The end of microcoils?

[druckle]

My friend got MERSA, it's a KILLER! Glad you survived it.

When I went to my normal doctor as an Emergency Room follow up to the MERSA he told me that his father was a professor of Bio- Something-Or-The-Other and when my doc was in medical school his father used to remind him not to get carried away with any victories he might have because "In the end the microbes will win"

 

[orion7319]

When I went to my normal doctor as an Emergency Room follow up to the MERSA he told me that his father was a professor of Bio- Something-Or-The-Other and when my doc was in medical school his father used to remind him not to get carried away with any victories he might have because "In the end the microbes will win"

I hope your well on your way to a full recovery! That is some scary stuff alright! Yes, the only living force of nature that can potentially take out the most advanced force of nature the planet has ever known, is naturally the simplest one. It's an arms race between mind and mutation. Still I see things every now and then like the following, that I find rather cool and encouraging.

Scientists Hit Antibiotic Pay Dirt Growing Finicky Bacteria In Lab : Shots - Health News : NPR

 

[druckle]

I hope your well on your way to a full recovery! That is some scary stuff alright! Yes, the only living force of nature that can potentially take out the most advanced force of nature the planet has ever known, is naturally the simplest one. It's an arms race between mind and mutation. Still I see things every now and then like the following, that I find rather cool and encouraging.

Scientists Hit Antibiotic Pay Dirt Growing Finicky Bacteria In Lab : Shots - Health News : NPR

Wow...that's an interesting article. Thanks orion
Duane

 

[orion7319]

orion, from what I have read nicotine by and of itself, is not addictive. The additional chemicals used in cigarettes to "enhance" them can cause addiction due to the enhanced reaction of the brain to nicotine those chemical cause. A quick Google search will show all kinds of research on nicotine addiction, but every one of them involves cigarettes, not nicotine as a separate, discreet, focus of the research. I have also read, and not seen, that nicotine has been researched for its medicinal properties and yes it does have medicinal properties and more than ********. No ethical peer review panel would even allow research on human subjects if nicotine was, indeed, as addictive as we are lead to believe. I was convinced I was addicted to nicotine but over the time I have been vaping have managed to reduce my nicotine down to 5mg and expect, eventually, to go to no nicotine in my liquids.

Keep in mind I am not a physician, pharmacologist, research scientist and hold no degrees in any recognized field of study. I have never played a doctor on TV and it's been years since I stayed in a Holiday Inn.

It has been known for a long time that big tobacco makes cigs more addictive than natural tobacco really is. Also there are other affects in cigs that you don't get in vaping. I find that cigs can make me feel very happy for example, I never got that with vaping... Could be the Carbon monoxide causing that for all I know. I will have to do the research on nicotine addiction that you are referring to, that sounds pretty interesting! I used to work for a conference center on a college campus as a tech, and I have sat though a ton of conferences and lectures. One day we had keystone in which is a drug rehabilitation center, and the topic was nicotine addiction. They made the a point that nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man, but they also described it as a wonder drug that could improve memory and concentration, was a great anti depressant and even had potential in the treatment for Alzheimer's. He then stated "Unfortunately the delivery method will always kill you!" and then proceeded to pass around a plasticized smokers lung that looked like a slice of burnt bacon. During a break in the conference and undeterred by the burnt out lung of some poor soul that I had just held in my hand, I naturally went outside for a smoke... The looks some of those people were giving me... About a year later around 2008 I got a hold of my first ecig, a really terrible cigalike. I stuck with it though, because of the burnt out smokers lung and because of my newborn son and I'm glad I did, I was eventually able to quit smoking all together when the Bouge cartos came out.

 

[orion7319]

Wow...that's an interesting article. Thanks Orion
Duane

Some of the best scientific discoveries were accidental!

 

[druckle]

It has been known for a long time that big tobacco makes cigs more addictive than natural tobacco really is. Also there are other affects in cigs that you don't get in vaping. I find that cigs can make me feel very happy for example, I never got that with vaping... Could be the Carbon monoxide causing that for all I know. I will have to do the research on nicotine addiction that you are referring to, that sounds pretty interesting! I used to work for a conference center on a college campus as a tech, and I have sat though a ton of conferences and lectures. One day we had keystone in which is a drug rehabilitation center, and the topic was nicotine addiction. They made the a point that nicotine is the most addictive substance known to man, but they also described it as a wonder drug that could improve memory and concentration, was a great anti depressant and even had potential in the treatment for Alzheimer's. He then stated "Unfortunately the delivery method will always kill you!" and then proceeded to pass around a plasticized smokers lung that looked like a slice of burnt bacon. During a break in the conference and undeterred by the burnt out lung of some poor soul that I had just held in my hand, I naturally went outside for a smoke... The looks some of those people were giving me... About a year later around 2008 I got a hold of my first ecig, a really terrible cigalike. I stuck with it though, because of the burnt out smokers lung and because of my newborn son and I'm glad I did, I was eventually able to quit smoking all together when the Bouge cartos came out.

