The Lemo RTA: A Build With Pics

[NOVA jon]

It's like a lot of things in life, you won't know until you try! If you have read thru most of this thread, you may have seen weirdwillies bridge wick method. Give that a shot. Took me a few tries to figure out just how much cotton to pile into the coil. It's better to go a little heavy with your wicking than too sparse!

Mine don't leak unless I have run a good 30ml's of juice thru them and my wicking starts to collapse. It will probably take a couple go's at it to get it right. It really is a nice flavorful tank. Good luck!

Wick it chunky! - stole that from cigitron!

 

[Jumpin' In...]

Maybe the o-rings aren't sealing because they're dry.

Guess that's possible, but I've never had to do that with the glass seals of my Mini Protank 2s. Thanks.

 

[Jumpin' In...]

It's like a lot of things in life, you won't know until you try! If you have read thru most of this thread, you may have seen weirdwillies bridge wick method. Give that a shot. Took me a few tries to figure out just how much cotton to pile into the coil. It's better to go a little heavy with your wicking than too sparse!

Mine don't leak unless I have run a good 30ml's of juice thru them and my wicking starts to collapse. It will probably take a couple go's at it to get it right. It really is a nice flavorful tank. Good luck!

Wick it chunky! - stole that from cigitron!

Mebbe you're right. If I don't hear anything else I'll probably give it a shot later tonight. Got other things to do in the early evening. Thanks!

I've got both WW's bridge build (Navy nest?) and the Mummy build bookmarked. Both look interesting if a simple build won't do. Can't do the Mummy yet - Labo organic cotton is still enroute from the land of the red sun. I have Japanese cotton pads - just not the organic ones with the hard outside layer. Won't be going for sub-ohm to start with anyway.

 

[duc916]

I'm betting you're using the fill screw, and not the big circular rubber gasket, right?
Try the gasket. I don't think the fill screw they designed should have ever been an option. Without an o-ring, it was doomed for failure.

If for some reason you CAN'T use the gasket ( a lot of people hate it), maybe you have a spare fill screw o-ring from a Kayfun or something you can stick in it...? Countersunk screws don't play well with O-rings, but it's better than nothing. The way it is now is GARBAGE. Metal on metal to form an air-tight seal? Yeah I said it, garbage.

 

[Jumpin' In...]

You WERE right, NOVAjon! I think. (Whew - I'm a little nic'ed at the moment.)

The stock coil it metered in at 1.1 ohm and looked almost like micro coil. I had wanted to start at 1.4 -1.6 ohms, but decided to give the stock coil a try since it was there staring me in the face. A 1/8" bit fit in a little loosely, but a 9/64" bit was too large. Gave it a dry burn and the coil turned dark black with rainbow reflections of light after it cooled down. Little strange. Gave it a squeeze with tweezers - then thought better of it and pulled it out again so there was the barest of space between wraps.

Took me several tries to get what seemed like satisfactory amount of cotton in there. On the last try I had to trim it several times before it looked like it would even fit against the sides of the deck. Wet it down and pressed it against the build deck, put on the lower chimney, checked to make sure the juice channel holes were visible, test fired the coil and finished assembling the tank. Replaced the fill screw with the silicon plug, filled the tank about 2/3 full and gave it a shot. No dry hits so far and no flooding. Some major "POPs" at first, before it settled down a bit. Think upping the wattage helped.

Don't know what I should be firing at wattage wise. Currently doing about 16.5W, 4.2V on my iStick 30w. Still a little popping, but nothing startling.

A bit strong of a vape for me compared to what I'm used to, but so far, so good otherwise.

Thanks for the "man up" advice.

 

[Jumpin' In...]

I'm betting you're using the fill screw, and not the big circular rubber gasket, right?
Try the gasket. I don't think the fill screw they designed should have ever been an option. Without an o-ring, it was doomed for failure.

If for some reason you CAN'T use the gasket ( a lot of people hate it), maybe you have a spare fill screw o-ring from a Kayfun or something you can stick in it...? Countersunk screws don't play well with O-rings, but it's better than nothing. The way it is now is GARBAGE. Metal on metal to form an air-tight seal? Yeah I said it, garbage.

Thanks for the advice. Didn't even try the screw - popped it into the spares baggie before I even washed the Drop.

 

[duc916]

if I then assemble the rest of the parts, close off the 4 holes in the base, and repeat the tongue test I cannot get a vacuum.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you're sure you got the nipple inserted into the fill hole? Something is screwed up with the stack-up of parts. You got the gasket lubed up with juice before installing the bottom piece? If it's bone-dry it'll drag and unseat the gasket.

 

[duc916]

Now that I think about it.... the 510 base is just metal on metal, so it's not going to seal air-tight anyway. That won't affect the tank vacuum as long as the rubber gasket is installed, but a pull-test (plugging the 4 intake holes) won't mean much because of it. It's why you can't pull vacuum after screwing it on.

 

[Jumpin' In...]

Don't take this the wrong way, but you're sure you got the nipple inserted into the fill hole? Something is screwed up with the stack-up of parts. You got the gasket lubed up with juice before installing the bottom piece? If it's bone-dry it'll drag and unseat the gasket.

At the time I did the tongue tests the fill screw was still tightly in the fill hole. Hadn't washed the Drop yet.

