You got a link to where you get your titanium? I'm looking to start TC and don't want to grab the wrong stuff.
Titanium wire, vaping and safety
- Thread starter TheotherSteveS
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Maybe I'll try some LV titanium wire. I order so much from them that it wouldn't hurt to throw in a couple spools. I've just been so happy with fasttechs titanium that I found no need to find another. I was getting tired of trying all of these other wires and being upset because of how springy and just terrible to work with.
Yeah the FT wire performs very well. Clean it with alcohol a couple swipes then dry fire at my normal temp setting and rinse. Resistance spot on with SE and it is like Kanthal to work with, no spring at all.
And that's a couple of the biggest reasons why I love working with that wire. It's really accurate and it's very easy to work with. You just have to wipe it down but I do that with every wire. If you make sure you get the right one at ft you'll be good to go.
How do you guys clean Ti fused claptons, if you have done them. I have Ti fused with a Kanthal outer wrap. I pulse them only to a dull orange in the middle and run them under cold water but it doesn't seem to get the gunk off. I've also tried using a toothbrush to clean with no luck. Anyway, the biggest deal is I'm afraid that while I'm pulsing I form Ti oxide and can't see it underneath the Kanthal wrap. I always do the best I can with the cleaning, re-wick, vape, and then feel weird like light-headed (probably just my imagination) and think that I am inhaling Ti oxide...
I pulse them lightly at 8 to 10 watts then get a metal brush and rub lightly from side to side. When I'm done cleaning they come out looking almost brand new. When you pulse it most of the gunk goes up in flames. And from all of the things I've read about the scary ti02 (little sarcasm) you shouldn't feel any affects like that if you inhaled any which I feel is extremely difficult to do. If you got just a regular wrap and dried fired it like crazy like your not supposed to do and then vaped it I still feel you wouldn't get anything of real concern. I think going outside and doing normal everyday things is much worse honestly. But that is all my opinion and if people don't feel safe using titanium it's best to walk away and do what you feel is safer. Or you could do more research and find out more about it.
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No I am inclined to believe what you're saying. It just feels...different after the first and consequent rinses/rewicks. Also, the gunk is mostly on the outer edges of the coils so when I pulse them till only the centers begin to glow it doesn't get hot enough on the edges for the gunk to burn off.
If I continued to pulse after the centers glowed I know they would get too hot and start glowing bright orange which I know is too hot to pulse titanium.
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If I continued to pulse after the centers glowed I know they would get too hot and start glowing bright orange which I know is too hot to pulse titanium.
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Do you have small wire brushes you can use? I pulse 3 to 5 times for about 3 seconds or so each time then spend a minute or two scrubbing lightly.
The thing that always gets me about the whole Ti safety debate is people don't seem bothered to dry fire Kanthal at well over 1000F and then continue vaping on it for weeks.
In reality we have no idea what sorts of things kanthal (or any other wire) is putting out once you heat it to those sorts of temps. We don't have real data for the way we're using these wire materials. All we know from scientific studies thus far is that some metals do end up in vapor, but there are a multitude of places it could be coming from (the tank itself, the deck, the coil, and even the liquid).
All of the wires have drawbacks:
- Ti has the TiO2 issue
- Kanthal has aluminum in it and we know long term aluminum exposure is linked to alzheimer's (hotly debated).
- 304/316 Stainless Steel is about 8% nickel
- Ni-200 is, well, pure nickel
- Nichrome is nickel and chromium
- 430 Stainless Steel is nickel free, but it loses some corrosion resistance because of it.
- Tungsten is prone to oxidation, much like Ti. And who knows what can be off-gassing once a metal oxidizes at high heat. (I mention Tungsten because one subohm tank now is coming with Tungsten coils).
