rta how to build it?

[tara81]

Rebuildable atomizers, how much risk is involved? I watched a few videos explaining how to wrap a coil, how to know the wraps needed , using an ohm meter, scrapping the coil, firing the coil onyour mod, with ceramic tip squeezing , scrapping the coil until it heats up evenly from the middle ... but how safe is this? How do I even know what a hot spot is? What if the ohm reader and my mod ohm reader both malfunctions? Is that even possible? Would my third protection be my mod to prevent battery discharge? I was thinking of using 30 gauge kanthal ( nickel allergy to ss) and using 25mm diameter in bebwteen coils.. cotton bacon v2 for wicking..
I want to mtl vape at better flavor then my nautilus mini, hoping to make coils from the 1.2 ohm to the 1.8 ohm range.

Someone mentioned I need to torch my wire as well before wrapping to remove factory impurities from spooling? Then I've read kanthal is manufactured with protective metals and you don't need to torch it... so confusing..

Also I cannot find any tutorials about changing the coil once the flavor is gone... do I just clean it, remove the wire and proceed? How should I clean it? I've always just cleaned my nautilus tanks in hot water overnight.

I use target mini and may be buying a target Nano in the future.. I know these have some protections...


I'm a somewhat paranoid person and just cannot find a guide for rta single coil building written up, they are mostly videos. The reason I want to rebuild is I am a MTL vaper and would like to get better , more flavorable tanks like the candy vape berserker mini, smjy doggystyle and the sxk prime. ( clones of doggystyle 2k16 and kayfun prime I think? )

 

[Marc411]

Tara,

AS long as you test your coil on a ohm tester or regulated mod you will be safe. Firing an untested coil on a mechanical mod is when you can run into issues. It's much easier then you may think and you will get better with practice.

Just remember to tighten the screws good and tight on your posts and trim your tails as short as possible.

You'll do just great!

 

[Hawise]

I agree with Marc411. It's not very dangerous. It's not likely that both your ohmmeter and your mod will malfunction the same way at the same time, and even then your (regulated) mod shouldn't fire if there's a short. Using a mech mod would be a different story. In any case, you can use steam engine to calculate what the resistance of your coil should be, and even if your ohmmeter is wrong the chance that it will match the reading you're expecting is pretty much nil.

One thing I would suggest is to remember to check your resistance not just when you build the coil, but again after you put the tank together. If you leave your leads too long or build too big, the coil could touch the metal of the chamber and cause all sorts of problems. You know this hasn't happened as long as the resistance doesn't change after you put the tank together.

A hot spot is a bit of a coil that heats up faster than the rest. When you test fire the coil, it should turn red starting in the middle and then spread fairly evenly to the ends. If a little spot turns bright red and then it takes a few seconds for the rest of the coil to catch up, that's a hot spot.

I've never torched a wire before using it. I believe it can be useful with low gauge (thicker than you're using) to take some of the spring out of it, but like you I'm an MTLer so I've never used a wire I had a problem with. If there's anything on the surface, it'll get burned off when you test fire the coil.

When you get a burnt flavour or things just aren't working as well anymore, you'll want to replace the wick. Pull your old wick out gently. You might want to put your finger on the coil (make sure it's cool!) while you pull it out because it's easy to deform 30 ga wire. Then rinse the coil. Then heat it to burn off any gunk that's stuck to it and rinse again. If you have a wire brush, you can use that to get rid of some of the gunk. When your coil is clean, just rewick it the same way you did when you built the coil.

You won't usually replace the coil itself until something happens to it. It might break, or you might pull it out of shape while you're rewicking it. Then you unscrew it, wash off your deck and start again.

RTAs can be a great move - they certainly were for me. My Kayfun Prime is my favourite, but there are many other good ones. Good luck, and ask again if you find any new questions (or don't understand anything I've said so far).

 

[tara81]

Thank you so much Hawise! I think you answered all my questions

Did you notice much flavor difference from the nautilus mini vs the kayfun prime ? I really hope it's worth the upgrade, I want more flavor so badly, but I don't want to spend tons of time dripping or sqoonkong.

Oh and one more thing, if I stuff too much cotton or not enough cotton , or the wire somehow breaks from me screwing too tightly without realizing, will it be noticeable or will I blow up? Lol. .

 

[madstabber]

Thank you so much Hawise! I think you answered all my questions

Did you notice much flavor difference from the nautilus mini vs the kayfun prime ? I really hope it's worth the upgrade, I want more flavor so badly, but I don't want to spend tons of time dripping or sqoonkong.

Oh and one more thing, if I stuff too much cotton or not enough cotton , or the wire somehow breaks from me screwing too tightly without realizing, will it be noticeable or will I blow up? Lol. .

