Protank MicroCoil Discussion!!

[MacTechVpr]

And you're not alone Mia! Some of the more technical aspects need to be discussed though. It's what brings us to the next level....not just in optimizing the vape with the devices we have but to drive the manufacturers to better designs....they ARE reading these posts you know.

If all you grasp is tension winding and how to set and wick a coil in your atty you're already advanced beyond 99.9% of the vapers out there.

What you said. Could not be more true. And I'm not suggesting you or I have all the answers. This thread though keepin' it real gives us a chance to test the assumptions...that every new "shiny" is not necessarily the end all to our vaping desires.

And I'm not above saying that a t.m.c. is the answer for everything or everyone. But that categorically, yes, proper electrical approaches are and tension happens to be a very effective way of getting there.

Consistently we find better means and results all over ECF, not just here on this thread.

I'm delighted that so many on Vap0rnomics Subtank thread raised their hands to point out the new design and coils were hot, dry and overly airy. Would have been easy to point and say, not for us. But yeah, we look at the technical to see it's potential and hey, we find we can have density, flavor too! Suddenly Kanger's opened the doors wider. Not closed it. And that's more of a good thing for more of us. Grateful that Kanger chose to give us the platform.

What distinguishes the t.m.c.'er is we seek the best of all worlds by pursuing efficiency. We got the plan.

Just wish more would join us.

Good luck all.

 

[cigatron]

Twisted Lead Parallel testing is done. Not gonna be worth the fussy for me. Flavor and vapor production is on par with regular twisted spaced coils but they're too time consuming for me to get set in the atty without distorting the turns.


TLP's require less power (approx 13%) than twisted spaced coils to offer the same vapor production however they suffer from the same issues that all the contact coils do imo; overheating at the center caused by outrunning juice transport during longer pulls and shorter intervals between dryburns because of intercrystalline void clogging. Back to twisted for this camper.

Cig

 

[cigatron]

1.2ohm OCC:

Coil: ID is .135", 5 wraps spaced, leg length averages .312" each (max), .227 (min), wire physically measures .010" dia, electrically measures 6.45 ohms/ft. Wicking density is very heavy and cut to .480" long.

.5 ohm OCC:

Coil: ID is .135", 5 wraps spaced, leg length averages .312" each (max), .227 (min), wire physically measures .012" dia, electrically measures 3.13 ohms/ft. Wicking density is very heavy and cut to .480" long.

Atty: juice hole diameter is .115", atty chamber is .381 ID, top cap and bottom threaded adaptor are both press fit into the atty chamber.

Pos Pin & Insulator there are two small grooves at the mouth of the bottom adaptor. The neg leg of the coil is positioned into one of these. The pos leg is positioned over the other albeit on top of the insulator. NOTE: the location of the two grooves differ from one atty to the next therefore kanger has the legs exiting from the bottom of the coil instead of from the sides. Perhaps this is to help keep the coil from distorting when the legs are set in various positions with respect to the coil axis.



Kanger coil



Grooves



Grooves



Chunky wick



Split insulator when trying to rebuild with 26awg.


Something interesting about the wire specs above. The 1.2 ohm coil has a wire diameter equal to 30awg but a res value close to 29. The .5 ohm coil has a wire diameter in between 28 & 29awg but a res value nearing 26!!!

Have fun

 

[MacTechVpr]

Twisted Lead Parallel testing is done. Not gonna be worth the fussy for me. Flavor and vapor production is on par with regular twisted spaced coils but they're too time consuming for me to get set in the atty without distorting the turns.


TLP's require less power (approx 13%) than twisted spaced coils to offer the same vapor production however they suffer from the same issues that all the contact coils do imo; overheating at the center caused by outrunning juice transport during longer pulls and shorter intervals between dryburns because of intercrystalline void clogging. Back to twisted for this camper.

No BTU's; no wick abuse. Change the wick more often brotha! I wouldn't be puttin' up with that intercrysal up my vape for one minute. Not if I had a coil that was stokin' that good it's outrunnin' the juice. If y'arn't gonna bake on ceramic ya gotta scrape the grill bro. More vapor, more flavor!



OTH, I just got a flawless week (6 days) off a Sub Mini RBA from 15-22.5W on a pigmented 70/30. One of the few times I've seen that in vaping 18 months. No dry hits, no burnies, no odd tastes, no flow, or wet issues (now isolated by base), variable power on demand and…vapes from the first to the last drop in the tank. Kinda reminds me of a Protank before the grommet games.

Had Kanger fashioned a proper base then, would've been game over.

(Has made me wonder all the while why they didn't. Nextel could have handled it.)

Sounds to me, rough guess, you're runnin' more lean on air than you think.

(Increased airflow has solved any and all gunking issues I've encountered with my most challenging test tobacco's. Moving on opportunely to NET's donated courtesy Maz. The converse of too little air, is too much wire. Pick your winds patiently. Don't trust open cap demo's. Let's see the vape. When all else fails…still build it yourself! LOL)

Good luck cig.

