree on the 3TS, I like the Mini look better and frankly the draw over the Protank. Like I said though seems to drain like the Niagra. I know, I know…smaller tank.
Happy Holidays! Good luck Don.
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I just got mine, i'm definitely going to try and make the switch to cotton. Everyone raves about it
No worries b. I was referring to the difference between a 1/16" and 5/32" or about the middle, which is roughly 1.8mm. Screwdriver kits with that metric size are cheap and common. And it fits what most believe to be the best size wick for the Protank which is roughly 1.5mm. A bit loose but just about right when wet and the media swells, certainly Ekowool. Especially cotton.
It also has the advantage that it drops to the bottom of the slot in the Protank (Kanger) head assembly. So you can stabilize the coil and legs during assembly. That's what we're after.
Hope this helps.
Good luck b!
Hey Mac, been awhile since I have visited. I have been on the DIY juice forum the last month , but I wanted to check back in and report my findings. As far as the nail diameter, it is a 4d bright finish nail measures 1.84mm. An 8/7 wrap comes in at 1.8ohm threaded with cotton. 9/8-2.0. An 8/7 on a 1/16bit comes in at 1.6ohm, 9/8@1.8. 30 ga kanthal is used on all. Thanks for all of your help on the matter!! Now that I have the coils down, I should be receiving my PG/VG and some more flavorings (for a total of 60) in vape mail today, it's time to venture into the juice realm!
You used a different juice and metallic taste went away? Could it possibly have been the juice and nothing to do with coil? Using the juice that tasted nasty would have been proof positive would it not? Now you really don't know do you?? Too many things changed at one time I would think.
Senile Old Man Don
Senile Old Man Don
I will give it another go later today and if that does not work I do not know what to do :S
EDIT: OK so I rebuilt it, 5 wraps 32 AWG, This time I wrapped it more tight and closer to each wrap and a different juice.... and success!!
I can't taste any metallic taste at all now!
Thanks for the help
I saw that b, nice to cya, Happy Holidays! I've finally gotten just a wee bit of time to expand my flavor horizons too over the Holidays. It's got me busy. I've got more gear deployed than ever. But testing parameters has taken a sideline for the moment.
On the Protank Microcoil Discussion thread I posted a summary of some of my tightest build validations (3+/more), including a few that have been straight torsion winds. You might want to take a peek for reference. Your 9/8-2.0Ω at ~1.75mm build is right on the mark, and has become my favorite vape at 4V/8W. The tightest low I've been able to build into a Protank repeatedly without shorts (no wonky-ness during op.) @30AWG, 9/8 1.58mm i.d. was 1.93Ω. At 1.8Ω you might have a slight contact point there, especially if that resistance wavers or varies when removing/replacing the aty for refill, or tightening, for example. Or, perhaps you missed a wind. The hardest part of all this is counting those damned turns once they're tight.
It's good you identified your dimension. If ever it becomes a question you're building in a short somehow having that dimension can help you confirm it. If you have a calipers, you can measure the legs of the coil coming out and calculate the wire used in the helix fairly closely. Then with TEMCO's or generic res./ft. published specs get a fairly good idea what you should hit. I'm building these practical tables as a shortcut for users. To me it's better than the theoretical or empirical dimension or spec for the wire build as it's something that others are likely to hit albeit using the same method. But that is precisely what I'm writing about, repeatability. I'm glad to see that you have gotten to that point, and fairly quickly b. Happy for ya.
Anyway b, the very best of luck to ya. Happy Holidays.
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Well ....... the goodies came today. The 32 gauge wire and 2.5 and 3.O Silica .......... I'm going to try the "conventional way" and see what happens. Needle in the center of 2.5 .... wrap maybe 5 0R 6 turns of wire and get a feel for building. Not gonna worry about OHMS - just shorts and placement; then I'll move on to different wick material. I have to get the FEEL before I decide if I go full speed with rebuilds or just go "stock" and be happy.
I suddenly am getting way too much throat hit even on 1.8 and 2.2 stock coils and the COUGH has returned. I have not turned to analogs and don't plan on doing so ..... but gotta figure out where this SORE THROAT and COUGH is coming from; SAMPLE JUICES WITH NICOTINE or just too much nicotine (24 and 36) ..... I'm having a tough time vaping and am a bit scared I'm developing either an allergy to VG/PG AND Nicotine OR I have a bug! CUTTING with VG helps - but taste is gone .... just clouds of vapor.
