Smoktech RSST POOR vapor production

[stevop7782]

Hey guys, I just got my 1st ever rebuildable, Smoktech RSST. And let me tell ya, im so frustrated with this thing. For 2 days now ive been tryin to make this work for me and im having NO luck whatsoever. The vapor production is like its not even producing any. Ive tried silica wicks, cotton thread wicks and cotton ball wicks and im getting the same results everytime. It always has tons of juice laying on the top also. I took some peeps advice and I drilled out the air hole a bit larger, replaced the white plastic grommet on the center post with a rubber and silicon one. im using this on my vamo v3. can you guys please help me before I have a nervous break down. How do people get these things to pump out great vapor?

heres pics of my setup with cotton:

 

[talon4x4]

The only build I have been satisfied with in my RSST is a SS cable with an Ekowool sleeve, triple twisted 32ga kanthal and 3 maybe 4 wraps, can't remember which. I tried everything else like you and nothing has come close to this setup. I was about to get rid of this thing until I found the cable/ekowool build on Youtube and then saw RipTrippers triple twisted 32ga and decided to put the two together. Couldn't be happier. The clouds are crazy and the throat hit on 6mg juice is perfect. I vape 18mg nic in all my other tanks

 

[stevop7782]

Thx talon... I guess im gonna have to try the mesh... can I get that stuff anywhere besides online?

 

[Bunnykiller]

I have an RSST and am getting a good amount of vapor from it.... not cloud chasing vapor but a decient amount.
The RSST is a finicky topper to get working right tho
You mentioned that you are using a Vamo, what wattage are you running, what type of juice PG%?/VG%?
wire gauge? ohms? it all adds up to good performance, just by having one thing of the several not proper will diminish output.
Mine is setup with 3mm silica in the tank feeding a bed of cotton with a 30ga. nano coil in the horizontal mode running 2.4 ohms at 12 W.
I get great rich flavor and decient vapor density ( as I sed not cloud chasing density)

 

[stevop7782]

hey bunny, thx for the input. the setup I have right now (in the above pics) is straight up organic cotton ball wick, 32g kanthal. its reading 2.2. my juice is 80/20...and as far as wattage, I haven't ben able to dial in a good number yet. I tried 2mm silica doubled up and still almost no vapor. what do you mean by "Mine is setup with 3mm silica in the tank feeding a bed of cotton with a 30ga. nano coil in the horizontal mode running 2.4 ohms at 12 W." im still a newbie with this stuff, sorry lol....thx again

 

[*deleon517*]

while I don't own a rsst, I do know they can be great but are a pain to get there. Few things I have noticed on your pic's is there is a lot of space between each coil, I would suggest getting the coils closer together but not touching. also your cotton should be able to slide in and out of the wick with minimal force, but not fall out with no force. if there is too much cotton your bottom coil will choke it and block the wick, too little and there will be dry spots on the coil. Both will create bad performance and possible dry hits.

Cotton is the biggest risk reward in wicking when starting out as it can frustrate until you find that magical amount, then you won't want to use any other wicking material.

 

[K_Tech]

while I don't own a rsst, I do know they can be great but are a pain to get there. Few things I have noticed on your pic's is there is a lot of space between each coil, I would suggest getting the coils closer together but not touching. also your cotton should be able to slide in and out of the wick with minimal force, but not fall out with no force. if there is too much cotton your bottom coil will choke it and block the wick, too little and there will be dry spots on the coil. Both will create bad performance and possible dry hits.

Cotton is the biggest risk reward in wicking when starting out as it can frustrate until you find that magical amount, then you won't want to use any other wicking material.

I'll second that. The wick in your pics looks a bit on the dry side...?

Did you try firing the coils without the wick to make sure they're heating evenly?

 

[bulldog63h]

Try removing the fill hole plug. That can cause wicking issues.

 

[stevop7782]

Thx for all the inpuy guys... when I get home im gonna try all your bits of info... as far as coil burning evenly, once in a while I do see hot legs...hooe I got that terminology correct. ..lol

 

[Trickydick666]

I've been having same problem with my rsst on my vamo v3, couldn't get silica 3mm wicking to work and switched to cotton much better, 2.2ohms using 30g kanthal wire....still some issues at times though


a bad day at the track is better than a day of not running at all

 

[drews0306]

The setup I use is a twisted 28 gauge kanthal coil wrapped around a a 5/64th drill bit. All coils should touch. I use either cotton wick or ss mesh. I like the cotton more because it is less prone to leak if you drop it. This will fire around .8 ohms. Not sure if your vamo can run it but give it a couple more wraps and you should be right around 1 ohm. Good luck! The rsst could be tricky too because the twisted coil will be stiffer. Once you set it up though it wont go anywhere.

 

[brickfollett]

Ooh! Ooh! pick me!

I humbly regard myself an expert on RSST builds. I have the Pyrex edition. Same setup, different tank material. I used
#500 mesh hollow build
28ga 11 wrap microcoil
drilled the intake hole to 5/64. If you like an open (OPEN) draw, then you'll love this.

The 11 wrap microcoil really covers a lot of surface area on the wick. So it heats a lot of it. I ONLY vape this build with the fill plug IN. It vapes better. While I know this defies gravity, logic, whatever, it just vapes better.

The hollow build is not so the juice can flow up the wick, it is so air can flow down the wick. Unfortunately your RSST is the original, so you can't watch the bubbles come out the bottom of the wick. If you do it right, when you roll your wick, you should be able to see light on the other side of it while holding it level and looking down it (while out of the device)

I wrapped my microcoil off the device. Put a drill bit or something inside the wick, or smaller, maybe a tooth pick to give it rigidity. Wrap that sucker up and wrap it pretty tight. You don't want that microcoil to easily shuffle up or down the wick because it got bumper or something.

