rewicking issues

[Soully]

So loving my provari and kanger protank...until just now, though maybe not! I can't tell!

So after over 10 ml of eliquid through the same wick, figured to give a try to rewicking. Did it -really- need it? maybe not...but I figured from the videos and tutorials I saw, it wasn't too big an issue, and it should be something I should learn.

I have 32gauge kanthal (which I did oxidize), and using 2mm silica for the wicking.

I made 2 attempts, the first one I wrapped the silica, and this was painfully difficult, trying to get the coils straight, not too long, etc, but I managed. And the second attempt I wrapped the coil around a toothpick, then fed the silica into that. MUCH MUCH MUCH cleaner coil...the silica was a pain in the .... to feed through it, but with some finicking it got in. It was a -little- loose, so I unrolled the silica a bit this time, to make sure there was as much contact as possible.

The problem wasn't with the rebuild, but with the taste...I let both builds sit for a minute to absorb the ejuice, but upon vaping, it just tasted bad, on both, and the same bad style taste. I want to say it's almost plastic like, definitely not metal, or burnt, but just not good at all.

I read around, and people were saying it's because it's burning the plastic grommit, well, I took one of the wicks apart after several VERY unsatisfying vapes, and the grommit was fine.

Did I do something wrong? Or am I just that bad at life? xD

Thanks in advance!

 

[Aceman12]

That sounds horrible. It might be the silica.

 

[InTheShade]

I agree that it may be the silica, but not because it's burning.
Where did you get the silica from?

I've found that it can take a good half a tankful of juice to get rid of any erroneous flavors in a newly rebuilt head. I don't oxidize my kanthal but I do dry burn it after a rebuild. I make sure the coil glows evenly and give it a good burn to get rid of any crud on the wire.

What you could try is pull the cotton off a q-tip and thread it through the coil and try that. Then, if you get a clean flavor, you know the silica is the issue. Just be careful because that cotton wick cannot be dry burned - you have to keep it saturated with juice or it will just burn up.

 

[Soully]

I agree that it may be the silica, but not because it's burning.
Where did you get the silica from?

I've found that it can take a good half a tankful of juice to get rid of any erroneous flavors in a newly rebuilt head. I don't oxidize my kanthal but I do dry burn it after a rebuild. I make sure the coil glows evenly and give it a good burn to get rid of any crud on the wire.

What you could try is pull the cotton off a q-tip and thread it through the coil and try that. Then, if you get a clean flavor, you know the silica is the issue. Just be careful because that cotton wick cannot be dry burned - you have to keep it saturated with juice or it will just burn up.

Found the silica on amazon, kind of regretting that at this point, which makes me very sad, I had hopes that it would be good, Amazon.com: 2mm High Quality Silica Wick 21' Feet Length: Everything Else , looks like I was sorely mistaken *le sigh*

 

[ThermoNuker]

Start again. This time, torch the silica glowing red to burn the bad stuff out before you wrap the coil. You should get a clean vape with it.

 

[Soully]

Start again. This time, torch the silica glowing red to burn the bad stuff out before you wrap the coil. You should get a clean vape with it.

Will give that a try...tomorrow...sadly I'm a bit miffed at this point, I really was enjoying this flavor, and now the idea of half a tank gone because of a bad taste in the wick is just unpleasant...and having to work in the morning does make it hard to rewick for a third time xD

Thank you for the idea though! Will give it a try, have a butane lighter sitting around I can do it with

 

[ThermoNuker]

Will give that a try...tomorrow...sadly I'm a bit miffed at this point, I really was enjoying this flavor, and now the idea of half a tank gone because of a bad taste in the wick is just unpleasant...and having to work in the morning does make it hard to rewick for a third time xD

Thank you for the idea though! Will give it a try, have a butane lighter sitting around I can do it with

NP. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[wsteven321]

it could be your wick, but since u just started coiling, im going to assume you havent found the sweet spot for wrapping a coil. i made some terrible.....terrible coils when i first started and it made the juice taste equally as bad.

it got so bad that i resorted to buying a pack of cigs cause i couldnt rewick my protank...but then that same night i made a coil that was better then a stock one. once u make that one great coil it all becomes easy to do.

trial and error, dont let it discourage you.

 

[rosey60]

I need to learn how to do my own wicks too

 

[shawnski]

ok i need to jump in here cause im having flavor issues in my kayfun mini, i rebuilt the wick using a pre wrapped 1.5 ohm coil igot from a vendor now they work fine in my kayfun 3.1 and lite but the mini the flavor is depleted , can anyone offer tips to improve flavor on my silica rebuild.

 

[Soully]

So an update.

This morning, when I went and vaped, a lot of that bad flavor seemed to be gone, and I could once more taste my ejuice, but after my shift, as I pulled out my provari to have a vape on the drive home...I felt like I was trying to drink ice cream through a straw, and had this constant fear I was going to suck the juices right into my mouth, not happy about that.