If you have too much cotton you’ll get a dry hit. Too little and it will leak. Wire busted and mod won’t fire. No explosions

 

[DaveP]

Thank you so much Hawise! I think you answered all my questions

Did you notice much flavor difference from the nautilus mini vs the kayfun prime ? I really hope it's worth the upgrade, I want more flavor so badly, but I don't want to spend tons of time dripping or sqoonkong.

Oh and one more thing, if I stuff too much cotton or not enough cotton , or the wire somehow breaks from me screwing too tightly without realizing, will it be noticeable or will I blow up? Lol. .

It's completely safe as long as you use an electronic mod (no mechs). The electronics will detect a short circuit or open circuit and warn you when you fire the coil. If the coil shorts you will also get a message that it's shorted. Watch coil winding videos on YouTube until you feel comfortable trying it yourself.

If a coil leg breaks when you tighten it, that will be obvious. You'll get a message from your electronic mod that it's open. Too much cotton may starve the wick, but your first clue is that the coil legs bend when you try to pull it through the coil. Not enough cotton gives you a hot vape and terrible taste. The cotton should be snug enough that it fills the coil and slides through with light pull pressure. Use a twisting motion as you pull the wick to prevent bending the coil legs.

You can also order bags of premade coils in various sizes and skip the winding part at first.

Rayon shrinks when juiced up, so it needs to be snug when installed. Cotton expands as you add juice, so it just needs to be tight enough to fill the coil. I vaped cotton wicks for a long time. About a year ago I changed to Rayon and haven't gone back to cotton. Rayon wicks last much longer and they stay clean much longer than cotton.

 

[stols001]

It's safe. I'm entirely sure that I have made most mistakes you CAN make as I learned how to build, and I'm still alive. On a regulated mod, if something is in error the coil just won't read on the mod.

You do want to learn steam-engine.org so you can "calculate out" your build and wire and I found a coilbuilding kit very handy. An ohm's reader is great for testing your build, although I tend to completely test my build (including wicking and filling it on the ohm's reader, I'd rather leak all over the ohm's reader than my more expensive mod.

Good luck, and sad to say, the real challenge (after coil building) is wicking. You probably want to watch a video review or two on your atomizer, not so much for reviewer's opinion, but more to get a sense of how it likes to be wicked. I vastly prefer rayon to cotton, so I might consider some different wicking materials to see what you like best.

But, you really are going to be fine. I have a fine motor tremor, and even with that, with enough practice, I get by, etc.

Best of luck,

Anna

 

[Marc411]

Agreed, I had more challenges with wicking than I did building coils.

 

[tara81]

So if I bought premade Clapton coils , would they fit on mini tanks? Are they better for flavor? Do they go through ejuice too fast for 2 ml capacity tanks? I ask because I have a target mini mod, which can only use 22ml diameter or less tanks. I might get a bigger mod, not sure.. I really like small devices. I was looking at a sxk prime, smjy doggystyle and vandyvape berserker mini tanks. Can those use Clapton coils? Or do they perform great without needing a Clapton coil?

 

[The Yeti]

I can highly recommend the Berserker! My first MTL atty after many years of DL'ing and the Berserker is pretty slick. Easy to build on, small & large tanks, easy top fill, etc. And, if you go to Vapor Range right now you can get it for around $13 (with the Mothers Day coupon code; mother15).

 

[Janusz]

Rebuildable atomizers, how much risk is involved? I watched a few videos explaining how to wrap a coil, how to know the wraps needed , using an ohm meter, scrapping the coil, firing the coil onyour mod, with ceramic tip squeezing , scrapping the coil until it heats up evenly from the middle ... but how safe is this? How do I even know what a hot spot is? What if the ohm reader and my mod ohm reader both malfunctions? Is that even possible? Would my third protection be my mod to prevent battery discharge? I was thinking of using 30 gauge kanthal ( nickel allergy to ss) and using 25mm diameter in bebwteen coils.. cotton bacon v2 for wicking..
I want to mtl vape at better flavor then my nautilus mini, hoping to make coils from the 1.2 ohm to the 1.8 ohm range.

Someone mentioned I need to torch my wire as well before wrapping to remove factory impurities from spooling? Then I've read kanthal is manufactured with protective metals and you don't need to torch it... so confusing..

Also I cannot find any tutorials about changing the coil once the flavor is gone... do I just clean it, remove the wire and proceed? How should I clean it? I've always just cleaned my nautilus tanks in hot water overnight.

I use target mini and may be buying a target Nano in the future.. I know these have some protections...


