So many coils, so little ohms. Why?

[Lavaca5]

Just started making my own SS wicks and coils. I've done a couple of short vertical SS wicks for my Phoenix bully and I made my first genesis-style wick and coil last night. They have all worked really well, but I can't seem to get the resistance up very high. The genesis wick has 8 or 9 wraps on it, and it still comes out at 1.5 ohms. I'm using 30 awg Kanthal rather than the "standard" 32. My understanding is that a lower-gauge wire is less resistant than a higher-gauge wire (of course, I could have that backwards, in which case I'm really baffled), so I expected to need more wraps than I would if I were using 32. From the tutorials I've seen, most people seem to come out between 1.8 and 2 ohms with 4 or 5 wraps using 32 awg. I've pretty much doubled that, and I'm still at 1.5. I'm not getting any burnt or metallic taste, and no E1 messages on the Provari, so I don't think I have a short. Is there that much difference in resistance between 30 and 32, or are there other factors involved? Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[JollyRogers]

Actually, I believe it is a short in your coil at some point. It still vapes fine, because the rest of the coil is doing its job, and because of that there appears to be no hot spots etc... So if you dry burn, do ALL the coils glow? Or just the top 4-5?

 

[Lavaca5]

I guess I do - the middle coils glow, but it looks like there's one at the bottom and a couple at the top do not. Do I just need to oxidize the wick more?

 

[JollyRogers]

You could try that... Or you could dry fire them and while doing so use a toothpick and nudge the coil where it stops glowing till it glows evenly... The goal is all light up fairly even, at relatively the same time. Careful you don't over do it and melt anything... Not sure if that Phoenix has plastic surrounding your coil etc... Zen has a nice demo of this available at ProVape I think.

 

[denali_41]

you may need to oxidize more ?

are any coils touching one another ??

are there any kinks in your coil wire before install ??

 

[JollyRogers]

denali has a point IRT to kinks. I use my thumb nail or the shaft on a screwdriver to smooth the kanthal or nichrome before use.

 

[Lavaca5]

Thanks, guys - good advice. The coils are not touching. I don't think there are any kinks in the wire, none visible anyway. The coils that aren't firing are at the very top of the wick, which was the part that was closest to my fingers when I was torching it. It's quite likely that part didn't get oxidized heavily enough. Back to the torch with it!