So got home, and rewicked again. This time, not only did I oxidize the wire as I did last time, but I torched the ever-loving jeebus out of the silica wick, made sure I got every bit to glow and for a prolonged period using my butane lighter, as recommended in this thread. After doing so, I coiled the wick, and the coil came out rather nice this time, good spacing, fit right between the metal thing it goes in, and the wick even cooperated, got high hopes.

Those hopes are for not sadly, as that nasty flavor is back. What this tells me, that when I rewick, I have to wait anywhere between 2-10 hours for the flavor to return to normal (that big because it was 2 hours after I wicked it that I went to bed, and 10 hours when I gave it another puff.

I'm about to give up on it, this is highly annoying -_-;

 

[wsteven321]

dont give up, when u learn how to make coils it opens up a lot of options for you. i will link the exact wire and wick i use to recoil my kanger protank.

Kanthal Wire 32 Gauge RW0097 - 100 FT 0.25oz Series A-1 Resistance AWG 5 bucks free shipping for 100 feet

Silicia Wick 3 bucks for 5 feet of 3mm silica wick. shipping is like 2 bucks.

with these 2 items i never have to oxidize anything. it works great from the get go. so 10 bucks out the door and you will get these in 2 days...if you want to try different materials.

getting this down will save u alot of money. u can rebuild ur protank heads for less than a quarter, and u can make them how u want. more importantly, down the line u can start messing with RBA's and make sub ohm coils and see whats really good

 

[Soully]

dont give up, when u learn how to make coils it opens up a lot of options for you. i will link the exact wire and wick i use to recoil my kanger protank.

Kanthal Wire 32 Gauge RW0097 - 100 FT 0.25oz Series A-1 Resistance AWG 5 bucks free shipping for 100 feet

Silicia Wick 3 bucks for 5 feet of 3mm silica wick. shipping is like 2 bucks.

with these 2 items i never have to oxidize anything. it works great from the get go. so 10 bucks out the door and you will get these in 2 days...if you want to try different materials.

getting this down will save u alot of money. u can rebuild ur protank heads for less than a quarter, and u can make them how u want. more importantly, down the line u can start messing with RBA's and make sub ohm coils and see whats really good

paid about that for my kanthal from amazon, the wire SEEMS to be fine, not having any issues with it, and I oxidize it because that takes about 15-30 seconds, not too big an issue

The issue right now is with the silica wick. That looks the exact same except it's 3 mm as opposed to the 2 mm I bought. just trying to figure out how to stop the super harsh flavor...the building of the heads is NOT hard, not in the least, and comparing my coil to others I've seen, I'm pretty much spot on (used to dealing with small parts, so that wasn't frustrating), my issue is just in this flavor, I'm not sure what to do with the wick at this point to get rid of this god awful taste. I want to say it's plastic-like, but that doesn't feel right, I just know it is NOT the taste of coconut, vanilla, and rum as it was supposed to be and as it tasted upon first using it >-<

 

[ThermoNuker]

btw, congrats on rebuilding coils and wicks. Without magnifying glasses, it'salmost impossible for me to rebuild those small heads.

Now on the taste.

I was wondering if you've tried readjusting your voltage to find that "sweet" spot. I assumed you did.

It's hard, but not impossible, to rebuild a coil with exact same resistance-match with the older one. This is where VV or VW mods come in. You just have to re-dial your voltage or wattage to find that sweet spot.

This is also true even when using replacement heads. Manufaturing tolerances. You may get some with slightly higher or lower resistance values against the one marked in the package.

Don't give up. Let's keep bumping this this post until somebody with a solution sees this and give us some insights.

 

[Soully]

btw, congrats on rebuilding coils and wicks. Without magnifying glasses, it'salmost impossible for me to rebuild those small heads.

Now on the taste.

I was wondering if you've tried readjusting your voltage to find that "sweet" spot. I assumed you did.

It's hard, but not impossible, to rebuild a coil with exact same resistance-match with the older one. This is where VV or VW mods come in. You just have to re-dial your voltage or wattage to find that sweet spot.

This is also true even when using replacement heads. Manufaturing tolerances. You may get some with slightly higher or lower resistance values against the one marked in the package.

Don't give up. Let's keep bumping this this post until somebody with a solution sees this and give us some insights.

Blind as a bat, but with my glasses on and in a good amount of light, it's not too hard xD

I did indeed try adjusting the voltage, up and down. My first coil was exactly 2.4 Ohms, the exact same as the coil was measuring when I first got it, I was super stoked with myself, even did a fist pump (alright, not proud of that, but I was excited damnit!), I gave it over a minute before doing anything, just to make sure it absorbed the juice properly.

Since then I've had a 2.1 coil, a 2.6 coil, and currently a 1.7 coil. So a few differences. I left the 2.4 coil set to 4.0 Volts, where it was initially while vaping (I prefer a slightly cooler smoke, I don't need 10 billion watts xD ), but the flavor was just not right at all. Like I said, after somewhere between 2-10 hours, my flavor was indeed back, so I'm not sure why it took so long for that nastiness to work out.