I'm a somewhat paranoid person and just cannot find a guide for rta single coil building written up, they are mostly videos. The reason I want to rebuild is I am a MTL vaper and would like to get better , more flavorable tanks like the candy vape berserker mini, smjy doggystyle and the sxk prime. ( clones of doggystyle 2k16 and kayfun prime I think? )

I think smjy doggystyle is better choice for beginner than sxk prime because kayfun clones have so many parts that it is much harder to troubleshoot them than very simple doggystyle... and smjy is probably better than sxk doggy because it has less tight draw... but if you like to suck golf ball through a straw both sxk doggystyle and berserker provide great flavor. Siren v2 is also worth consideration I have 2 of them and flavor is very good... better than my Nautilus2 tank and few magnitudes better than my original big Nautilus tank... Siren is also much easier to install coil and wicking...

I think gauge 30 is not the best wire to make kanthal coils as it is very thin and for resistance of 1.2 you would end up with only 2 -3 wraps and such small number of wraps will not provide good flavor... even for SS wire gauge 30 is too thin... I think gauge 26 is optimal with kanthal and gauge 28 for SS when making coils for MTL RTAs.

Making coils is very easy with coil jig... I can make a few dozen coils in less than an hour....$4.91 Iwodevape CW-30/CW-25/CW-20 Wire Coiling Jig Tool (3 Pieces) 3-pack at FastTech - Worldwide Free Shipping

Do not be afraid it is not as difficult as you think... I am 60 years old with quite poor eyesight and after 1 month of vaping I started using my Siren RTA ....

 

[tara81]

I don't like to suck a golf ball through a straw .. I use the widest air flow setting on my nautilis mini. Thanks for the information about the gauges , I didn't know more wraps meant more flavor - although common sense should have told me that.

 

[tara81]

How dO I know what diameter the coils should be ( 20-25-30 ?)

 

[Janusz]

How dO I know what diameter the coils should be ( 20-25-30 ?)

All those diameters will work... beauty of rebuildable RTA is that you can try them all and choose the one you are most satisfied with in regard to not only flavor but ease of wicking...

Generally you try to make coil that is not longer that air flow under it (it can be single hole like doggystyle or three holes in a row like a Siren)... if you have single small hole under coil you do not want long coil because air will hit just the middle of coil

To get the resistance you want you will choose bigger diameter with less wraps...

If you have three holes you can have longer coil with more wraps but to get resistance you want you will choose smaller diameter...

Longer coils are a little harder to wick- shorter coils a little easier... you can extend lenght of coil with smaller number of wraps by spacing slightly wraps so they do not touch each other... benefit of such spacing is bigger contact of wire that theoreticaly provides more flavor but main benefit is that with spaced coil you will not have any hot spots...

Every RTA tank has a range/sweet spot... and when you will have your tank you can get specific for that tank recommendations... usually the most popular for MTL flavor are 2.5 diameter with 6-7 wraps, gauge 26 kanthal that produce around 0.9-1.0 ohm resistance...

 

[Janusz]

Also I cannot find any tutorials about changing the coil once the flavor is gone... do I just clean it, remove the wire and proceed? How should I clean it? I've always just cleaned my nautilus tanks in hot water overnight.
kayfun prime I think? )

Your coil in RTA is just the wire... after you remove gunked old cotton from it you can pulse burnt it to get rid off of residual gunky juice and tiny cotton strands ... blew it with air... and put new cotton.... but if you prefer you can install new coil... 100 feet of kanthal wire can be bought for $5 and from that 100 feet of wire you can make 150 new coils... that comes to $0.03 per coil... yes your new coil will cost you just couple cents.... if you buy Rayon for $15 you can wick 1000 or more coils... as I said in previous post with coil jig you can make couple dozen coils in less than hour... installing a coil and wicking takes no more than 10 minutes...

 

[tara81]

I tried 1.2 ohm coils and didn't like them before. What is the best gauge for 1.5-1.8 ohm coils?

Also, are Clapton coils ok?

 

[bombastinator]

I tried 1.2 ohm coils and didn't like them before. What is the best gauge for 1.5-1.8 ohm coils?

Also, are Clapton coils ok?

They’re ok. Whether they provide an advantage or not is a bit more up in the air. The theory is that a non current carrying wire is wrapped around the current carrying wire to provide more surface area to increase vapor. In practice they do increase vapor somewhat but help flavor not at all, and they do it at the cost of increased heating time.

 

[tara81]

i thought the current was going through all the wires

 

[bombastinator]

i thought the current was going through all the wires

Not with exotic builds. Current follows the shortest thickest wire. The wrap wires on exotic coils are always deliberately much longer and thinner, making them non current carrying. The current carrying wire on exotic builds is generally referred to as the core. Twist coils where all the wires are the same size and length are the exception. There all the wires carry current.