So you think you can design a coil?
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Steam engine calculates total surface area of the wire not coil to wick contact area. 32 gauge wire covering the same area of wick as 26 gauge has almost twice the surface contact, so 100mW/mm^2 from 32 gauge is about the same as 200mW/mm^2 from 26 gauge. With 24 or 22 you get even less surface contact.
Edit: this analysis was done for 28awg and 22awg but the point is the same.
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The coil above will do both.Yeah, some clarification here. I only build for flavor. I don't want a foggy house.
Do you have any ideas to make a more efficient coil design?
So what are we trying to maximize Boden, vapor production, flavor, something else or some combination of the above? You did mention vapor (and donkeys) but you didn't elaborate
Efficiency
I've come to think that it's all just a function of surface area along with thermal mass. The object is to lower thermal mass while increasing surface area. Stapled fused Clapton type builds are doing that sort of balancing trade off. There are also some "wickless" builds that take the concept to the extreme.
An ideal efficiency build would plunk a high surface area heating element in a small volume of juice and instantly flash boil the whole of it -- as much of the applied applied power into the juice as possible minimizing all losses. It would be very hot but rich with plenty of flavor and vapor. I doubt anyone would be able to stand it for the heat but that's efficiency.
The "wickless" builds seem to do it the other way around but same concept. Rather than apply coil directly to juice, apply juice directly to coil. Hit the button and (virtually) poof -- lots of heat, flavor and vapor.
An ideal efficiency build would plunk a high surface area heating element in a small volume of juice and instantly flash boil the whole of it -- as much of the applied applied power into the juice as possible minimizing all losses. It would be very hot but rich with plenty of flavor and vapor. I doubt anyone would be able to stand it for the heat but that's efficiency.
The "wickless" builds seem to do it the other way around but same concept. Rather than apply coil directly to juice, apply juice directly to coil. Hit the button and (virtually) poof -- lots of heat, flavor and vapor.
You fiddled with the wires... Admit it...haha
Well consider it has to do with coil building, it should be in the Coil Builds section. It is a sub-category of vaping as a whole.
Well, I'll put some thought to it. Considering efficiency is one of my obsessions (interests) you would think I've applied it to vaping, but I haven't. And winter will be upon us again soon, and my coils will become very ugly . In the winter I just have to be happy my coils light up right.
. In the winter I just have to be happy my coils light up right.
This has nothing to do with building.
This is (was) about efficient use of electricity, thermodynamics, geometry and airflow as applied in vaping. This was going to be about the whole system and how all the parts work together. I wanted input from the general forum not just coil builders.
look in my signature line at the "Contact Coil Demonstration" easiest way to make a coil.Well, I'll put some thought to it. Considering efficiency is one of my obsessions (interests) you would think I've applied it to vaping, but I haven't. And winter will be upon us again soon, and my coils will become very ugly
Right now I'm ok. I can do some pretty cool builds when its warm. Once it gets cold though, things get worse and worse. Like that ugly build I posted for you yesterday. I think that was February? Yeah, that's what happens in February.
I did recently get a (real) Coilmaster. It works well for 2.5+mm coils. Not so much for 2mm coils though. Those I'll still have to wrap by hand.
You really should try the coil gizmo I use in that video. I got it at Michael's for about nine dollars add a couple alligator clips and some zip ties and you're done. It's much easier to use than a Coil master.
This is my coil design process:
1. Chose power level.
2. Chose number of coils.
3. Chose single or dual wire, parallel or twisted, etc.
4. Chose a wire gauge and resistance combination that allows me to be in my desired heat flux and heat capacity range.
I modeled the tri-wire build you're using in Steam Engine. 11.5 wraps, 0.86 ohms, HF at 40 watts is 92 mW/mm² and HC is 35.8 mJ/K. I calculated the coil width to be 0.276".
Then I modeled it using three 26 gauge wires with about the same heat flux. 5.5 wraps, 0.11 ohms, HF at 40 watts is 89 and HC is 74. Coil width is 0.264". This setup will have noticeable heat up delay when it's cold at 40 watts. That will go away with more power, say around 60 watts. I consider both of these setups to be better at a bit more power than 40 watts, but that's just my preference.
Coil to wick contact area is however almost identical between them, even though one is built with 32 gauge wire and the other with 26 gauge.
OTOH, I don't worry about coil to wick contact area. I have two Mutation X V1's and have done a bit of experimenting with them, vaping dissimilar setups alternately at the same power. In one experiment I set both up with 24 gauge Kanthal using the same 2.5mm pin. One at 0.2 ohms and the other at 0.4 ohms, so this one had twice the contact area of the first. They vaped pretty much the same at between 40-60 watts, with the bigger coil having a small advantage in flavor, but of course it had heat up delay at lower power. At higher than 60 watts the bigger coil was more noticeably better and the coil heat up time disappeared. I'm not sure if the difference was from the increase in contact area or the lower HF because I never investigated further. The difference was so small that other factors in coil design are more important to me and I don't vape at much over 40 watts anyway
Without knowing how you define efficiency, it's hard to comment on how to improve a coil design. I like using thicker wire because I find it's easier to build with and maintain. I use single wire coils for the same reason. Sometimes I use contact coils and sometimes I use spaced, with the spaced having a slight flavor edge over contact at around 40 watts. With Ni and Ti coils I always use cotton because of the softness of these materials, with Kanthal I switch back and forth with rayon as I feel like. I like my set ups to not have any heat up delay. I'm not a flavor chaser or a cloud chaser, so my most efficient coil designs are middle of road womp-rat designs that combine my preference of all these variables to give me what I want with a build on that day.
I'm sure that if I was a flavor chaser or a could chaser my preferences would be different and coil to wick contact area might become something I would experiment with more. For now it just doesn't matter to me.
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I have Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis which makes building coils very hard to do, try to keep my hands from shaken while installing the coil is the hardest part for me now, as I use a Coil Roller these days it kind of helps wrapping them easier at least!
Its called Artistic Wire? I'll have to look into that!! Never watched that video before!
This is very similar to my normal builds, I use 3-4 strands of 28 per coil parallel, or on a atty that needs to be ran a little cooler 30 gauge. My favorite cloudy build is 6 strand parallel dual coils using 30 gauge wire. They usually ohm out a bit low for 40w but they get really angry at the 50-60 range, and the 6 strander at 70-80. When I have time I look forward to trying to get one that works great at 40w.
My thoughts for building this way was concerning the heating up of the atties. In Tx heat larger gauge wire gets your atty hot with just 1 or two puffs. This is even worse when using a Veritas or Marquis with all that extra metal. I scorched a Veritas insulator within the first week of having it. The smaller wire has practically no ramp up or down.
An interesting shop event would be something like this.
My Cthulu v2 build right now is 5 wrap, 3/32 bit dual coils. 3 strands of 30 gauge .2ohms. I haven't pushed it hard yet, but it vapes nice at 40w 2.88 volts. I am still working on getting the wicking right to keep up.
My thoughts for building this way was concerning the heating up of the atties. In Tx heat larger gauge wire gets your atty hot with just 1 or two puffs. This is even worse when using a Veritas or Marquis with all that extra metal. I scorched a Veritas insulator within the first week of having it. The smaller wire has practically no ramp up or down.
An interesting shop event would be something like this.
My Cthulu v2 build right now is 5 wrap, 3/32 bit dual coils. 3 strands of 30 gauge .2ohms. I haven't pushed it hard yet, but it vapes nice at 40w 2.88 volts. I am still working on getting the wicking right to keep up.
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