Very well said. Out of all the wires the ones I'm most concerned with would be ni200 and nichrome 80. Nichrome is especially a concern because you dry fire it like crazy and even though it's a alloy and people say the 80% nickel doesn't leach out. I think with the abuse we put to that material we could be making it very weak and that could lead to leaching possibly. All I know is out of all the wires I think safest imo is titanium as long as you don't abuse it, then SS when using in TC and only lightly pulsing like titanium, and last of the ones I use would be kanthal. I do use nichrome very rarely with some of the more advanced coil but sometimes I get a odd taste from it. I wish we could get some people on our side atleast doing basic studies to give us some idea ok the wires we are using, and the eliquid. I know it's not as easy is walk in the lab and pump out a study on some wires in a day but it's something that should be done. There should be more shops that take even 2% of sales to go to research in making vaping safer. I know that some shops do similar things to support cassa and not blowing smoke which is great but more needs to happen. We have to many shop owners with their greedy hands just cashing in with all the new vapers. I can't believe how some of these shops run around where I live. They sell batteries that are crazy over rated then argue with me when I show them multiple sites with evidence that shows they are extremely unsafe the way they are rated. Then they tell me if I don't like it that I can leave and go to another place. Other places sell clone rdas and tell me that they are 100% authentic, I will once again show sites that clearly say that what they are selling are clones because of several factors and they say that there are different versions of those products. I'm pretty sue twisted messes authentic rda doesn't come with two premade 32 gauge coils with silica for the wicking hahaha. I can't believe what some of these shops are doing to our vape community. I'm not bashing every shop owner because I know that some shops are amazing with helpful employes that want to help every vaper they can, it just seems like especially around where I live that most shops are money hungry and are playing with people's lives at the same time. Ok I'm done. Sorry for the nice long rant, and I'm sorry for all of the misspellings that I most likely did lol. Once I get going on this little iPhone it's tough to stop especially when it's something I really care about. Ok now I'm done.
I am not saying Kanthal is bad at all. It does have excellent resistance to high heat (that's what it is made for) but who knows, on a microscopic level, how much of the metal is breaking off at 400-600F after repeated use or after 1000+F dry burning. I suspect none of these wires are very toxic in the 400-600F range, but it would be nice to know the levels, if any, of metal from the coil that end up in the vapor.
I guess to be safest it is probably smart to just avoid dry burning all together and simply rebuild your coils every few days. With SS or Kanthal this isn't a problem as they are dirt cheap. It does kinda suck with Ti (even though it's not that expensive in the large scale of things).
I guess to be safest it is probably smart to just avoid dry burning all together and simply rebuild your coils every few days. With SS or Kanthal this isn't a problem as they are dirt cheap. It does kinda suck with Ti (even though it's not that expensive in the large scale of things).
I stopped using Nichrome 80 after a similar debate/research many months ago. The only reason I still decided for myself to continue using (and dry-burning) Kanthal was another at-length discussion and research here (I think?) on another thread where a few metallurgists "confirmed" that the alumina oxide layer formed on Kanthal when heated at high temperatures protects it from further oxidation and is very stable.
If only I could be satisfied with non-dry-burned, spaced simple micro coils... My problem is I have to have fused claptons in all my attys. I don't remember if I posted here or another thread that I recently got some "304" SS from Unkamen in 32g in hopes to say goodbye to Kanthal for good, but after three builds (fused claptons: two with SS316L as the cores, one with Ti as cores), I ended up with brown coils and brown cotton (after one vape session) and it appeared that the "304" was rusting immediately when liquid and heat was applied.
I agree guys. Pure T1 in my mind is safer than an alloy or nickel. Cleaned and dry burned to 500 or less degrees seems to me to be the safest of my options. Developing a hot leg or some other malfunction is probably my biggest fear but I watch for that closely.
If and when studies are released we can all be more sure.
If and when studies are released we can all be more sure.
I agree. I have been on a strict Ti vaping diet for months now. And I plan on sticking with it until the scientists say I shouldn't.
I do have some 317L and some 430 wire on order, though. Plan on checking those out.
If you have electric heat in your home or a heat pump with electric back up heat you are breathing air that has past kanthal glowing slightly orange. I have no fears about kanthal.
Duane, since you're one of the most scientifically adept posters on ECF (especially in materials science), I want to ask a few questions. You may or may not have answered some of these already in this mammoth thread, but I feel it would be nice to have some of your knowledge condensed.
1) With your Ti builds, do you space or use contact coils?
2) Do you pulse before wicking? If so, how hot?
3) Do you believe there is any transfer of nanoparticles into the vapor stream (whether it be TiO2 or some other material) under normal vaping conditions?
4) Just how adherent is TiO2 to the surface? Do different temperature levels affect the "strength" of the oxide on the surface (i.e., make it thicker, weaker, stronger, etc.). I realize high heat will make it flake off, but I am talking temperatures in the "vaping range." In other words, will there be any difference in the TiO2 layer at room temp and, say, at 500F?
5) If the surface becomes noticeably oxidated (white flaking powder we can see with the naked eye) is there any "recovery" from that (e.g. a wash)? Will the metal remain compromised after that?
6) What's your overall opinion of the various grades of stainless steel as coiling material? If you had to pick a grade that is the most heat resistant, oxidation resistant and chemically resistant, which would it be? Are any of the stainless steels safe to "dry burn" in our application without significantly compromising them?