With this current coil, I decided to put that "flavor wick" back on top of the coil, as the head initially came with, flavor is still that bad taste.

Assuming it goes as the last one did...I do NOT want to have to wait half a day to get my coil working again, I vape for stress relief (because it's a helluva lot cheaper/healthier than the cigar's and pipes I was smoking). I already ordered a genesis style, because tinkering and setting those up seems to involve the same amount of fenaggling, but without the 4+ hour wait time to enjoy a vape. Spending time doing the painting vs spending time waiting for paint to dry kind of thing....doing something is much more relaxing than staring at it doing nothing, and knowing it isn't going to be ready when you want it to be.

And before people think I'm jumping in to fast (I know I am already, so huzzah!), I have done lots of article reading and video watching on how to set them up. This particular genesis comes with a ceramic wick (and a backup one as well), though I'm probably going to just go with the stainless steel mesh after the first coil starts losing it's flavor, I don't notice flavor differences enough to say "CERAMIC OR BUST!!!!11SHIFT+1!!!"....alright...fine....not yet anyway xD

 

[Chani1074]

dont give up, when u learn how to make coils it opens up a lot of options for you. i will link the exact wire and wick i use to recoil my kanger protank.

Kanthal Wire 32 Gauge RW0097 - 100 FT 0.25oz Series A-1 Resistance AWG 5 bucks free shipping for 100 feet

Silicia Wick 3 bucks for 5 feet of 3mm silica wick. shipping is like 2 bucks.

with these 2 items i never have to oxidize anything. it works great from the get go. so 10 bucks out the door and you will get these in 2 days...if you want to try different materials.

getting this down will save u alot of money. u can rebuild ur protank heads for less than a quarter, and u can make them how u want. more importantly, down the line u can start messing with RBA's and make sub ohm coils and see whats really good

I've just ordered some silica wicks and wire, but don't really know how to configure the wire once I take apart the coil head. I love the protank, but for my work I need something more portable and have ego VV batteries with T3s clearo's, how do I make whatever resistance ohms, the 2.5 isn't enough for the hit I want....suggestions please =D

 

[Chani1074]

I also have been looking into getting a rebuildable tank, but I don't want to break it....burn it out...etc. And don't really know which would be the best to look at buying.

 

[danny4x4]

Soully, I'm guessing the wicks are not fully saturated when you fired up your device. It will leave a plasticky, burnt taste which would slowly diminish over time.

Here's what I did after my experience with the plasticky taste :

1) After recoiling, dry suck on the protank (prime it) until you can taste the flavour of your juice. BUT do not suck it too hard or you may cause flooding.
2) Fire at a lower voltage first to test if the pasticky burnt taste is there. It shouldn't. If it does, prime it again.
3) Vape away.

 

[djsvapour]

Did I do something wrong? Or am I just that bad at life? xD

Thanks in advance!

You are not bad at life, let me assure you.

Rewicking/coiling protanks and evods has become a badge of honour across the vaping community. I have been rebuilding vivi novas from the 5th tank-fill and get it right every time. However, it's taken me 4+ months to get good at evods. They are susceptible to all kinds of problems, most of which I put down to having wraps and wires in a very small space, not to mention a metal pole which you then need to push in above the coil. Anything touching, and you can waive goodbye to success. Any dryness in the wick, and it will taste appalling.

I wrap them by hand around the wick (I use 2.5mm but you can probably use 2 or 3) the width of the silica is not pertinent to the result, except for the fact that too thin a wick will encourage leaking. I use a mini clamp to hold the wick and wire together and then turn the clamp not the wire. Basically, if you can get 4/5/6 coils as close as possible and tidily done, and then sit the metal pole back in without inadvertently making unwanted contact, it will work.
There is one last comment; I stripped down some presumed "failed" ones and discovered that actually the wick was simply not wet enough.
You'd imagine that it would soak fast, but unlike maybe a nova or RDA the holes on the evod/protank heads are compromised by the silicone bung above the wick. Basically, soaking through takes longer than you'd imagine. I know this, as many UK users report the flavour improving after half a tank....
What I now do, is soak the wick totally before re-assembling. Using a needle-tip bottle, I gently repeat the dripping until the wick is 100% wet and translucent. All the time, I am giving the odd "fire" on the button to see how things are going.

Build it well.
Check it dry
Soak the wick
Fire it up

THEN Rebuild.

 

[Mad Scientist]

It sounds like you are doing everything right. The only thing that comes to mind in addition is you might be pulling your coil too far down within the head when you connect the wires in the base. Make sure the coil is pretty much even with the wick hole and not pulling below the level of the wick hole. If the center of the wick and coil get below the level of the wick hole, the coil can get too close to the grommet and, while not necessarily burning or discoloring the grommet, it can get hot enough to give off a, shall we say, unique flavor lol.