Hook up your positive and negative leads and dry burn/pulse away. This part takes time. With a microcoil, your going to have a fair amount of shorting until they pulse out. Just flick the wires and fiddle with it until they go away. Sure you might burn through an entire battery on your device and it might take a half hour but trust me its worth it.

Also, I use 100% VG juice, but I dilute it down quite a bit with distilled water. It just won't flow fast enough up those mesh wicks to keep up with the heat your throwing at it.
My build came out 2.4 ohms. And I vaped it at 5.3-5.8 volts on the Provari (WHOA!)

Yeah, believe it. It vaped like a freight train, was a pig on juice and ate up batteries, but it was such a good vape.

If you haven't drilled the stock RSST intake hole to at least 1/16" you really need to. The tiny intake hole on the stock RSST cap is a joke. If 1/16" isn't quite doing it for you, the 5/64 is really good and my favorite. It'll be a head turner and will blow away some drippers even. Maybe this was just my luck, but I carried this build every day for a couple months. Never leaked, never had a dry hit and always tasted good.

Only caviat is that it takes a few puffs to spool up. Also, with a microcoil that big, at that voltage, you have to hold the fire button for a second for it to begin vaping.
First puff usually won't produce much vapor, but once it warms up, holy man it just starts chuckin it. My gosh.

Love my Pyrex RSST

 

[stevop7782]

Thx everyone... i ordered some 400 ss mesh and should be here any day. So im gonna take everyones awesome advice into consideration and give them all a try. ... a quick question though... do all these styles of rebuildables always have to be kept upright to avoid leaking? And what style rebuildable, if any, can be kept on its side etc etc.... thx again everyone!

 

[brickfollett]

Thx everyone... i ordered some 400 ss mesh and should be here any day. So im gonna take everyones awesome advice into consideration and give them all a try. ... a quick question though... do all these styles of rebuildables always have to be kept upright to avoid leaking? And what style rebuildable, if any, can be kept on its side etc etc.... thx again everyone!

If you can successfully replicate the build I did, then it shouldn't leak. Kayfun style atomizers generally don't leak if their on their side.

With my RSST build, I held it upside down for a couple minutes one time. Incredibly, no leaks

 

[brickfollett]

Thx everyone... i ordered some 400 ss mesh and should be here any day. So im gonna take everyones awesome advice into consideration and give them all a try. ... a quick question though... do all these styles of rebuildables always have to be kept upright to avoid leaking? And what style rebuildable, if any, can be kept on its side etc etc.... thx again everyone!

Also for me, I tried some 400 mesh with the RSST and wasn't really impressed. 500 mesh for me works fantastic, and seems to be a marked difference in wicking. Then again, I don't use any PG so I'm not sure how the VG/PG juices react to different mesh densities or whatever. I've heard that anything above 500 mesh is unnecessary, I've heard of some people using like 625, but at than point your just paying for extra steel. If the 400 mesh doesn't work for ya, I highly recommend the 500 before you give up on mesh, because it really does the trick for me. Let us know the results!

 

[mattmagician]

I do ss cable with an ekowool sleeve and a parallel 28 ga micro coil (3 wraps). Should ring in at about .45 ohms. I drilled out my air hole to 4mm, so this thing vapes like a beast. I hate how it looks on a $250+ mech, but it outperforms dual coils on the kraken or almost any quad coil setup on my atties. I usually vape through two tanks in my RSST per day.

 

[stevop7782]

Hey matt, thanks.... youre not the 1st person to mention this setup. maybe I should try it out. plus matt, should I be using my vamo v3 for this or should I invest in a mechmod???

 

[Bunnykiller]

hey bunny, thx for the input. the setup I have right now (in the above pics) is straight up organic cotton ball wick, 32g kanthal. its reading 2.2. my juice is 80/20...and as far as wattage, I haven't ben able to dial in a good number yet. I tried 2mm silica doubled up and still almost no vapor. what do you mean by "Mine is setup with 3mm silica in the tank feeding a bed of cotton with a 30ga. nano coil in the horizontal mode running 2.4 ohms at 12 W." im still a newbie with this stuff, sorry lol....thx again

Okay here ya go..
I took about 1" length of 3 mm silica and have it in the tank with about 3/8" sticking out of the hole, I place a wad of cotton on top of the silica ( the silica feeds juice to the cotton), My coil is a nano coil ( i wrapped 30 ga around a sewing needle about 12 times), I then set the coil onto the cotton laying down but in line with the airhole ( coil runs from negative screw to the + post, right to left) once that is set up I soak the cotton with juice, replace top and have a good time...

 

[zeromcool]

For best result, keep filling hole open and make sure the cotton wick are not blocking the wicking hole, no need to insert the wick all down to the tank, let the wick sets over the wicking hole and patialy in the hole, not blocking it, try that and let know.

 

[Bunnykiller]

Thx everyone... i ordered some 400 ss mesh and should be here any day. So im gonna take everyones awesome advice into consideration and give them all a try. ... a quick question though... do all these styles of rebuildables always have to be kept upright to avoid leaking? And what style rebuildable, if any, can be kept on its side etc etc.... thx again everyone!

I lay my RSST on its side all the time and no leaks ( as long as the plug is in place )
the HCigar 3.1 Kayfun Clone is also another really nice topper (44$) it doesnt leak while on its side either..