Ready to punch an innocent in the face over this RBA

[JuniorNA]

I decided to take a break from the mesh and went to the always working cotton and cotton yarn and silica. Sure I said to myself - of course it will work with silica and 100 % pg with the fill hole out right ? Wrong -

My coils have no hot spots and I'm at 2.2 ohms running at 4v and the silica is 2.5 mm so it fits snug through the wick hole but with room to breath but still after a 3 second fire - red coils and dry wick .

I did a u shape so there are two strings in the tank and it's a loop up top for maximum wicking (or so I thought) and I have a little mesh at end of wick to avoid stranding - still no good.

I think I'm officially done / I have another aga-t coming - I was thinking I'd have a better shot with that since I can do a u-wick but I might just give it away as a sweepstakes or something

Rant over - now I will to vape 40mg strength before I really break a wall lol


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[JuniorNA]

Forgot to add a pic






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[KillTheNoise]

Are you angry at the silica wick or getting the AGA to work in general?

 

[JuniorNA]

Well great question. I was mad at myself and not the aga/did clone at first because I couldn't get the wicking right . I tried oxidized , unoxodized , semi oxidized - juice burns X3 and juice burns x1. Peter k method helped cause I conditioned thr coil and no hot spots at all but once I installed wick - I got red coils when I fired the atty. For 3 or more seconds .

I wrapped coils manually and got same result on 100% pg,

So I decided to do silica since my vision eternity and novas have all been manually re wrapped by me and I had no problems. I have the coil standing instead of horizontal and this time I can fire it for a vape or two before the silica gets dry and I get rest coils

So im mad at myself and the silica bc it should be working fine . I even tilt it - some things are not for everyone


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[Snus]

I was going to mention tilting.... what about the air hole? I believe that is supposed to be positioned properly....

 

[dsy5]

I have used both silica and ss as wicks in my AGA's and DID clones. When I make one out of silica, I do it exactly like a ss wick; just a vertical piece of silica, no u shape. Seems to work fine, no red coils or hot spots. Sounds like you are having a wicking problem.

Do the coils behave properly if you apply juice directly to the wick?

 

[Jacoji]

Pete54 silica wick and picture

Try this instead of the "U" at the top. I'm wondering if the juice is "escaping" to that uncoiled area when you fire - leaving you with a dry wick under the coils.

(edit: I just now noticed that your second wick and coil pictured look pretty close to the linked post.)

 

[jorge1845]

I'm running this on my did clone (Silica Wick on a Zenesis ASH) by JC west and is the best vape I've had...
Check it out on you tube.

 

[ainako]

Love the title of the thread! sounds like something I would say Try hemp, I used ss mesh and cotton, hemp wins.

 

[budynbuick]

man,you have great grasp on this. It'd be shame were you to give up now. You are so close,keep at it.

 

[Snus]

Pete54 silica wick and picture

Try this instead of the "U" at the top. I'm wondering if the juice is "escaping" to that uncoiled area when you fire - leaving you with a dry wick under the coils.

(edit: I just now noticed that your second wick and coil pictured look pretty close to the linked post.)

Thanks! I am gonna try this with my hemp wicks!

 

[JuniorNA]

Well let me answer some questions from you guys before I admit to my successful try right after I posted my rant

jc west YouTube video was one of the first videos I watched after giving up on mesh. Granted he was using VG for those clouds. His wicking was orgasmic since he was getting amazing action on the wick with VG. I couldn't even come close and I was using same size silica

Yes air holes were lined up and I even too filler hole out and will easily risk spilling the juice everywhere for great wicking ability .

The only thing I'm not doing the same is I'm using one of those 50 dollar nice torch lighters that was given to me as a wedding gift. It's not a chefs torch so maybe not as hot and I have to do more passes ? Whatever ;-)

Anyway the one thing I did today since silica was failing - I got 10 feet of 34 Nichrome (waiting on more kanthal a1
I removed tension from wire like always but instead of rolling the mesh right away I torched it a little so it had some bruising spots all over - it was easier to roll this time

Then instead of wrapping could outside of tank and then sliding it in - I did it thr generic way that Scott does in his videos (igetcha) .

Fired it up and of course - hot spots on top. Before flipping out I played around with coils and got them ironed out and now the coils are running in sync which was never a problem for me before - so that was fixed

Then once I fired it up a bit and dropped some VG and did some burns all looked well .

Registered at 2 ohm - Nichrome 34

Put juice in the tank and I actually saw capillary action this time ?? Did I miss it last time or did I do a decent wick ? Who the hell knows

After I burned Or excess juice from wick from my direct drops - I let it ride and fired it up for 10 seconds and no red coils? Interesting - this might be a success. I will continue to vape to see if the wick dries out but I never got this far before so that means there is hope in this helpless dirty world

Sorry for long post

Edit - using 325 mesh


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[eikon]

I'm running this on my did clone (Silica Wick on a Zenesis ASH) by JC west and is the best vape I've had...
Check it out on you tube.

thanks for that!!! just set up my aga-t+ with that method and OMFG Amazing!!!

I am loathing the taste of ss and have tried a couple other methods of silica to no avail, gonna have to try this same method with cotton or hemp.

 

[ninfreak]

one of your main issues is using nichrome...for some odd reason it is prone to hotspots.....and that you are using 34 gauge...the thinner the wire the more prone to hotspots it is.

 

[JuniorNA]

Agreed. I failed to mention I tried kanthal 32 (about 10 feet of it) and kanthal 30 and 34 and got the same results. For some reason this wick does a good job - I never thought it was the coil - so if I can keep making wicks like this ill be happy


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[Snus]

They say your device is only as good as your wick...... Glad you finally got things worked out!

 

[JuniorNA]

I'm back to square -2 (negative 2) when I thought i would have gotten a little better. I tried 3/4 wraps of 30 gauge for a Lower resigns on the zmax and hot spot after hot spot - top coil , bottom coil.

Did Petar K and fed the wick through and it once the wick is in I started getting hot spots and starved coils.
By the way the aga-t has a Very small unthreaded wick hole right ? Like 1mm

Putting this whole nonsense down and will stick with vivi novas and kangers for now. These things are top heavy and can't be placed on their side.

I'll sacrifice the amazing vape that I'm missing and take a worry free "decent vape"




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[vanillagurilla]

I have an aga also and tried a lightly oxidized wick today with 4 wraps of 32 kanthal, hotspot after hot spot. Then I got it all firing even, filled with juice and the vapor is there, but thats about all thats there, almost zero flavor. I used a 1.5x3.5in piece of 400 mesh rolled as tight as I could go and then it wouldn't fit the tiny wick hole so I even drilled that out 1 size larger and thats the result I got . Maybe when I get home ill roll another wick and try the peterk method... err. Can't wait to get a dripping ra next week.

 

[JuniorNA]

Here are some pics. Looks decent - vapes decent when it wants to - starves when bored and floods when it's happy
Oh and leaks when ......





Edit- check classified If u are interested. These are going up soon


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[JuniorNA]

Vanilla. The octopus dripping atty never looked so enticing lol. Roll up some cotton or silica or yarn or bamboo and Boom - done. No hot spots with non condusive wicks - is that right or did I make that up ? Not sure but I never get hot spots when wrapping anything other than mesh

I have the vision eternity RBa - it's a bit over priced but it's fancy and quality is great 10/10


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