 

[cigatron]

No BTU's; no wick abuse. Change the wick more often brotha! I wouldn't be puttin' up with that intercrysal up my vape for one minute. Not if I had a coil that was stokin' that good it's outrunnin' the juice. If y'arn't gonna bake on ceramic ya gotta scrape the grill bro. More vapor, more flavor!



OTH, I just got a flawless week (6 days) off a Sub Mini RBA from 15-22.5W on a pigmented 70/30. One of the few times I've seen that in vaping 18 months. No dry hits, no burnies, no odd tastes, no flow, or wet issues (now isolated by base), variable power on demand and…vapes from the first to the last drop in the tank. Kinda reminds me of a Protank before the grommet games.

Had Kanger fashioned a proper base then, would've been game over.

(Has made me wonder all the while why they didn't. Nextel could have handled it.)

Sounds to me, rough guess, you're runnin' more lean on air than you think.

(Increased airflow has solved any and all gunking issues I've encountered with my most challenging test tobacco's. Moving on opportunely to NET's donated courtesy Maz. The converse of too little air, is too much wire. Pick your winds patiently. Don't trust open cap demo's. Let's see the vape. When all else fails…still build it yourself! LOL)

Good luck cig.

Yep, we all have our own row to hoe Mac.... Not going to defend my position on spaced twisted winds...just something folks are going to have to try for themselves to see the bennies.

 

[MacTechVpr]

1.2ohm OCC:

Coil: ID is .135", 5 wraps spaced, leg length averages .312" each (max), .227 (min), wire physically measures .010" dia, electrically measures 6.45 ohms/ft. Wicking density is very heavy and cut to .480" long.

.5 ohm OCC:

Coil: ID is .135", 5 wraps spaced, leg length averages .312" each (max), .227 (min), wire physically measures .012" dia, electrically measures 3.13 ohms/ft. Wicking density is very heavy and cut to .480" long.

Atty: juice hole diameter is .115", atty chamber is .381 ID, top cap and bottom threaded adaptor are both press fit into the atty chamber.

Pos Pin & Insulator] there are two small grooves at the mouth of the bottom adaptor. The neg leg of the coil is positioned into one of these. The pos leg is positioned over the other albeit on top of the insulator. NOTE: the location of the two grooves differ from one atty to the next therefore kanger has the legs exiting from the bottom of the coil instead of from the sides.

Something interesting about the wire specs above. The 1.2 ohm coil has a wire diameter equal to 30awg but a res value close to 29. The .5 ohm coil has a wire diameter in between 28 & 29awg but a res value nearing 26!!!

Have fun

WOW cig boya gotta tell ya, you and I got two comp diff coil types. I know you're a stickler for specs so not doubting you. But the coil supply I got is a completely different animal, serious.

I make it the same that wire gauges and spec appear perhaps metric (in between AWG). I do also observe the resistance variation. But what's huge is dimensionally my wicks don't match yours. The .5's were dead on 6mm i.d and remarkably most resemble 22-23AWG in Ø with 22g res performance. The 1.2Ω's on hand are 6-turn and most resemble 25-26AWG. Some early release hybrids? Was Kanger makin' changes on the fly as they did with insulators? Did you, I or both get clones? Is this even Kanthal alloy, this mystery metal? And ... are we vapin' it? CHEEZ! My batch had the holy-graphics scratch-n-stuff with it.

Baffled Dr. Cig. Take my temperature. I see spots before my eyes.



And all this came from the same secured QC'd site Phil showed us?

No pull-off's runnin' out the back door?

Yikes, I tossed all the OCC .5's.

 

[MacTechVpr]

Yep, we all have our own row to hoe Mac.... Not going to defend my position on spaced twisted winds...just something folks are going to have to try for themselves to see the bennies.

Good for you. I only care about getting there faster cig. That's my shtick, you know. I've been vaping twisted since the dawn of my vaping time. Giving it up for Lent.



Weird (Kanger) science is upon us.

 

[cigatron]

But what's huge is dimensionally my wicks don't match yours. The .5's were dead on 6mm i.d and remarkably most resemble 22-23AWG in Ø with 22g res performance. The 1.2Ω's on hand are 6-turn and most resemble 25-26AWG. Some early release hybrids? .

Something wrong here Mac. You say the wicks don't match. Assuming you meant coils but 6mm ID?!, no way, that's almost 1/4". Can't be?

The .5ohm measurements were taken from the wickhead supplied with my STmini. Doubt it's a clone unless clones were available before authentics.

 

[clnire]

Sorry to interrupt the regularly scheduled programming, but cig, please check your PMs......

Back to regularly scheduled programming...

 

[MacTechVpr]

Something wrong here Mac. You say the wicks don't match. Assuming you meant coils but 6mm ID?!, no way, that's almost 1/4". Can't be?

The .5ohm measurements were taken from the wickhead supplied with my STmini. Doubt it's a clone unless clones were available before authentics.

What do you think I've been writing about...chunky wicks.

But I can't answer that question. I don't have a direct pipeline to Kanger.

