Titanium wire, vaping and safety

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WideO

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ti1_used.jpg


For reference: this is the color/state of Ti1 24g after two weeks of use and then some cleaning. The darker spots are just a trick of the light (shadows where it bends). The coil was not torched, but it was "preheated" at 572°F. In case it doesn't translate: the color is still silver, with a very slight hint of gold. Which is the exact same as it started out it's mortal coil life. No oxidation as far as I can detect with a magnifying glass (and I don't think you can easily wipe off oxidation with paper tissue, right?), no weird spots.

I know, nothing scientific, just FWIW. I'm more concerned with the juice gunk, that builds up inevitably, being heated repeatedly, than with Ti1 used in a proper way. If anything, I'm just going to replace wicks and coils more often - regardless of price - just to keep juice gunk to a minimum.
 

AlaskaVaper

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Go up to 120 joules in Ti01 mode and see. Or go back into Ni200 mode with a Ti build. It'll be hotter even tho it only goes to 50 joules.
Thought I might jump in with a comment here. I just received my new Smok X-Cube II several days ago and have to say I really like this device. Sadly however, I have not been able to download the software for it because I do not own a smart phone. I do have an iMac and an iPad. I can connect the X-Cube to my IMac with Bluetooth but have not been able to successfully download the X-Cube device app. Anyway since I have been using my RDA's on the Evic and IPV4S with TI settings and using .50mm Ti wire with good results I decided to try using Ti on the X-Cube using the Ni setting. I have been quite surprised to find that the result has been very gratifying. By keeping the temp set around 100F lower than nickel settings that I us I am able to obtain a very nice warm flavorful vape. It has been so good that I almost question the need to have the Ti TCR setting at all. The mod kicks in with temp protect when the wire overshoots whatever the corelative is from my F setting relative to the Ni setting the mod is using.. It is a bit mysterious to me but it does work very well from my empirical usage. Others comments or experiences on this usage of Ti wire using the Ni TCR would be appreciated.
 

TheotherSteveS

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Thought I might jump in with a comment here. I just received my new Smok X-Cube II several days ago and have to say I really like this device. Sadly however, I have not been able to download the software for it because I do not own a smart phone. I do have an iMac and an iPad. I can connect the X-Cube to my IMac with Bluetooth but have not been able to successfully download the X-Cube device app. Anyway since I have been using my RDA's on the Evic and IPV4S with TI settings and using .50mm Ti wire with good results I decided to try using Ti on the X-Cube using the Ni setting. I have been quite surprised to find that the result has been very gratifying. By keeping the temp set around 100F lower than nickel settings that I us I am able to obtain a very nice warm flavorful vape. It has been so good that I almost question the need to have the Ti TCR setting at all. The mod kicks in with temp protect when the wire overshoots whatever the corelative is from my F setting relative to the Ni setting the mod is using.. It is a bit mysterious to me but it does work very well from my empirical usage. Others comments or experiences on this usage of Ti wire using the Ni TCR would be appreciated.

Very frustrating that SMOK have made this such a mess for absolutely no reason..

anyway, glad to hear the Ni setting is working. Until recently, your method has really been the only way to use Ti in TC vaping and it works well on most other mods with only Ni calibration! Glad to hear it is working for you too. Enjoy!
 

TheotherSteveS

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View attachment 479690

For reference: this is the color/state of Ti1 24g after two weeks of use and then some cleaning. The darker spots are just a trick of the light (shadows where it bends). The coil was not torched, but it was "preheated" at 572°F. In case it doesn't translate: the color is still silver, with a very slight hint of gold. Which is the exact same as it started out it's mortal coil life. No oxidation as far as I can detect with a magnifying glass (and I don't think you can easily wipe off oxidation with paper tissue, right?), no weird spots.

I know, nothing scientific, just FWIW. I'm more concerned with the juice gunk, that builds up inevitably, being heated repeatedly, than with Ti1 used in a proper way. If anything, I'm just going to replace wicks and coils more often - regardless of price - just to keep juice gunk to a minimum.


were you using spaced or touching coils??
 
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TheBloke

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Thought I might jump in with a comment here. I just received my new Smok X-Cube II several days ago and have to say I really like this device. Sadly however, I have not been able to download the software for it because I do not own a smart phone. I do have an iMac and an iPad. I can connect the X-Cube to my IMac with Bluetooth but have not been able to successfully download the X-Cube device app. Anyway since I have been using my RDA's on the Evic and IPV4S with TI settings and using .50mm Ti wire with good results I decided to try using Ti on the X-Cube using the Ni setting. I have been quite surprised to find that the result has been very gratifying. By keeping the temp set around 100F lower than nickel settings that I us I am able to obtain a very nice warm flavorful vape. It has been so good that I almost question the need to have the Ti TCR setting at all. The mod kicks in with temp protect when the wire overshoots whatever the corelative is from my F setting relative to the Ni setting the mod is using.. It is a bit mysterious to me but it does work very well from my empirical usage. Others comments or experiences on this usage of Ti wire using the Ni TCR would be appreciated.