I smoked for..oh....I'm ashamed to say how long. but....from the first vape I never had another cigarette and it's three years now. I'm lucky I guess because vaping gives me more of the happies than tobacco did so I'm in a win-win situation.

Duane

 

[LouisLeBeau]

I smoked for..oh....I'm ashamed to say how long. but....from the first vape I never had another cigarette and it's three years now. I'm lucky I guess because vaping gives me more of the happies than tobacco did so I'm in a win-win situation.

Duane

Same boat. 3 years, 1st vape - no smoking. First couple weeks were.... transitional. Mostly because of poor equipment but it didn't take me long to find good advice here and find a more satisfying setup.

I've tried hard to convert friends and loved ones, with mixed success. Glad I've tried, those closest to me have mostly made the switch.

That nicotine is "the most addictive substance known to man" is a fallacy. CIGARETTES, with their myriad of 4000 chemicals are. Nicotine itself is, by the research I've read, "mildly addictive". Mom died of (well, with) Parkinsons. Wish I had known that nicotine could help. God knows, the cocktails they had her on took their toll over the years. Maybe some 24mg would have eased her suffering, prolonged her happiness and lessened her burdens. I'll never know. I have no plans to quit nicotine. I'm at 6mg now, and will move to 0mg in time for Cotinine tests require by health care, but then back to 6. Let's not forget Big Insurance in the role of trying to put the kaibosh on vaping. They're right there with BT and BP.

 

[BigEgo]

Good morning everyone.

I found a link to a pretty fascinating research paper on thermal oxidation of Grade 2 titanium. The goal of the study was to identify a process to form an oxide film which might enhance the corrosion resistance of titanium in biomedical applications. Lots of good SEM metallography and electrochemical data. It provides some insights into how one might treat their Ti coils to help insure the integrity of the oxide film. The paper is very technical, but it contains much text that can be understood by the layman. And there are several individuals here who can help answer questions about it.

http://www.researchgate.net/profile...oling_rate/links/02e7e51627072dca2b000000.pdf

From my layman reading, the paper concludes the following:

One sample was heated to 650C (~1200F) for 14 hours. Let's call that sample A. Another sampled was treated at 850C (~1500F) for 6 hours. Let's call this sample B.

• Both samples exhibited the rutile phase. The rutile phase is a specialist's way of saying oxide formation. (I had to Google this one, I admit).

• Sample A's oxide layer showed no spallation (a fancy way of saying "cracking" or stress fracturing). No matter how sample A was cooled (water, air, furnace), this oxide layer remained unchanged.

• Sample B's oxide layer showed no spallation with furnace cooling, but did show spallation with air and water cooling. The water cooled samples exhibited more extreme cracking than the air cooled samples.

• The researchers conclude that Sample A is more resistant to corrosion and cracking than untreated commercial Ti.

• The researchers conclude that Sample B is more resistant to corrosion than untreated Ti, but not as resistant as Sample A.

• The faster that Sample B was cooled, the more deleterious was the result on its corrosion resistance.

The takeaway for vapers? I suppose that heat treated Ti is better than untreated? Or in other words, dry burning an untreated Ti coil (up to 650C or 1200F) is probably a good idea (assuming the wire wasn't pre-treated). But if you get the coil too hot (say 1500F) it could be deleterious to the corrosion (cracking) resistance of the metal.

 

[druckle]

Same boat. 3 years, 1st vape - no smoking. First couple weeks were.... transitional. Mostly because of poor equipment but it didn't take me long to find good advice here and find a more satisfying setup.

I've tried hard to convert friends and loved ones, with mixed success. Glad I've tried, those closest to me have mostly made the switch.

That nicotine is "the most addictive substance known to man" is a fallacy. CIGARETTES, with their myriad of 4000 chemicals are. Nicotine itself is, by the research I've read, "mildly addictive". Mom died of (well, with) Parkinsons. Wish I had known that nicotine could help. God knows, the cocktails they had her on took their toll over the years. Maybe some 24mg would have eased her suffering, prolonged her happiness and lessened her burdens. I'll never know. I have no plans to quit nicotine. I'm at 6mg now, and will move to 0mg in time for Cotinine tests require by health care, but then back to 6. Let's not forget Big Insurance in the role of trying to put the kaibosh on vaping. They're right there with BT and BP.

