RDA Q. How much cotton in the well?

[ForeverDiving]

I've been experimenting with different cotton wicks in several rda's. I think I've got zeroed the amount and density of my wicks inside and outside the coil for best wicking. What I cannot find a clear answer to is, how much cotton should I carpet (pad, line) the well with. I've tried high and low coil placement and wicks like a wide square brush that just touches the bare bottom of the well and I've also gone to the other extreme, long wicks coiled about the well or even a separate pad of cotton creating a carpet or pad on the well.

I cannot decide if one or the other helps feeding liquid to the coil or not. Ican tell there's less propensity to leak or weep through the airholes with more cotton on the bottom (a no brainer) but can't really detect a difference in wicking —well, perhaps a tiny bit better wicking with a bare well, perhaps because the wicks are not competing with the well carpet.

What's your opinion and preferences on this matter?

 

[State O' Flux]

I've been experimenting with different cotton wicks in several rda's. I think I've got zeroed the amount and density of my wicks inside and outside the coil for best wicking. What I cannot find a clear answer to is, how much cotton should I carpet (pad, line) the well with. I've tried high and low coil placement and wicks like a wide square brush that just touches the bare bottom of the well and I've also gone to the other extreme, long wicks coiled about the well or even a separate pad of cotton creating a carpet or pad on the well.

I cannot decide if one or the other helps feeding liquid to the coil or not. Ican tell there's less propensity to leak or weep through the airholes with more cotton on the bottom (a no brainer) but can't really detect a difference in wicking —well, perhaps a tiny bit better wicking with a bare well, perhaps because the wicks are not competing with the well carpet.

What's your opinion and preferences on this matter?

IMO...

In your first paragraph, assuming you have adequate capillary action, coil placement is more useful as a tool, in combination with air flow points of entry, for vapor performance than wicking performance.

In your second paragraph... you pretty much answered the more useful questions. With minimal juice well RDAs, extra cotton ads capacity... although your assessment of 'wick competition' is accurate, so damned if you do, damned if you don't.
With deep well RDAs, "pillows n' clouds" may prevent juice from pouring out conventional air holes... and with deep well, compound or shielded air system RDAs (Magma, Veritas), where leakage is less likely... as long as you've got wick reaching to the bottom of the well, that's about all you need.

 

[ForeverDiving]

State, you hit the bull's eye. My flat deck RDA's —like the utra tiny Smok Dripper RDA that I use for juice tasting– and those with very shallow wells like the Helios and the Trident, don't behave themselves with bare decks, except for just a few drops. OTOH, deep welled ones like the Origen v2, the Orieco Storm-A or the Magma, seem to give a s**t about "pillows" in the well. There are a few however, like the IGO-W2 that has a fairly deep well but the air holes blow below the "flotation line" and tend to block air if you put cotton there, but leak like sieves if you don't.

 

[Rule62]

On shallow well RDAs, it depends on the height of the coil. I generally like to double the cotton back below the coil, provided there is enough room to do so without the extra cotton touching the bottom of the coil. I want free air space below the coil. If it's an RDA with a low coil set up, I'll just use enough cotton to touch the platform.