Yeah the Smok app thing is a big mess.

It has to be a Bluetooth 4.0 LE device to function. For Apple devices, you need iOS 6 or later. Then for iPad it needs to be an iPad 3rd generation or newer, and for iPhone it needs to be an iPhone 4S or newer. On Android, it needs to be running Android 4.3 or newer (and have a Bluetooth 4 chip, which will vary by manufacturer but most/all Samsungs do have them, although older Samsungs aren't officially supplied with Android 4.3 or later.)

There's no chance of it working on the Mac, unless they've released a Mac Store app I've not heard of? Don't think so though. I think it's smart phones/tablets only and Macs can't run iPhone/iPad apps. (EDIT: Well, they can in the iOS simulator, but that is only available to developers and in any case doesn't have support for hardware Bluetooth.)

I ended up having to install Android in a virtual machine on my PC, using a USB Bluetooth 4 adapter, to get it to work! Which actually turned out to be pretty cool, much nicer than using it on a phone :) But not exactly a method suitable for the masses.

Anyway, as you have found running Titanium coils on Ni mode will always work and a 100°F offset sounds reasonable, although I would have expected it to be a slightly bigger offset. 80-100°F is the standard on the DNA 40, which has implemented Ni200's exact curve. Other devices, like Yihi chips and DNA 40 clones usually need a slightly bigger offset, maybe up to 150°F. For Titanium coils on devices without a TCR adjustment, I tend to set my TC to 140°C - 150°C which is 285°F - 302°F.

That said, I have found that even with the right TCR set on the Smok, I still have the temp higher than I would expect - eg 250-260°C (480-500°F), so if that's true across the board it would make sense that only a 100°F offset is working fine for you.

It's pretty ridiculous of Smok to ask people to pay $0.45 to allow the moving of a slider lower than 0.04. Doubly so because the only way to activate it is via an app that won't run on a significant number of devices.

Major fail which I expect - or at least hope - they plan to reverse. They did at least enable TC out of the box - originally that required use of the app, and a $2.99 payment, as well. Utterly mad.

Anyway, as you have found there's really no greatly compelling reason to enable the Ti mode. It's nice to be able to set the temp one actually wants, but far from essential - and besides, in the case of the Smok it currently seems like accurate setting is not always possible anyway.

What would have made TCR setting more compelling is if they enabled it to work down to 0.001, which would have allowed accurate Stainless Steel usage. But they stop at 0.0015. That might still be worthwhile, enabling Stainless Steel with a temp offset, though SS is close to the limits of TC even with the right TCR so it's not going to be ideal.
 
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AlaskaVaper

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Yeah the Smok app thing is a big mess.

It has to be a Bluetooth 4.0 LE device to function. For Apple devices, you need iOS 6 or later. Then for iPad it needs to be an iPad 3rd generation or newer, and for iPhone it needs to be an iPhone 4S or newer. On Android, it needs to be running Android 4.3 or newer (and have a Bluetooth 4 chip, which will vary by manufacturer but most/all Samsungs do have them, although older Samsungs aren't officially supplied with Android 4.3 or later.)

There's no chance of it working on the Mac, unless they've released a Mac Store app I've not heard of? Don't think so though. I think it's smart phones/tablets only and Macs can't run iPhone/iPad apps.

I ended up having to install Android in a virtual machine on my PC, using a USB Bluetooth 4 adapter, to get it to work! Which actually turned out to be pretty cool, much nicer than using it on a phone :) But not exactly a method suitable for the masses.

Anyway, as you have found running Titanium coils on Ni mode will always work and a 100°F offset sounds reasonable, although I would have expected it to be a slightly bigger offset. 80-100°F is the standard on the DNA 40, which has implemented Ni200's exact curve. Other devices, like Yihi chips and DNA 40 clones usually need a slightly bigger offset, maybe up to 150°F. For Titanium coils on devices without a TCR adjustment, I tend to set my TC to 140°C - 150°C which is 285°F - 302°F.

That said, I have found that even with the right TCR set on the Smok, I still have the temp higher than I would expect - eg 250-260°C (480-500°F), so if that's true across the board it would make sense that only a 100°F offset is working fine for you.