Never thought about big insurance. What's their angle?

I don't think nicotine addiction even with tobacco is the thing that kept me smoking all those years. I think the "ritual...having something to do with my hands... etc. was a bigger deal to me. I tried all the nicotine replacement gimmicks and not one of them helped me quit even to the slightest degree. Building coils...reading the internet, fiddling with e liquids and flavor and attys etc.....a NEW ritual that's what did it for me I think. I still like the little kick from nicotine so I'll stick with that but I don't feel it's an addiction for me. More like a nice little add on experience like a dunno...a bite of dessert?

Duane

 

[440BB]

The insurance angle is profit. By inferring that the presence of nicotine creates the same health risk as smoking, they can charge higher rates for both health and life insurance. As their risk is actually almost the same as a non-smoker, they win.

 

[BigEgo]

I know this is a bit off topic of coiling materials, but this study is a nice systematic review of all the known literature on e-cig health effects. This was done a number of months back so some of the recent studies are not included. There were 271 studies about e-cig health effects identified in their database review, but after omitting duplicates or studies that used unoriginal data (someone else's data), they found only 94 eligible. They then omitted another 26 of those after reading the entire text of every study. So they ended up with 76. They reviewed all 76 of these studies and wrote a paper about it. This was accepted and published in the journal Preventative Medicine in October, 2014.

In their review they have a section dedicated to metals in vapor. I will copy it below:

Metals
A study found that concentrations of lead and chromium in vapor were within the range of CCs, while nickel was up to 100 times higher than in CCs (Williams et al., 2013). One puff of EC-vapor contained numerous particles, mainly tin, silver, nickel and aluminum. Tin, chromium, and nickel were found as nano-particles. Another study found cadmium, nickel and lead in almost all vapors of 12 brands but the amounts of toxic metals were low, comparable with amounts contained in a nicotine inhaler (nicotine replacement treatment, NRT) (Goniewicz et al., 2013a). Finally, some studies found metals in fluid at lower limits than detection (Laugesen et al., 2008) and trace quantity of mercury in vapor (Anon, 2009). A ‘real-life’ study showed a 2-fold increase of aluminum in indoor air after vaping (Schober et al., 2014).​

So, basically, they only found 5 studies where metals were found in e-cig vapor. The Williams study is the one often talked about here where they took a junky old carto and found tin, silver, and other metals. The Goniewicz study is the one that found trace amounts of metals that were on par with the prescription nicotine inhaler (Goniewicz and his team have published numerous lab studies on e-cig vapor -- all of which I think are of high quality). The Schober study had volunteers vape in a closed room and then took measurements of the air. They found increased aluminum compared to blank control samples.

My take away from this is:

1) There's not enough studies on the topic of metals in vapor.

2) The studies we do have seem to suggest the amounts are minimal (slightly above control samples)

3) The studies that do suggest a noticeable increase were using very old and outdated atomizers with cheap soldered joints, etc.

But my main conclusion is we need more studies done by honest researchers using up to date atomizers and the proper equipment, etc.

 

[druckle]

From my layman reading, the paper concludes the following:

One sample was heated to 650C (~1200F) for 14 hours. Let's call that sample A. Another sampled was treated at 850C (~1500F) for 6 hours. Let's call this sample B.

• Both samples exhibited the rutile phase. The rutile phase is a specialist's way of saying oxide formation. (I had to Google this one, I admit).

• Sample A's oxide layer showed no spallation (a fancy way of saying "cracking" or stress fracturing). No matter how sample A was cooled (water, air, furnace), this oxide layer remained unchanged.

• Sample B's oxide layer showed no spallation with furnace cooling, but did show spallation with air and water cooling. The water cooled samples exhibited more extreme cracking than the air cooled samples.

• The researchers conclude that Sample A is more resistant to corrosion and cracking than untreated commercial Ti.

• The researchers conclude that Sample B is more resistant to corrosion than untreated Ti, but not as resistant as Sample A.

• The faster that Sample B was cooled, the more deleterious was the result on its corrosion resistance.

The takeaway for vapers? I suppose that heat treated Ti is better than untreated? Or in other words, dry burning an untreated Ti coil (up to 650C or 1200F) is probably a good idea (assuming the wire wasn't pre-treated). But if you get the coil too hot (say 1500F) it could be deleterious to the corrosion (cracking) resistance of the metal.

My own "take away" from my technical history with titanium alloy development and evaluation, and my interpretation of the data referenced above is slightly different.

I have no argument at all with the data referenced BUT my conclusion is that while extended thermal exposure at temperatures of 1200 and above is not harmful it is not helpful as far as titanium (metal or oxide) in the air stream.