Time will tell - but my vaping is HURTING and I'm cutting back. May have to stop until throat is calmed down. A bit worried I must say ..... but will NOT go back to analogs! I'll play with coils until the cows come home before doing that; I hope!
Drugging Myself and headed to bed ......... look out wire and wick I'm comin' for ya tomorrow!
I suddenly am getting way too much throat hit even on 1.8 and 2.2 stock coils and the COUGH has returned. I have not turned to analogs and don't plan on doing so ..... but gotta figure out where this SORE THROAT and COUGH is coming from; SAMPLE JUICES WITH NICOTINE or just too much nicotine (24 and 36) ..... I'm having a tough time vaping and am a bit scared I'm developing either an allergy to VG/PG AND Nicotine OR I have a bug! CUTTING with VG helps - but taste is gone .... just clouds of vapor.
Time will tell - but my vaping is HURTING and I'm cutting back. May have to stop until throat is calmed down. A bit worried I must say ..... but will NOT go back to analogs! I'll play with coils until the cows come home before doing that; I hope!
Drugging Myself and headed to bed ......... look out wire and wick I'm comin' for ya tomorrow!
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Just thought to add a few remarks as the topic came up earlier.
Happy Holidays, good luck all!
I've been rebuilding for a little while now and actually have started rebuilding coils for other people that can't afford new ones or can't rebuild themselves on a Facebook group and everyone loves them. But I have started with cotton in my pt coils. I received some bottom that was already sterilized and never boiled it. That seemed to work fine. I would get a bottom taste first couple hits then great. But I ran out of that cotton and boiled some cotton balls. Now I keep tasting hints of cotton I 'be someone else try it and they didn't taste it but I do. What line of bottom do you guys use? Or what procedure do you the for regular cotton balls.
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Imagine being in the laundry and the smell of freshly dried linen permeating the room. It's good, but it's powerful. I'm acutely taste and smell sensitive, and that's what it tastes like to me. It's overwhelming until it starts to saturate fully which could take some hours but always powerful. I've somehow found the way to neutralize that in my mind, like I did with silica, to enjoy the wonderful flavors that actually do come through cotton. I use it extensively and I have a lot of gear. But Ryan I never got the density right in a Protank. Couldn't reproduce a good result from one rebuild/rewick to the next. Do it easily in a dripper.
To answer your question, I settled on the organic cotton balls from CVS. I don't wash them. To me they pick up flavor artifacts from the drying process and I've never tried heat drying. That might help as it seems you're encountering the same. I suspect some type of organic decomposition from air drying too long. So maybe washing some and blow drying, I've heard say. I'd try a small oven, if the warm temperature is not too high. But for me, I'd detect whatever was off-gasing in the oven from prior use. You might give it a go though at very low heat, within some sheets of tin foil.
Just some suggestions short of someone posting with better first hand experience.
Good luck Ryan.
To answer your question, I settled on the organic cotton balls from CVS. I don't wash them. To me they pick up flavor artifacts from the drying process and I've never tried heat drying. That might help as it seems you're encountering the same. I suspect some type of organic decomposition from air drying too long. So maybe washing some and blow drying, I've heard say. I'd try a small oven, if the warm temperature is not too high. But for me, I'd detect whatever was off-gasing in the oven from prior use. You might give it a go though at very low heat, within some sheets of tin foil.
Just some suggestions short of someone posting with better first hand experience.
Good luck Ryan.
Thanks I might try that. It might just be me thinking that I'm tasting it. Like I said I had a couple other people that have tried the exact same juice in silica or whatever and had them try it, they say it tastes good and can't detect any cotton taste at all.I've had one that was really bad cotton taste so maybe I'm imagining it or something. Sometimes it tastes great sometimes I think I taste it. It's not all the time. I thread very little cotton through the coil and make sure that it's not squeezing, and that seems to work very well. I also don't use a flavor wick.
