I've always used a mini torch to anneal my wire before winding. It just makes the process more exact, since the wire loses its springiness after annealing and it retains the shape during installation. I've also heard that annealing can change the chemistry and the physical properties of the wire and introduce outgassing of metal molecules.
Dry burning has also been touted as a negative, with pulsing being an alternative to dry burning to a cherry red state. Any comments on the proper way to clean a coil while doing a re-wick?
If it's true that bringing resistance wire to a cherry red state is a negative, then every toaster in the world is a source of dangerous particles when heated. Is the controversy over dry burning just being overly paranoid or is it a real concern?
I do notice that after a few rewicks with a short dry burn that the wire eventually takes on a dull, rusty appearance. At that point, I just wind a new coil. typically, I get a month or maybe two before the coil looks like it's at end of life.
How do we turn out a safe and effective heating element?
Good question and as a reminder to those more recently landing on this thread...Some months back the issue of torching coils came to an ugly head when Dr. Farsalinos suggested this might be a
negative as you say. Well, he happened to be right. But we should never say never. The subject was thoroughly analyzed by many posters including materials specialists and many far more knowledgeable than myself on the thread...
The end of microcoils? | E-Cigarette Forum.
Bottom line is, YES, dry burning with a torch especially with random inconsistent temperatures may expose wire to overheating stressing the material, Kanthal included. Same applies to pulse dry burning (for oxidation). Such extraordinary temperatures might result in off-gassing of undesirable chemistry which varies by wire composition. So should we not torch or dry-burn wire? That conclusion would be arguably excessive and for the very same reasons, the unpredictability of various factors that may apply. Simply, that there is a reasonably safe straightforward way to accomplish electrical annealing.
How do we make it predictable? So that we can avoid these potentials, there must be a reasonably precise method or technique?
Aware of Kanthal's potentials for alumina development of its surface it seemed to me that
breakdown voltage could be raised enough to make an effective thermal contact coil feasible. That's to acknowledge that contact coils are essentially shorts and will go hot without this. Knowing too that pin vise winding was both practical and simple to do I began a program of study and development which expanded to ECF on the ergonomics and mechanics of completing contact coils to a reliable state of stability electrically. That is what a
tensioned micro coil achieves.
The objectives of the wind are to arrive at sufficient and uniform turn-to-turn internal wire strain for
adhesion (closest turn-to-turn proximity, cold working) and the resulting symmetry of the element derived from the added rigidity. The completion of the coil then becomes possible, uniform oxidation, in practical terms. If as consistent as possible and made more likely by the preceding you get as close as humanly possible (perhaps more precise than even machine production as wire varies greatly) to an optimal heating element as we might see. All this is made feasible by the simple technique of feel to detect the optimal closest proximity
for that wind much as we rely on hearing to detect frequency. Secondly, we now can pulse at rather low voltages and infrequently to begin to induce the oxidation process. The degree of practiced consistency whether by hand or jig quickly demonstrates
visually the extent of success of
adhesion we attained. In this way, in a matter of seconds you know whether the wind is viable or not. That's the technique. No misses, no guessing.
You do lose some of the rigidity with pulsed oxidation, even at the low voltage that forms the symmetry. But typically
if you do not overheat the wire it's just enough to induce the start of alumina formation. Enough is then retained to keep the coil wanting to remain a coherent segment. You need much higher energy inputs of external heat and manual forcing (compression) to unite turns to coherence otherwie. Far too much work, ultimately inconsistent and unreliable vs. a tensioned micro.
My argument advocating tensioned winding vs. coilers is that without controlling strain you are still merely
forming the wire. Far more energy and force must be applied than the inputs from pulsing. Balanced strain radically reduces the need for power even more! So there is far less chance of overheating, distorting or damaging the wire or its surface.
That means at the end of the day that we expose Kanthal to far lower temperatures than by other approaches.
How great can you get? Especially for a beginner. Folks have been building coils in this way for thousands of years. Not, forcing or banging or artistically trying to shape wire into a congruous state. Think about it. Why struggle when nature (physics) provides the answer?
Sorry for the long summation but I'd neglected to speak to the subject overall since the mentioned thread above. There are good and sound reasons why every new vaper should be encouraged to learn what strain can do for wire and the wind. It's part and parcel of how we can achieve the best performance and reliability (safety) from Kanthal. Once we see just how well it can produce a whole new dimension of vaping opens to us.
Good luck and thank you very much for the question.