What I mean is if you want to dry burn to get rid of "gunk" on coils or to compress and shape them...then fine. Do it for a short time at as low temperature as practical and nothing bad will happen but....there is no necessity to dry burn titanium to build up a thicker oxide film because there is nothing dangerous about titanium with shiny surfaces....Such shiny coils still have sufficient oxide to protect the metal underneath from corrosion (and to keep the titanium metal underneath the oxide). Titanium alloys are used in compressor disks and blades in gas turbine engines at temperatures up to 1200F for thousands of hours and they do not have their surfaces pretreated in any way to protect them from corrosion etc. Titanium is quite good enough for us just as it is without heat treatment to make the oxide thicker. If one wants to heat treat (dry burn) for coil shaping or cleaning then fine. Nothing bad happens. Do not worry. Enjoy your titanium coils if that''s the material you choose to use. If you are a fashion addict and prefer gold or blue coils rather than silvery ones no problem. Heat treat away...if you like purple instead...then fine heat threat a little more. I don't recommend going as far as white coils that look like they have a painted surface....that's when the oxide begins to come loose.

Silvery coils do fine for me. I love the flavor/stability and temperature limiting they allow with the right mod, and I generally use spaced coils because I like the flavor and slower gunk build up they seem to allow so I don't have to do a hot squeeze on them.

Duane

 

[druckle]

Some of the best scientific discoveries were accidental!

I absolutely agree. Even failures are valuable. They teach us what doesn't work for whatever we were trying to accomplish..but
I had a professor in a lab course who said all failures need to be examined carefully because they illuminate facts and all facts are good for something. He said our job was to find out what our failures were good for and work like hell to take advantage of them.

I guess these guys were trying to make bacteria live and when they didn't live they were smart enough to find out why ...and they "invented" a new antibiotic.??

 

[Toastyroadie]

Thank you all for staying with this thread, I read every post.

I hope your well on your way to a full recovery! That is some scary stuff alright! Yes, the only living force of nature that can potentially take out the most advanced force of nature the planet has ever known, is naturally the simplest one. It's an arms race between mind and mutation. Still I see things every now and then like the following, that I find rather cool and encouraging.

Scientists Hit Antibiotic Pay Dirt Growing Finicky Bacteria In Lab : Shots - Health News : NPR

Wow...that's an interesting article. Thanks Orion
Duane

Mother nature has cures that BP can't make money on, here are a couple of links.

MRSA Cures

Colloidal Silver Cures MRSA Report

 

[TheBloke]

Same boat. 3 years, 1st vape - no smoking. First couple weeks were.... transitional. Mostly because of poor equipment but it didn't take me long to find good advice here and find a more satisfying setup.

Same here, except only 3 months so far. For the first two days I was on a cig-a-like, and I still smoked some cigs those days. Then I got an ego battery and 2.7Ω cartomizer and thought that was amazing (how little I knew!) From that day I never had another cigarette. Vaping, for me, is just sooo much better. Even without the hobby/community aspect it's way better - with that it's in a whole different league.

Actually it's not quite true that I didn't have another cig. I had one, about three weeks later, just to remind myself what it was like. I did not like it at all - which I thought was awesome. I hadn't thought that there was any chance I'd go back, I wasn't having any cravings, but that really confirmed it.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Orion, from what I have read nicotine by and of itself, is not addictive. The additional chemicals used in cigarettes to "enhance" them can cause addiction due to the enhanced reaction of the brain to nicotine those chemical cause. A quick Google search will show all kinds of research on nicotine addiction, but every one of them involves cigarettes, not nicotine as a separate, discreet, focus of the research. I have also read, and not seen, that nicotine has been researched for its medicinal properties and yes it does have medicinal properties and more than ********. No ethical peer review panel would even allow research on human subjects if nicotine was, indeed, as addictive as we are lead to believe. I was convinced I was addicted to nicotine but over the time I have been vaping have managed to reduce my nicotine down to 5mg and expect, eventually, to go to no nicotine in my liquids.

Keep in mind I am not a physician, pharmacologist, research scientist and hold no degrees in any recognized field of study. I have never played a doctor on TV and it's been years since I stayed in a Holiday Inn.

I have to disagree with the idea that nicotine is not addictive. I think at this point it is well accepted in the medical community that nicotine "lights up" specific nicotine receptors in the brain and that it also "lights up" reward pathways that are really hard to extinguish. Because of the way brain chemistry self-regulates, using nicotine changes brain chemistry and it takes a good while for it to adjust to cessation of nicotine use. Nicotine, from a neurological standpoint, can be more addictive than ........ There are other really biologically active alkaloids in tobacco that are also addictive, but nicotine is the big one. BT did enhance the natural nicotine content of tobacco (along with the other addictive alkaloids) but it's the nicotine they were after to feed addiction.

