Rba - weak, thin vapour with harsh (not burnt) throat hit

[pidgeo]

hi,
I've been steamin for over 3 years but am new to rba's. I'm making my own coils for an igo-L and a hercules but I'm finding that they're both producing a sort of nasty, thin, harsh vapour that make me wanna cough. Its not burnt but my throat feels like its getting damaged when i inhale and its just a bit nasty.
I have a killer705 with the pre-made coils and the vapour from that is so creamy and warm in comparison. Delicious.

ive ditched the igo-L for the moment but on the hercules im doing dual coil, using 2x 2.8ohm ready wires (my sigelei mods dont like sub 1.3ohm) and 3mm silica from this german dude who was recommended on a forum. Its sitting comfortably at 1.4ohm, coils are nice and neat it seems (after a few dodgy coils on the igo-L) and its neither flooding or drying up judging by the taste.
Ive done 2 setups, 1 X-shaped with 2 single 3mm wicks, and then a second setup: wicks not x-shaped and with an extra layer of silica at each the coils to fatten it up (ala JcWest).

Any idea what im doing wrong?

Thanks a mill,

mick.

 

[Amfamora]

All I can suggest is checking for loose wraps in the coil... drill the airhole a little to increase the vapor production (add another if your doing duals on the L) and keep the juice upto the coils if your doing duals on the Igo L. Besides that I dont know what to suggest

 

[pidgeo]

Thanks Amfamora,
Yea ill check again for loose coils. My most recent one looks really nice, neat n tight but I'll most definitely be checking for loose wraps again.
I've tried them on standard ego batteries, 3.7v mods, my sigelei zmax vv at various different voltages and wattages but that dry harsh throat hit is always there.

 

[pidgeo]

Anyone any other ideas, or is it always down to poorly wrapped coils?

n.b: On the Hercules with the ready wires im wrapping the whole resistance part round the silica, which takes about 6 wraps, all within the width of the ceramic.

I've watched loads of vids on doing coils, and even the simplest of techniques seem to produce lots of creamy vapour. I shall try try again.

thanks

 

[pidgeo]

The Herc is now producing a fairly decent amount of vapour sometimes but its a bit harsh and nasty as i said. It seems that if i inhale the vapour most of it disappears, but if i dont inhale there's quite a bit of vapour production. There's a bit of a delay from when you fire it up to it heating well, perhaps from them being dual 2.8ohm coils, or perhaps the wick needs to break in. Im just not sure.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pidgeo]

K, one of my coils wasnt really doin the bizniz so after some tinkering with it i took it out, now having the herc running single coil at 2.8ohms and its much better. So a dodgy wrapped coil seems to have been the issue. Im learning slowly but surely

 

[tj99959]

First obvious Q is what resistance are your coils?
If there is a hard part to setting up a RBA it's matching air flow to resistance. The lower the resistance -- the larger the air holes.
If your resistance is to high for the size of the air holes you will get that dry throat irritating hit, and if the resistance is to low you will get that hot throat irritating hit.

The next trick is positioning the air hole. The farther the air hole is from the wick the dryer the vape will be. You must put the top on with the air hole as close to the wick as possible.

 

[Lonely Raven]

K, one of my coils wasnt really doin the bizniz so after some tinkering with it i took it out, now having the herc running single coil at 2.8ohms and its much better. So a dodgy wrapped coil seems to have been the issue. Im learning slowly but surely

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm pretty skilled with my hands, and I see people making it look so simple on you tube, but somehow I can't seem to get my coils the way I want them. I found that the thinner 32g wire was part of my problem. I have some 28g I'm looking to try shortly, and I also picked up an RBA with little holes in the posts under the screws to thread the wire through...I'm hoping this is going to help keep me from distorting a beautiful wire when I install it in the RBA.

 

[pidgeo]

@tj my ready wires are 2.8ohms each, so was running dual coils at 1.4ohms on my ithaka clone. Changing the airflow didnt seem to affect the harsh throat hit. Since i took out the poor firing / badly wrapped coil, now running a single evenly firing coil at 2.8ohms the vapour is much warmer and no bad throat hit. I'll sort out a 2nd coil and make sure its wrapped well, i reckon this was the problem.

I think what I've learned here is that even though a coil might look really well wrapped I must keep firing it when installed to make sure it fires well. No point filling the tank and finding out later.

 

[Myk]

All I can suggest is checking for loose wraps in the coil... drill the airhole a little to increase the vapor production (add another if your doing duals on the L) and keep the juice upto the coils if your doing duals on the Igo L. Besides that I dont know what to suggest

That.
I just put the cap on and refilled my RDA V9 DC and boy was it harsh. I forgot to line up my opened air holes.

On my clone IGO-L single coil it wasn't as bad but I had to open the airhole a little.

As far as thick creamy vapor, I think that's somewhat of a myth perpetuated by camera angles and lighting. I can't say my RDAs are producing noticeably better vapor (they do taste better) than my Protank or Vivi Novas. The other day I had everything out and saw my camera so I shot a video, even my eGo-Cs were able to be made to look good.
And another thing about seeing vapor production from others is you're not tasting it. For all you know they like harsh. I can crank up my V9 and get a lot of vapor but it's hard to inhale, not really harsh like not lining up the airholes was but it's heavy duty.

 

[pidgeo]

Yea I hear ya that on youtube clips the vapour might not be creamy, as we cannot taste it. My killer705 however and now my single coiled Hercules produce very delicious creamy vapour indeed

 

[Thrasher]

i dont know what everyone keeps talking about.
thick and creamy are referring to the feeling not what it looks like in a video. heck i can produce massive clouds with a vivi on a nice cool humid day.
it takes a while to get the perfect setup. airhole, coil, mod must all work together. after a couple posts like this im starting to wonder if there isnt a bad batch of igo's floating around.
some mods and rba's do not appreciate dual coil setups and should be avoided until it is proven the atty works well under normal conditions.

i vape double ry4 and out of my drippers come huge fluffy clouds that taste like werthers candy no effort required, not hot and almost NO throat hit
A lowly phoenix (seen in my hand) with a 1.3 -1.4 ohm coil and standard 3mm silica and a 1.2 mm airhole on a mechanical. no special angle, no trick lighting, not even blowing towards the camera.






All im going to say is start playing. maybe its the wick maybe the coil, the airhole something. if one strand doesnt work double it. if 2mm doesnt cut it try 3. try different ways - rattails, bowties looped etc.

almost any of the drippers out can acheive similar results when setup correctly. like in another thread, we forget the person in the tube videos already has his setup down.

 

[Thrasher]

those clouds are being produced off this wimpy little coil.


if it is harsh not burnt this is almost always airflow related or the coil needs to be checked for proper spacing and made sure it fires correctly then made sure it is in the airstream correctly.

 

[pidgeo]

Yea when I say creamy vapour im talking about the feeling in the throat. Real nice, warm, thick creamy feeling in the throat. delish

Thanks for the info Thrasher, much appreciated.

 

[Myrany]

What little I know of this stuff I am with Thrasher. I get clouds much like he pictured with my little 8 dollar Octopus RDA on my Cheapo K100 Running a 1.7 ohm coil wrapped on doubled 3mm silica wick.

When you get the setup right you will know it