So frustrated with nickel and builds, about ready to go back to kanthal

[absoluttalent]

I have been using my hanamodz v4d for awhile. Its been a champ with my magma and kanger subtank. But that was also with kanthal.
So after doing some reading and watching some videos, I ordered my ni200non-tempered from lightning vapes (28 and 30ga) and decided to give it a go.

Its going on 3 months now, and I cannot get a good TC build no matter what I do
The best I had was a single spaced coil, reading at .17 @14.5w with temp 440 in my Kanger rba. Lasted about 5 days. Flavor was alright, not stellar, but it spit a lot. So maybe the flavor I was getting was more from the spit.

I am at wits end. I went back, re-read as much as I could, watched as much as I could. I am either getting a) too much spitting, b) not enough vapor, c)not enough flavor, or d) hitting temp control within 3 seconds at <13watts

Contact coils, spaced coils, twisted coils, dryburn, no dryburn, cleaned, .11 ohm-.26ohm.

I have tried on my igo-w, mutX v2, magma, kanger sub.
Many different juices.

The only thing I havnt tried, is different brand of wire (I always just bought lightning vapes)
Is it possible I just have a bad batch of wire? Or is it a case of PEBCAK (or Problem Exists Between Chair And Mod in this case)?

 

[dr g]

lv wire is fine
PEBCAM

 

[TheotherSteveS]

I have been using my hanamodz v4d for awhile. Its been a champ with my magma and kanger subtank. But that was also with kanthal.
So after doing some reading and watching some videos, I ordered my ni200non-tempered from lightning vapes (28 and 30ga) and decided to give it a go.

Its going on 3 months now, and I cannot get a good TC build no matter what I do
The best I had was a single spaced coil, reading at .17 @14.5w with temp 440 in my Kanger rba. Lasted about 5 days. Flavor was alright, not stellar, but it spit a lot. So maybe the flavor I was getting was more from the spit.

I am at wits end. I went back, re-read as much as I could, watched as much as I could. I am either getting a) too much spitting, b) not enough vapor, c)not enough flavor, or d) hitting temp control within 3 seconds at <13watts

Contact coils, spaced coils, twisted coils, dryburn, no dryburn, cleaned, .11 ohm-.26ohm.

I have tried on my igo-w, mutX v2, magma, kanger sub.
Many different juices.

The only thing I havnt tried, is different brand of wire (I always just bought lightning vapes)
Is it possible I just have a bad batch of wire? Or is it a case of PEBCAK (or Problem Exists Between Chair And Mod in this case)?

there are only three real issues with getting TC to work properly....

wicking...and I forget the other two..

This could vertainly be an issue with the ST RBA - dont pack it in too much (I assume you are using cotton) and dont stuff it down on the juice holes! Hope you get it sorted out..

 

[noel18]

i agree the nickel is disappointing. Many find it to be great but I agree with the original post. It's not the same as kanthal.

 

[Mad Scientist]

My initial thoughts are if you can't get a good vape using a dripper, something has to be wrong with the power source. A stock Subtank RBA can be tricky to get wicking just right at higher power settings (a dremel to the juice channels fixes that), but the drippers you mention won't have that issue of course. Do you have another TC power source, maybe borrow a friend's for a test vape, to see if the Hana is the cause of the problem?

 

[TheotherSteveS]

i agree the nickel is disappointing. Many find it to be great but I agree with the original post. It's not the same as kanthal.

Its not the same you are right. It is better when it works!!!

 

[kkiet]

I tried it to, very disappointed.

 

[Completely Average]

Let me ask a question, and I want you to think very carefully before you answer.



When you built with kanthal, do you think the temperature stayed under 440 degrees?



Think about that for a little while. Maybe you will see why you're disappointed.

FAR too many people set their temperatures way too low and then blame the nickel for the lack of performance. You want your temps to be the same as a kanthal build when the kanthal is working right, not 50-100 degrees lower. The object is to not scorch your soaking wet wick and prevent dry hits when the wick begins to dry out, not to set your temperature so low that your atty is spitting juice because it's not converting liquid to vapor fast enough.