Luckily, and I think this is where some confusion may stem from in the public, nicotine is not particularly harmful in small quantities. Nicotine does produce an insulin response and long term nicotine use is linked to type II diabetes. Most sweets have a similar effect so unless the govt plans to ban sweet foods and certain fruits, no show stopper here. Otoh, nicotine is being studied as a treatment to delay Parkinson's and other disease of the brain. It might actually be good for some of us. One issue hampering some of this research is the link in the public's mind between nicotine use and smoking tobacco. Two very different things but the media keeps demonizing nicotine.

Coffee is also an addictive alkaloid (most people get headaches if they stop drinking a regular dose of morning coffee). I'd bet if we smoked coffee instead of drank it, it would end up being a much stronger addiction than it is (the faster a delivery method gets to the brain, the more addictive the substance tends to be).

I have not done any studies on my own to reach the above conclusions but I've just read the results of studies I think are valid. Just throwing out a counterpoint.

Edit: with tail somewhat between legs, what I said here about nicotine addiction is incomplete. See my post on page 43 quoting a link to an article supplied by Alexander Mundy. The earth has been flat for a longtime but maybe it's actually round lol.

 

[LouisLeBeau]

The insurance angle is profit. By inferring that the presence of nicotine creates the same health risk as smoking, they can charge higher rates for both health and life insurance. As their risk is actually almost the same as a non-smoker, they win.

I couldn't have explained that better. There are likely other substances from actual cigs they could test for to exclude users of patches, gum, or vapers but they have no incentive to do so. Also, until we can actually PROVE that vaping carries far fewer risks, we don't have a leg to stand against them on. Their actuarials are delighted....

 

[Matthee]

I have to disagree with the idea that nicotine is not addictive. I think at this point it is well accepted in the medical community that nicotine "lights up" specific nicotine receptors in the brain and that it also "lights up" reward pathways that are really hard to extinguish. Because of the way brain chemistry self-regulates, using nicotine changes brain chemistry and it takes a good while for it to adjust to cessation of nicotine use. Nicotine, from a neurological standpoint, can be more addictive than *******. There are other really biologically active alkaloids in tobacco that are also addictive, but nicotine is the big one. BT did enhance the natural nicotine content of tobacco (along with the other addictive alkaloids) but it's the nicotine they were after to feed addiction.

Luckily, and I think this is where some confusion may stem from in the public, nicotine is not particularly harmful in small quantities. Nicotine does produce an insulin response and long term nicotine use is linked to type II diabetes. Most sweets have a similar effect so unless the govt plans to ban sweet foods and certain fruits, no show stopper here. Otoh, nicotine is being studied as a treatment to delay Parkinson's and other disease of the brain. It might actually be good for some of us. One issue hampering some of this research is the link in the public's mind between nicotine use and smoking tobacco. Two very different things but the media keeps demonizing nicotine.

Coffee is also an addictive alkaloid (most people get headaches if they stop drinking a regular dose of morning coffee). I'd bet if we smoked coffee instead of drank it, it would end up being a much stronger addiction than it is (the faster a delivery method gets to the brain, the more addictive the substance tends to be).

I have not done any studies on my own to reach the above conclusions but I've just read the results of studies I think are valid. Just throwing out a counterpoint.

Studies I have read show that never smokers injected, over quite a period of time, with nicotine to research its effectiveness re certain conditions (e.g. Alzheimers), never got addicted.

 

[etherealink]

This paper is about some cheap over-fired cartomizer. What is the connection to hand-wound coils?

Agreed, I'm sure its been said but, that looks like a factory wound cigalike. Not even the same *species* as it were when you compare it to what we have today.

When was the last time you used tin solder when you made your coils?

 

[etherealink]

From Pedro:

Comparing the values of metals concentration with outdoor values, IMO, is not the most appropriate choice, because these values will depend on the street that the outdoor sample is collected. I would prefer to compare them with recommended limits in places of work.

Ok, still talking in circles I see.

While I appreciate Pedro and his opinion allow me to inject some redneck science here: we don't vape in an ISO certified clean room, so get the clinical testing and then repeat it outside the lab - the real world.

And while I'm at it, lets just test everything there, you know, in reality.

Yes metal could blow off over time with severe use, yes juices could react with the metal of the coils.... and monkeys *could* start to fly! Lets just stick to what we can prove and speculate while the results are printing.