Listen the day I mic'd it. I set it aside. Thought I was going blind. That Kanger was nuts. Lost count of the times I measured it. Went back and boned up on using my slide calipers. I thought I had read that the 1.2Ω were smaller, 'round 4.5 so I went and revisited the whole thing, measuring the Subtank OCC's again. But 6mm it was and quite thick wire.

Would appear the OCC's I tested and spares came from an original Subtank. Quickly disposed of it but still have a few of the OCC head shells. I did not think I'd be undertaking any serious study of these. Should've held on to it but I knew it was going to be reworked. Never got one of the planar heads and that I wanted to see. I also purchased one upon release from a local vendor. I honestly don't recall if one of the one's I measured came from them. I haven't measured any subsequent or i.d.'s for those supplied with the Mini. I'll look at those. Doin' a quick comparison of wire going in was prolly .45 and .6 mm metric Kanthal, I thought. Lower than normal line res, gotta throw more wire in. Made perfect sense given the output and wire I saw. That was one of my first remarks. This stuff doesn't vape like ordinary Kanthal. I may still have one of those intact original 1.2Ω's in the recycle stew. I'll have to look. Get back at cha.

Again, thx for the info.

We are the market study bro. What was it I heard a little bird say…they're reading our posts.

Good luck.

 

[Mia11]

I have a quick little question for everyone. What are you using to keep your wire in place on the spool? I've been using a packing peanut. I thread the wire through, wedge it in the groove, and slide it back with my thumb when I need more wire. It works alright, and I have plenty of them!

 

[clnire]

I use a piece of foam too. Interested in what others use too.

 

[chanelvaps]

OH my gosh this is exactly what I use. When it gets scrunched too much I get another from my endless supply

I have a quick little question for everyone. What are you using to keep your wire in place on the spool? I've been using a packing peanut. I thread the wire through, wedge it in the groove, and slide it back with my thumb when I need more wire. It works alright, and I have plenty of them!

 

[cigatron]

I go commando. Don't use anything to keep my wire in place....


To store the wire I cut a series of slots around the perimeter of the spool flange with a box knife. Allows for securing the wire close to where it's cut off.




When attaching wire to the cig jig I hold the spool and the wire end with one hand while tightening the wire retainer screw with the other.

 

[chanelvaps]

aha, I am going to try that, cutting a bunch of notches. It seems that the one notch is always too far away to use

 

[MacTechVpr]

Waitin' on one more Mini enroute from Triangle Vapes. Couldn't resist this offer. Gotta 'fess up even more so on a 2nd Smok BT50W. Jaw dropper. Yep, the one and same I've been usin' in some tests'n pics.

So if you're out a box, missin a box, wantin' a box, never had a box...I'd be lookin'.

Just sayin'.



Good luck.

p.s. Nopes, this post ain't approved by no reseller. But I'm sure they'll like it. They're gettin' the nod 'cause they done it quick.]

 

[Darryl Licht]

Waitin' on one more Mini enroute from Triangle Vapes. Couldn't resist this offer. Gotta 'fess up even more so on a 2nd Smok BT50W. Jaw dropper. Yep, the one and same I've been usin' in some tests'n pics.

So if you're out a box, missin a box, wantin' a box, never had a box...I'd be lookin'.

Just sayin'.



Good luck.

p.s. Nopes, this post ain't approved by no reseller. But I'm sure they'll like it. They're gettin' the nod 'cause they done it quick.]

How does their BT stuff work with the app? What kind of info does it report? Nice price, I'm curious about this one...

 

[MacTechVpr]

How does their BT stuff work with the app? What kind of info does it report? Nice price, I'm curious about this one...

Very good question. I had to do a lot of research, ultimately on my iPhone to actually find the link for the software. You get an apple domain website in RoC. I can't locate the app on the US Apple Store.

The two best priced sources I have for the BT50W do not have it. Claim not released to them but one officially does the 65W upgrade (!!!, free). Yep.

The BT software I don't believe enables a direct upgrade.

So there it is.

I'm personally a little bit reticent to html or IP into any RoC web server, secure or not, and plug in my Apple pswd. Sorry. A bit of a stickler on security. So I have to give this a little more thought and research time. Maybe a call to Apple to validate the site's authenticity.

However, I have found numerous posts attesting to the software's functionality. So the pics if not the truth is out there. LOL It does seem to have more promise than the eVic's flashy go-nowhere puff counter. I'm concerned it doesn't appear on any of the other products making their way into the line up.

<shrug> Dunno.

I'm pleased with the performance of this box. It's sweet spot is higher than most of the others out there which makes it better for higher-res builds. It's power delivery is utterly smooth and marries up to the Subtank's design dynamics extremely well delivering a slight edge over the HANA, C-ANA, IPVS and ZNA30 I've run, tested or sampled on.

Good luck D

 

[MacTechVpr]

I go commando.

Only way to fly! LOL

G'luck.

 

[Katya]

I use a piece of foam too. Interested in what others use too.

I've tried a piece of foam (thanks, Super!) and a pencil eraser (thanks, Mac!). Both work well.