 

[Nomoreash]

I've been getting good results with my Magma and LV 28ga NI200 non-tempered, hate 30ga but I haven't tried tempered, bought mine before they had tempered.

I'm between 20-25w 430F, below 20w the flavor was lacking, 20 - 25w seems to be my sweet spot and it doesn't hit TP unless it needs more juice or the coil is gunking up. Just tried it at your 14.5w and the flavor was meh.

I've done 9 wrap 2.5 and 8 wrap 3.0id single spaced, both work well and puts me just over .1 but I prefer 3.0id, gets more of the coil over the air hole.

Spitting sounds like either coil placement or wicking. With the Magma I center the coil directly over the air hole, just high enough there's a small visible space between the coil and deck, position the coil to high off the deck and flavor drops off dramatically. I use KGD, cut and compressed just enough it slides through the coil with little resistance, compressing it just a little before putting it in the coil gives it a little expansion once the coil is in place, I've found using to little cotton can cause it to spit. I use just enough length to let the wick legs lay uncompressed on the bottom around the post.

Also after I've put a few ml through it I check that the screws are still snug, usually only needs to be done once. They can sometimes get a little loose with NI200 after initial use. Hope that helps.

 

[tehmidcap]

I got 32 gauge tempered from lightning vapes and 30 gauge regular from temco--I personally like the regular nickel better and find it easier to build with than kanthal. Its much easier to bend the legs and such to get the coil right where you want it and if you accidentally push a few wraps together in the process it's very easy to adjust.

Am I the only one that finds nickel wire more forgiving and easier to work with than kanthal?

 

[Nibiru2012]

Building nickel coils was a learning curve for me too.

It took about 2-3 weeks to finally get it right. I first used 28 gauge but it was too difficult to maintain coil integrity, so I switched to 26 gauge.

I build my coils as follows: 26 gauge annealed Ni200 - 3.5mm ID coil size - 7/8 or 6/7 coil wrap to get either an 0.08 or 0.09 ohm resistance - Mushi Japanese Cotton just barely snug in the coil. On my iPV4 I vape at 420F at around 20-23 Joules. Warm vape with lots of flavor. Never had a dry hit yet.

It takes time. One item I highly recommend is to get a coil winder such as the Universal Tools 6-in-1 Coil Jig or Kuro Coiler Jigs.
The Universal Tools has 4 mandrels from 2.0mm - 3.5mm plus a phillips head driver and slot head driver. It makes very nicely wound tight coils.
Then I pull the mandrel out of the main body and stretch the coil to space it out and tweak it. It takes a little practice but it makes some good looking coils
that perform splendidly.

There is no need to pretest coils, just wick and go.

 

[RandyF]

I have been doing nickel since the beginning, I gave up on using it in RTA's a couple months ago. I can get it to work, but it is simply too unreliable. Like Completely Average said, the spitting is from the temp being too low, so in order to solve that you need to turn the temp up. Now that the spitting issue is solved, you have created an airflow and wicking problem with the higher temp. On some RTA's you can you can compensate, on others, not so much. I really don't want to vape at high wattages with wide open airflow though, I use to and the amount of juice I was burning through was getting pretty ridiculous.

Drippers are the best bet for nickel, the main issue here is you really need a 2 post atty to have enough room for the length of the coil that nickel requires.

Magma....meh, good post design, but suffers from the lack of airflow like the RTA's.
Petri, I won't go into my experience with this atty, but it can be okay for nickel.
Velocity, perfect for nickel IF you build dual nickel coils (I don't), single coils on this atty and your flavor will suffer quite a bit.
Hobo V3, I have no experience yet, but it looks very promising for nickel coils. With its minor design issues I am not willing to pay $90, as soon as I can get a decent clone I will. With it's single airflow option, it may be the best option out there.
Stumpy, another that looks very promising for Nickel but I don't know much about it.

 

[tehmidcap]

I have builds on my billow v2, zephyrus, and silverplay that all work wonderfully on my ipv4. 30 gauge 12 wraps at 2mm works out around .07ish, but there's room for a couple more wraps to raise resistance (or 2.5mm Id).

