Rusty coils?

[UncleChuck]

I'm sure most people who use Kanthal and cotton are used to the brown/reddish coloring your cotton gets with an older coil. I had always thought this was just coil gunk dissolving into the liquid coloring it, but I'm not so sure now, and I'm thinking, is it rust?

Kanthal is Iron based so it makes sense. Repeating heating and cooling and exposure to air seems like it would cause rust pretty quickly.

The reason I'm thinking it's rust and not coil gunk, is because if I re-wick an old coil, let it sit a couple days juiced up, without ever actually firing it, I still get that red/brown stain on my wicks. Older coils that have been dry burned clean several times also start to get a reddish/brownish color to the wire itself, usually worse in the middle of the coil.

So rust? Dangerous? It seems like if it was dangerous something would have happened by now, many people have been sucking on kanthal for years, so I'm not terribly worried. I just figured I'd see what the community has to say.

 

[certus11]

I'm sure most people who use Kanthal and cotton are used to the brown/reddish coloring your cotton gets with an older coil. I had always thought this was just coil gunk dissolving into the liquid coloring it, but I'm not so sure now, and I'm thinking, is it rust?

Kanthal is Iron based so it makes sense. Repeating heating and cooling and exposure to air seems like it would cause rust pretty quickly.

The reason I'm thinking it's rust and not coil gunk, is because if I re-wick an old coil, let it sit a couple days juiced up, without ever actually firing it, I still get that red/brown stain on my wicks. Older coils that have been dry burned clean several times also start to get a reddish/brownish color to the wire itself, usually worse in the middle of the coil.

So rust? Dangerous? It seems like if it was dangerous something would have happened by now, many people have been sucking on kanthal for years, so I'm not terribly worried. I just figured I'd see what the community has to say.

Bumpiiing

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[ElectricalSocket]

Nicotine oxidation + flavoring build up? Maybe oxidation of the flavoring as well? It happens almost overnight though. It doesn't happen with diy unflavored juice. In my opinion and experience.

Edit: It has to be from the coil vaporizing the flavoring. Not all of it is vaporized and I'm assuming some of it is 'burned' in a way.




This build has cotton through the coils and then 2 separate pieces to hold a little bit more juice in there. I'm dripping on the separate pieces and they're clean. The wicks in the coils are how you describe. Since this doesn't happen with unflavored, it has to be the coil+flavoring. Not rust though IMO.

Edit2: Just reread where you said it happens even letting it sit for a few days without firing it. I'm thinking some kind of oxidation, but yet my 2 separate pieces haven't darkened yet. I use light yellow-colored juice though, is yours really dark? Maybe a reaction between the flavorings in your juice? I dunno, just rambling.

 

[zachly]

It seems to me that it could be a mixture of juice and oxidation. A quick dry burn and rinse usually clears it right out. ??

 

[UncleChuck]

It seems to me that it could be a mixture of juice and oxidation. A quick dry burn and rinse usually clears it right out. ??

Dry burn will clean off all the gunk, but it seems to come back much quicker on an old coil vs. a new one. And it's not the typical gunk, the coil will still look clean, but I just start getting a reddish brown seepage into the juice.

Let me look through my coil graveyard and see if I can find any oldies that look rusty so I can post up a pic

Ok I found a few rusty lookin ones, it's a little worse on the single coil, the double coil's rusty section is focused more towards the bottom. Sorry for the crappy pics, I'm relying on my phone, but hopefully the reddish brown color comes through. And those coils were dry burned before being dismounted. The single also seems to have grown chunks of rust or something between the twists, I don't remember that when i removed the coil.



On a similar subject, does anyone know why/if aluminum grows some type of crystal when exposed to juice and air?

Before junking my octopus I drilled holes in the cap (bypassing the silly deck airflow) which exposed the bare aluminum under the black anodizing. After not too long, the holes started closing up with some sort or residue or builup. Cleaned it out, threw it back in the junk box, next time I checked it there was that same odd white crystal like buildup.

Aluminum drip-tips that have the anodizing worn off where they plug into the atty also grow this same white mushy crystal looking stuff when sitting in the junk box for long periods. For a long time I thought I was just getting obscene amounts of lip gunk in my junk box, but I speficially cleaned and separated these things and it still comes back.

What the heck is it? It's scared me off using anything aluminum, and after hearing about a new atty with an aluminum post, it really made me wonder what was going on.

Two mystery problems for the price of one!

 

[UncleChuck]

Here's some pics of the aluminum gunk I'm talking about. I forgot that it also happens on my old boge and smok carto tanks which are some sort of plated aluminum. The part where the carto scrapes against the caps has exposed the bare aluminum, and lots of nasty white gunk springs fourth. The notches I filed into the base cap for flush mount airflow also sprouted the same white gunk.



And the two air holes with gunk in them on my octopus



I know it looks like lip gunk, but I assure you it's not. The carto-tanks have been cleaned several times and been sitting in a sealed ziplock bag for well over 6 months now without use. Octopus has been used more recently, but not within the last few months, and cleaned after.