I am not a lazy person and have tried to research this on my own, but the literature on Titanium is usually highly specialized for very specific uses. I am sure my questions are elementary for titanium engineers (or metallurgists in general). It would be like finding a technical paper from a mathematician trying to solve some problem in number theory where the author explains in the preface of his paper what addition and subtraction are. That type of thing doesn't happen. It is assumed the reader is an expert.
And Wikipedia isn't much help, either. It is a little too basic.
EDIT: I did find this paper, which details some of the oxidation properties of CP Titanium in a furnace at temps from 20C all the way up to over 1000C. A TL;DR from an expert would be great. They talk about anatase and rutile formation quite a bit, for example.
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BigEgo
1.
I generally use slightly spaced coils. The primary reason is that there seems to be less "gunk" build up with time. I get the feeling that I also get slightly better high temperature control. I guess the bottom line is that spaced coils seem to work more reliably for me.
2.
I do a minimal amount of temp pulsing with a new coil just to drive off residual organics. There's usually a very slight wisp of smoke for a second or so from burning organics. If I'm using a DNA 200 set a TCR of twice normal and adjust the temp so that the coil is barely visible in a dark room otherwise I set 600F and do multiple short pulses.
3.
I do NOT believe there is any nano particle transfer during normal vaping and if there were I wouldn't worry about it. The whole issue has been overblown based on misunderstanding in my opinion. I try to avoid formation of thick / spalling oxide because it "eats the coil" over time and I see no reason to consume coil material and shorten the life of the coil.
4. Thin oxide layers on titanium are extremely adherent and will not spall during normal vaping. If titanium is continuously exposed to high temperatures ( well above our vaping temperatueres) the oxide will continue to grow thicker and there will be some detectable inward diffusion of oxide but this isn't an issue at our vaping temperatures
5.
If I do overdo things and get a little white flaky oxide on a titanium oil I wash it away and vape on. The coil is primarily affected by loss of a tiny bit of titanium metal. There's no reason to panic and replace an oxidized coil under normal circumstances.
6.
I don't have a lot of experience with stainless steels. I've experimented with 430 (and several NIFe alloys) but have seen no significant advantage over Grade 1 titanium. I've pretty much stopped considering stainless steels and will likely use titanium exclusively in the future. I feel the balance of properties with titanium coils for vaping is superior for my use and I like not having multiple wires in different mods so I don't have to remember multiple settings to get the performance I want.
Duane
1.
I generally use slightly spaced coils. The primary reason is that there seems to be less "gunk" build up with time. I get the feeling that I also get slightly better high temperature control. I guess the bottom line is that spaced coils seem to work more reliably for me.
2.
I do a minimal amount of temp pulsing with a new coil just to drive off residual organics. There's usually a very slight wisp of smoke for a second or so from burning organics. If I'm using a DNA 200 set a TCR of twice normal and adjust the temp so that the coil is barely visible in a dark room otherwise I set 600F and do multiple short pulses.
3.
I do NOT believe there is any nano particle transfer during normal vaping and if there were I wouldn't worry about it. The whole issue has been overblown based on misunderstanding in my opinion. I try to avoid formation of thick / spalling oxide because it "eats the coil" over time and I see no reason to consume coil material and shorten the life of the coil.
4. Thin oxide layers on titanium are extremely adherent and will not spall during normal vaping. If titanium is continuously exposed to high temperatures ( well above our vaping temperatueres) the oxide will continue to grow thicker and there will be some detectable inward diffusion of oxide but this isn't an issue at our vaping temperatures
5.
If I do overdo things and get a little white flaky oxide on a titanium oil I wash it away and vape on. The coil is primarily affected by loss of a tiny bit of titanium metal. There's no reason to panic and replace an oxidized coil under normal circumstances.
6.
I don't have a lot of experience with stainless steels. I've experimented with 430 (and several NIFe alloys) but have seen no significant advantage over Grade 1 titanium. I've pretty much stopped considering stainless steels and will likely use titanium exclusively in the future. I feel the balance of properties with titanium coils for vaping is superior for my use and I like not having multiple wires in different mods so I don't have to remember multiple settings to get the performance I want.
Duane
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I'm using Rio Grande 24g Ti and Unkamen Ti for all other gauges.
Wire diameter is slightly variable for all wires based on die wear and the specific batch and is of no consequence if one builds to an acceptable resistance in my opinion.
Duane
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