But I like lots of airflow and nice sized hits, about 430f at about 30-35 joules is my sweet spot and that stays consistent with all three.

I use the coiiling gizmo to get nice even spaces that are as small as possible.

 

[jchisholm]

Do your sanity a favour and try titanium wire. 5 wraps 26 AWG at 300 degrees. I had given up on my dna40 devices but they now vape pretty much as well as my sx350.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

[Cullin Kin]

I have been doing nickel since the beginning, I gave up on using it in RTA's a couple months ago. I can get it to work, but it is simply too unreliable. Like Completely Average said, the spitting is from the temp being too low, so in order to solve that you need to turn the temp up. Now that the spitting issue is solved, you have created an airflow and wicking problem with the higher temp. On some RTA's you can you can compensate, on others, not so much. I really don't want to vape at high wattages with wide open airflow though, I use to and the amount of juice I was burning through was getting pretty ridiculous.

Drippers are the best bet for nickel, the main issue here is you really need a 2 post atty to have enough room for the length of the coil that nickel requires.

Magma....meh, good post design, but suffers from the lack of airflow like the RTA's.
Petri, I won't go into my experience with this atty, but it can be okay for nickel.
Velocity, perfect for nickel IF you build dual nickel coils (I don't), single coils on this atty and your flavor will suffer quite a bit.
Hobo V3, I have no experience yet, but it looks very promising for nickel coils. With its minor design issues I am not willing to pay $90, as soon as I can get a decent clone I will. With it's single airflow option, it may be the best option out there.
Stumpy, another that looks very promising for Nickel but I don't know much about it.

A friend on FB just shared a new RDA with me called the 'STRO Mini.' It's gorgeous! Check it out.

 

[RandyF]

A friend on FB just shared a new RDA with me called the 'STRO Mini.' It's gorgeous! Check it out.

Looks nice, but it is going to fall into the same category as the Velocity, great for dual coils, but no single coil option.

That type of post design though, that needs to be the standard going forward. The fact that it pins the wire against the (solid) wall of the post hole means no more clipped leads. Props to Cisco and Dino for the design.

 

[Pocha]

Building with nickel is indeed a challenge. I almost gave up a couple of times myself. I use 28 or 30g tempered and I got mine from Stealth Vapes. That being said...when it works, it works. Keep trying. After several months of mediocre results I recently made (on a Subtank Mini) what I call my "magic coil" that lasted well over a month and so many tankfuls I lost count...without even re-wicking. Excellent flavor and vapor (for me anyway) and hitting consistently from 20-25 watts @ 450.

If you get desperate or just lazy, FastTech sells remade nickel coils that, shockingly, work really well! They're so good I may just use them from now on.

Good luck!

 

[nilly]

A even spacing and short legs are what you should be aiming for, my best nickel coils, that have lasted very long and been pushing 70W at 500F and up. This wonder coil was made on a wooden screw, pretty small ID, about 2.5mm. i dont think the ID have anything to do with it, but start using screws to wrap your coils, the spacing wont be a problem for sure.

 

[vaperXant]

THIS WILL SOLVE A LOT OF YOUR ISSUES!

Coil spacing is critical. Go to the hardware store, home depot, lowes, it doesn't matter. Goto the screw and bolt section and buy one of or all M1, M1.5, M2, M2.5, M3 and M3.5 machine bolts. I will also attach an image. M1 is 1 millimeter diameter ID. M2 is 2 mm, M2.5 is 2.5 diameter. Each bolt has a thread that is optimal for spacing. You wrap the nickel around the screw and after rotate the coil off the bolt. Each time you will have a perfectly spaced coil.

 

[absoluttalent]

thanks for the advice guys.

I do have some 6-32, 8-32, 10-24 machine screws from work that I tried using. The unscrewing is a PITA for me, but the spacing was nice.
I did re-do another coil the other day, freehand around a 7/64 bit with 28ga. Came out to about .13
I wicked it 3 times to get it feeling just right. Upped my temp to 480, and watts im sitting around 25. It is much improvement over the other ones.

I did mod my subtank awhile back from when I was using some really thick VG juice, made 2 notches on the coil sleeve and deepened the channels a bit.