RSST help

[steveo9043]

Ok so Saturday I went to Free-cigs and picked up a smoktech RSST. Sunday I started building it and think I did a good job for my first time.

I used 3in of .30 mm kanthal (which according to the chart I read should of been 1.8 ohm but it is reading 2.1 ohm) and SS mesh for the wick.

The wick was way too tight at first so I opened it up and cut some off then re-rolled it. Seems like its better now. No dry hits and it doesn't flood. I tried removing the fill plug and it was a little better but it flooded.

I'm using it on a zmax v5. The taste is ok and the vapor is sub par in my opinion.

I have want2vape alcazar in it. I put the same juice in an evod and the flavor is a little better and the vapor is ALOT better.

 

[folkphys]

Looks to me like your top 3 coils are heating up before the rest of them, or else because the bottom 3 coils aren't in contact with the wick, they are dry burning air instead of juice. Try unscrewing the negative screw and tightening up those bottom coils around your wick adn see if that helps. Also, your mesh wick might now be too narrow/loose for it to wick properly. The range for perfect wicking is very small and lies between chokingly tight and uselessly loose.

 

[steveo9043]

Looks to me like your top 3 coils are heating up before the rest of them, or else because the bottom 3 coils aren't in contact with the wick, they are dry burning air instead of juice. Try unscrewing the negative screw and tightening up those bottom coils around your wick adn see if that helps. Also, your mesh wick might now be too narrow/loose for it to wick properly. The range for perfect wicking is very small and lies between chokingly tight and uselessly loose.

now that you said that I looked at the coil closer. The bottom 2 wraps are clean compared to the top and also a good portion of each wrap is clean too compared to the other parts. I'm going to try tightening the wraps and see what happens and I will post back.

 

[folkphys]

Your overall resistance will drop as you tighten the coils, so check it before you fire it.

 

[steveo9043]

got it tighter on the bottom but its still not perfect. It's probably from cutting down the size of the wick and using the same coil. Vapor production is a little better. After work when I get home I will make another wick and coil and see how it goes.

 

[steveo9043]

Your overall resistance will drop as you tighten the coils, so check it before you fire it.

it is still 2.1 ohms so I must not have tightened it much at all.

 

[folkphys]

Good luck. It is a continual process of learning frustration unlearning then relearning. Eventually, you might actually figure something out -- but don't hold your breath (wink).

By the way, when I cut out wick pieces from my sheet of mesh I cut diagonally against the weave pattern. That way all the strands on the final wick end up in a near-vertical arrangement. If you cut your piece out normally, you'll get half the strands pointing left-to-right, and thus impeding the liquid on its way up. At least that's what some guy at a local vape shop told me, and he had a beard and glasses, so I assume he knows what's what.

Other tips include:

Torch your coil wire just a bit before wrapping it to make it more flexible.

Find a similarly sized (to your wick) or everso-slightly larger screwdriver or paperclip (or some such cylinder) and pre-wind your coil around that

Torch it briefly again after winding (with it off the pre-wind cylinder)

Back onto the P-WC for one last tightening

Then slide the coil down onto your wick.

Oxidizing the wick first for use in an RSST is not electrically necessary, however it does make your mesh a bit more rigid which helps with the placing, winding, and setting up processes.

Try to make sure the top and bottom ends of the wire that run btween the wick and positive/negative screws are about the same length.

We tend to bend and crimp our mesh wicks as we're pulling the wire around the positve pin. This causes uneven coil tension and can lead to hot legs which are frustrating, and make your juice taste like burnt socks.

Evenly spaced (bottom to top) coils are good.

Suggestion: maybe shoot for a bit lower final resistance, and do one (or two) less wraps. Obviously, do NOT go so low as to drive your batteries or APV beyod their electrical limits.

 

[steveo9043]

Thanks for the tips! My first coil was 5 wrap but it kept saying it was too low of a resistance. (under 1.3) so I went longer and it jumped up to 2.1! lol But yeah I will try and redo it tonight with your tips in mind.

 

[steveo9043]

Ok so last night I was able to sit down and tighten the coil. I ended up taking off about 1/2 in of wick with the same amount of wraps. Flavor and vapor definitely went up. HOWEVER.... why did my resistance go from 2.1 UP to 2.2?

 

[folkphys]

It's possible that in tightening your coils some section of them made contact with a bit of not-fully-oxidized SS mesh, creating a slightly longer conductive (and resistive on account of the partial ox) path for the electricity to flow, thus raising your overall resistance slightly. That would be my first guess. It's definitely happened to me before. I just removed the wick, torched it, juiced it, torched it again and put it back. As a side note, with that gauge of wire you could probably get better results and lower resistance with 4 wraps, and even better with flat ribbon wire (more surface area in contact with juice = more vapor).

But if you're getting satisfying vaporishness at 2.2ohms, by all means stop there and don't worry about it. But if you're still curious --and of course for me the grass seems to be always greener...-- I am right now getting stupefyingly huge clouds and flavor from my RSST that I freshly rebuilt (for like the 30th time) this AM. It's a 500 SS mesh wick that is pretty loosely rolled with a somewhat hollow center and clearly smaller than the wick hole; 4 snug wraps of 0.8mm ribbon Kanthal coming out to a stable 0.9ohms (I use a mech only); and the RSST has a shortened top cap (reduced air chamber makes it better, they say) and a silver-plated replacement center (positive) post. And because I've had the new top cap and center post for a while, I know that the pliable sort-of-hollow wick and the evenly snug ribbon coil are what have made the most difference.

 

[folkphys]

Here's the coil.

Here's the cap

 

[BDUAres]

Couple of quick questions:

1) I have 32 kanthal wire, and use a DIY ceramic wick ala PetSmart air-stone in my RSST. I have tried 4 wraps, 3 and 2 wraps, and I get varying ohms from 1.6 to 3 ohms. Do you get more ohms the more wraps you make? I noticed at 5 wraps I had 3, and at 2 wraps I had 1.6. Other times I have had lower ohms with more wraps, so I am a bit confused.

2) I bought my RSST used and it had no fill hole stopper. I popped a thin bolt in the hole, but it is far from leakproof that way. Is there anything I could buy/make to fill the hole so juice doesn't come out, or am I stuck with keeping it upright all the time and making it a "home only" attachment instead of a carry to work device?

 

[Hectus]

From the pic you posted , I can already see the problem with a half eye closed, you got big gaps between ur lower wrapps and the coil. That wont work, they basicly do nothing other than glowing red.

You wick and coil looks great other than this. Wrapp it tight(er), pulse it carefully until u get them glowing, every single one of them, if you have trouble getting them to glow, use a needle or something to move the particular wire a tiny bit until u see it starts glowing.

I see you have 6 wrapps of wire, you dont really need that much and it makes it much easier if u settle for 4 or 5 wrapps, wich should bring u somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 ohms. Then what u can do if u still have gaps between the wire and the wick on the buttom, is use a tiny screwdriver, right next to the negative screw, and push or drag the wire there until it tightens up on the wick.