I'll remember about lubing the "gasket" in the future (I assume you mean the fill gasket). Didn't do that when I filled the tank, but it appears to be functioning correctly. I did unscrew the base once shortly after complete assembly, just to see whether the fill gasket was still sitting flush.

 

[Jumpin' In...]

Now that I think about it.... the 510 base is just metal on metal, so it's not going to seal air-tight anyway. That won't affect the tank vacuum as long as the rubber gasket is installed, but a pull-test (plugging the 4 intake holes) won't mean much because of it. It's why you can't pull vacuum after screwing it on.

Yeah, you're probably right about that. Makes sense to me.

 

[duc916]

If I screw the upper chimney into the top cap securely and do the "tongue test" - with or without a drip test - I get a decent seal.

I think this is the problem. You should screw the top piece of the chimney tight on to the lower chimney piece BEFORE installing the top cap... unless I'm misreading that.

 

[Jumpin' In...]

I think this is the problem. You should screw the top piece of the chimney tight on to the lower chimney piece BEFORE installing the top cap... unless I'm misreading that.

I actually just did that to make sure that there was a good seal between the top cap and the top section of the chimney.

Oh and the words "drip test" should have been "drip tip".

 

[icharus29]

Received my two full sized Lemos to compliment my Drop. The only difference, besids height and capacity is airflow. I have to close the airflow completely on the Drop to get any kind of resistance. The full size is actually very tight at the same setting. Had to open it up a bit to find the sweet spot. Other than that, all three are great. At the risk of being off topic: what kind of wire do you guys recommend for building the coils? The stock ones look like 28 gauge. I just can't seem to get below 1.6 ohms with only six wraps. Legs are too long, I guess.

 

[WeirdWillie]

Now that I think about it.... the 510 base is just metal on metal, so it's not going to seal air-tight anyway. That won't affect the tank vacuum as long as the rubber gasket is installed, but a pull-test (plugging the 4 intake holes) won't mean much because of it. It's why you can't pull vacuum after screwing it on.

It'll hold enough to give you a good idea if you have a chamber leak or not.
If you have a chamber leak it wont hold at all.
If it holds for a few seconds then you have a good seal.

 

[WeirdWillie]

If you are having to force juice into the chamber manually, in all cases one or both are happening
1. chamber vacuum leak
2. Poor wicking and/or blocking the juice channels

As a process of elimination preform the vacuum test, if it holds a couple seconds then you have a wicking issue.

 

[Jumpin' In...]

Received my two full sized Lemos to compliment my Drop. The only difference, besids height and capacity is airflow. I have to close the airflow completely on the Drop to get any kind of resistance. The full size is actually very tight at the same setting. Had to open it up a bit to find the sweet spot. Other than that, all three are great. At the risk of being off topic: what kind of wire do you guys recommend for building the coils? The stock ones look like 28 gauge. I just can't seem to get below 1.6 ohms with only six wraps. Legs are too long, I guess.

There must be several packagings of the Drop. Wide open the draw on mine is not anywhere near as wide as I thought it would be, and I can close it off to near nothing at all. Wide open, it's maybe 1.5x my Mini Protank 2 with the Mini Aero base wide open - at most. Not complaining - I kind of like the draw on my Drop. If I want "wide-open" lung hits, I can always go to a Freakshow Mini and suck it up.

 

[skyboxer1968]

Finally had a chance to get twisted. I think it snapped before it should have but I used it anyway. Was still able to use a 6-32 screw as a mandrel. Trapping under the screws is a pain. Comes in just under 1 ohm and makes for a tasty vape.

 

[icharus29]

Weird, one of the screws on my Drop won't go down all the way (insert joke). I used the post hole on that side, but trapped the other lead under the screw. Registers at 1.2 ohms. Used the wire that came with it and a 3mm jig. Yes, I cheat

 

[Vapey_McVape]

Received my two full sized Lemos to compliment my Drop. The only difference, besids height and capacity is airflow. I have to close the airflow completely on the Drop to get any kind of resistance. The full size is actually very tight at the same setting. Had to open it up a bit to find the sweet spot. Other than that, all three are great. At the risk of being off topic: what kind of wire do you guys recommend for building the coils? The stock ones look like 28 gauge. I just can't seem to get below 1.6 ohms with only six wraps. Legs are too long, I guess.

The stock wire I received is 26g.

I have installed 24g in it, and right now have a twisted 26g installed. Are you on a vv/vw? If so no reason to build single coils with super low ohms. The 24g I had installed was a 1.8ohm 5mm id massive macro coil, the 26g twisted is .8ohm 5mm id.

 

[BNEAT]

Received my two full sized Lemos to compliment my Drop. The only difference, besids height and capacity is airflow. I have to close the airflow completely on the Drop to get any kind of resistance. The full size is actually very tight at the same setting. Had to open it up a bit to find the sweet spot. Other than that, all three are great. At the risk of being off topic: what kind of wire do you guys recommend for building the coils? The stock ones look like 28 gauge. I just can't seem to get below 1.6 ohms with only six wraps. Legs are too long, I guess.

You might want to take a close look at your center post, it sounds like you might have an obstruction of some type. (one of mine had burrs from the drilling process obstructing the small horizontal holes)