I love cotton but it depends on the application. I mostly use it in drippers. For durability in them, Immortalizer, I use Nextel or Ekowool, the latter saturating closer to cotton. For mostly flavor cotton, for more vapor the latter. In a Trident, cotton seems to do the job all the way. I can't get the cotton out of the cotton, lol. But I do agree on as natural as possible. I leave it fluffy and only wick just enough to make sure it's likely going to maintain consistent firm contact. As soon as any looseness develops, any lapse in contact, I can taste it. It seems we came to similar conclusions. But I can't apply that in a Protank, just too much of a variety of coil/juice/temp variations to hit the same build consistently. I'm re-wicking like almost every day then to maintain a flavor result. Not practical with the number of devices I run. But that's me.
Just as a side note, I've gone in a parallel direction on clearo's the past five months doing an informal study of 3M's Nextel ceramic braid. I've found it to be far less intrusive in taste than either cotton or Ekowool. It's can be readily threaded into some fairly small and useful diameters (between approx 1.5-1.8mm) including a common 1/16". That can't be done with most wicking materials into a diameter that's optimal. Silica is a loose fit in almost any diameter it can be made to fit. Sometimes possible with Ekowool but too much variation. Hit or miss. The ceramic braid makes it possible to build, stabilize and pulse new coils in place making it practical for beginner and experienced rebuilder alike. You can re-thread in less than a minute if after 2 or 3 washings and a dozen tanks it begins to look worse for the wear. No biggie, you're only using a tad more than 3/8" and reusing flavor wicks. The ceramic's wicking flow rate I believe might exceed that of cotton particularly at higher power levels where cotton would reach a saturation peak, get flooded or actually scorch. It's hollow! And works that way. I believe that is what gives it the power handling capability. The internal flow through the core allows it to vaporize at a cooler temperature. Just a theory. I can't see inside the damned things but have observed it in open fire tests of the Protank. But because of the smoothness of the performance Ryan I began to use and test the material. We all suffer from one distinguishing problem bad wick, coil, setup, etc. performance and reliability. This has an effect, a consequence, both in our enjoyment and our health. Ceramic just performs, when coiled correctly.
So I'm testing the above extensively to formulate a conclusion that hopefully might be helpful to some of us who enjoy flavor, reliability and performance. Like I said, I can't be rebuilding these things every day. LOL Too many of these guys!
I wish you good luck in your adventure! Share notes anytime.
I just put two 9 wrap 34 guage microcoils into my protank this afternoon and having a mighty fine vape with it. In the end it came out to be 1.5 ohms, high enough to fire in a regulated mod and in the last few hours I've gone through 2 sigelei puritank fulls (8mls) . The dual coils sure make flavor pop some, much nicer than single coil builds. I'm using hemp fiber instead of cotton and its holding up well.
My previous attempts were to much in the subohm, first was .6 ohm using 30 guage and the 2nd was 1.0 ohm using 32 guage both I had burnt taste emitting through so I assumed that protank heads can't bring in enough air to satisfy ohms that low. The 34 guage build seems to be good so my next build, it looks like I can fit 12 wraps of 34 guage duals and get more to the 2.0 ohm range to see how that fairs.
I did try a vertical coil a while back using the method I saw in a forun thread in here but it wouldn't wick properly so it was a one hit wonder like me using mesh, mesh is too much work to prep for what you get out of it in the end... IMO.
My previous attempts were to much in the subohm, first was .6 ohm using 30 guage and the 2nd was 1.0 ohm using 32 guage both I had burnt taste emitting through so I assumed that protank heads can't bring in enough air to satisfy ohms that low. The 34 guage build seems to be good so my next build, it looks like I can fit 12 wraps of 34 guage duals and get more to the 2.0 ohm range to see how that fairs.
I did try a vertical coil a while back using the method I saw in a forun thread in here but it wouldn't wick properly so it was a one hit wonder like me using mesh, mesh is too much work to prep for what you get out of it in the end... IMO.
I've been eyeballing a big (1600+ ft) roll of 12 strand (about 1.8mm) natural hemp yarn for $20. Not only for wicks but with it being my primary intended use.
I'm satisfied with cotton but am like MacTechVpr and looking for consistency between builds.
Any cotton users have experience with hemp wicks?
I'm satisfied with cotton but am like MacTechVpr and looking for consistency between builds.
Any cotton users have experience with hemp wicks?
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