Whatever it is, it seems to be eating away at the aluminum, the carto tank pictured is actually pitted and scarred once the white crap is scrubbed off. Does juice rapidly attack Aluminum or something? Kinda freaky considering how long I used Boge and smok tanks, luckily I switched to IBtanks back then so hopefully I didn't vape too much corroded aluminum gunky stuff (official name)

 

[Harley0227]

The white "gunk" your seeing is oxidation of the aluminum. It will happen in sealed or unsealed areas. Its basically moisture in the surrounding air (or from our juices) reacting with the aluminum. Ours is galvanic corrosion, due to using two different metals. Galvanic corrosion, also known as dissimilar metal corrosion, occurs when aluminum is electrically connected to a more noble metal, and both are in contact with the same electrolyte. Also, when removed, the aluminum will be pitted, as the corrosion "eats" the softer aluminum away.

 

[rurwin]

Aluminium (sic ;-) ) is always corroded. In fact it corrodes very, very fast. However the oxide layer that forms almost immediately then seals off the metal from the air so that the corrosion slows right down, even though the oxide layer is too thin to see. Over longer periods of time and harsher conditions you will start to see this white crystalline dust.

So I'd brush off the crystals, but I wouldn't be unduly concerned.

 

[UncleChuck]

Cool, I'm glad it's nothing serious. One down, thanks!

Since you guys seem knowledgeable when it comes to metals, any idea on the rusty coils? An issue, or am I just being super paranoid today? I remember people freaking out when that pic of the Kraken clone with the non-stainless plug was sent around because of the rust that was pouring out of it. Seems a bit silly if everyone is vaping on coils with rust (at some point, at least)

 

[Maurice Pudlo]

Acid type cleaners can remove the thin aluminium oxide layer and cause rapid oxidizing, an old car guy trick of cleaning engine stuff with easy-off oven cleaner was cool when everything was made of iron or steel, try it on aluminium and you get white crystal like growths really quickly. I presume even milder acids will do the same just at a slower pace. Very finely polishing tends to prevent or at the very least slow such unsightly growths.

Maurice

 

[zachly]

Dry burn will clean off all the gunk, but it seems to come back much quicker on an old coil vs. a new one. And it's not the typical gunk, the coil will still look clean, but I just start getting a reddish brown seepage into the juice.

Let me look through my coil graveyard and see if I can find any oldies that look rusty so I can post up a pic

Ok I found a few rusty lookin ones, it's a little worse on the single coil, the double coil's rusty section is focused more towards the bottom. Sorry for the crappy pics, I'm relying on my phone, but hopefully the reddish brown color comes through. And those coils were dry burned before being dismounted. The single also seems to have grown chunks of rust or something between the twists, I don't remember that when i removed the coil.

View attachment 311725View attachment 311726

On a similar subject, does anyone know why/if aluminum grows some type of crystal when exposed to juice and air?

Before junking my octopus I drilled holes in the cap (bypassing the silly deck airflow) which exposed the bare aluminum under the black anodizing. After not too long, the holes started closing up with some sort or residue or builup. Cleaned it out, threw it back in the junk box, next time I checked it there was that same odd white crystal like buildup.

Aluminum drip-tips that have the anodizing worn off where they plug into the atty also grow this same white mushy crystal looking stuff when sitting in the junk box for long periods. For a long time I thought I was just getting obscene amounts of lip gunk in my junk box, but I speficially cleaned and separated these things and it still comes back.

What the heck is it? It's scared me off using anything aluminum, and after hearing about a new atty with an aluminum post, it really made me wonder what was going on.

Two mystery problems for the price of one!

Oh man those look nasty!


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[Jjshbetz11]

I never had any of the posted pics problems. One of my drippers is a octopus, never had that happen before. And those coils seems like rust

 

[ElectricalSocket]

So you got me curious and I checked my graveyard drawer (RIP protank heads). These were definately not dried off when I threw them in the drawer. I see a little bit o' oxidation (rust?).


You might be correct. What I'm confused about is that it doesn't rust on me with unflavored and when it's juiced up. Staying wet in PG/VG prevents the oxidation? Dunnno. Interdasting though.

Edit: Or put another way, like you said, does it rust while we're using it?

 

[UncleChuck]

Glad to see I'm not alone!

I assume the juice does somewhat insulate the coil from the air (could very well be wrong) slowing down the rusting compared to sitting fairly dry in open air. The first time I noticed it was when I had a dripper that I hadn't used in about a week, popped the cap off, juiced her up, and instantly got that gross brown stain running from the coil. It was fairly dry while being stored, so maybe that allowed more air to get to the metal and rust it worse than normal.

I guess the simple fix is to not let coils get very old, once I started using twisted wire I liked the vape so much I'd leave a build in there longer than usual, instead of rebuilding everything every couple days like usual.

I'm betting the juice plays some part too, maybe the more water in the juice (I know some companies use distilled water to thin liquids) the faster it rusts, because it does seem to happen quicker with some juices compared to others.

Looking around online it doesn't seem like there's a huge danger, inhaling rust dust supposedly CAN cause a condition where there are deposits in the lungs, but supposedly this isn't too severe, and I doubt we are inhaling enough to cause it anyway. I just always worry about random interactions or something that could happen, dust being fairly benign but once inhaled in solution with liquid can cause something else to happen.

I'm probably just being paranoid, and who doesn't want an excuse to rebuild earlier anyway?