It's pretty ridiculous of Smok to ask people to pay $0.45 to allow the moving of a slider lower than 0.04. Doubly so because the only way to activate it is via an app that won't run on a significant number of devices.

Major fail which I expect - or at least hope - they plan to reverse. They did at least enable TC out of the box - originally that required use of the app, and a $2.99 payment, as well. Utterly mad.

Anyway, as you have found there's really no greatly compelling reason to enable the Ti mode. It's nice to be able to set the temp one actually wants, but far from essential - and besides, in the case of the Smok it currently seems like accurate setting is not always possible anyway.

What would have made TCR setting more compelling is if they enabled it to work down to 0.001, which would have allowed accurate Stainless Steel usage. But they stop at 0.0015. That might still be worthwhile, enabling Stainless Steel with a temp offset, though SS is close to the limits of TC even with the right TCR so it's not going to be ideal.
Thanks Bloke, for the detailed reply. Now that you have that Smok software have you been able to determine if their TCR adjustment slider is compareble or similar to the so called "nickel purity" feature found in the Geeco/Zero mod chips and others? I guess that until we can all afford the DNA 200 and its in-depth control functions the less fortunate of us users will have to trudge along in this TC wilderness. LOL!
 
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TheBloke

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Thanks Bloke, for the detailed reply. Now that you have that Smok software have you been able to determine if their TCR adjustment slider is compareble or similar to the so called "nickel purity" feature found in the Geeco/Zero mod chips and others? I guess that until we can all afford the DNA 200 and its in-depth control functions the less fortunate of us users will have to trudge along in this TC wilderness. LOL!

Yes, exactly the same. The mods that currently have full TCR adjustment are the Smok; the SXK chip mods: VF, Zero, rDNA clones (both under SXK brand, and Geeco), and the Nebula (re-branded Hana 4DS clone); Dicodes chip mods; and the DNA 200. Yihi chip mods and the Joyetech EVIC-VT have selection between Ni200 and Titanium but not a full TCR scale.

FYI you should already have the TCR adjustment. Just you can't lower it below 0.004 without the app and the $0.45 payment.

The correct TCR for Titanium is 0.0035, so you can actually get pretty close to it. And given that the tendency of the Smok seems to be to set the temp too high, that suggests that setting the TCR a little too high could balance that out.

In other words, you could - without the app or a payment, just in the mod menu - set your TCR to 0.004 and then try setting your temp to the real desired temp, say 230°C / 450°F or whatever you want, and it might be pretty accurate.

If you don't have the TCR adjustment in your menu, you need to upgrade your firmware to the latest FW 1.07. You can download the PC software and the firmware on their website, and it's an easy procedure to upgrade via USB cable.

Oh, that is assuming you have a Windows PC available, or a Bootcamp installation on your Mac? :) If not, then you can't upgrade the FW :) Though we can't exclusively blame Smok for that situation, as I believe it's the case for all mods with upgradeable FW - including the DNA 200. No love for the Macsters.

If you haven't upgraded the firmware and can't because of lack of access to a Windows PC, then be aware that getting the phone/tablet app working might not do you any good. You can't upgrade the FW through the app, I know that for sure. I don't know for sure if the app can set the TCR on the Smok even if the FW hasn't been upgraded. It might or might not.
 

Madnapali

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@TheBloke
I've got Unkamen 26g, 28g, 30g, and 32g. I haven't had a whole lot of time to do builds recently so plenty of each. If you want any I'll ship some of each to you. I'll even let you have the entire 32g spool cuz I don't think I'm going to touch it, lol.
 

jks89

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I'm playing with same pair of coils I mentioned earlier, 6 wraps 0.149 ohms not able to get it up to a temp I like even at max 572F on velocity clone.

Would more wraps on smaller gauge Ti wire help, went from air flow open to airflow almost closed but the flavor is great as long as i stay at least 30 joules and max temp
the flavor is great but it doesn't have the warmth I'm used to with kanthal even at 100 joules an 572F on Ipv4s on Ti mode

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

Are you actually hitting 572F or is that just where it is set? I've had times where I increased the temp limit, but didn't increase the watts, so it wasn't actually getting warmer. I've also had issues where I was getting wonky temperature readings from the coil not having a good connection [read: loose screws].

Did a new build in my Zephyrus (2x 26g 2.5mm ID 7 spaced wrap, .14ohm) that's doing well so far. Currently running at 38W and 330F (Ni mode, so temp is higher of course).
 
Go up to 120 joules in Ti01 mode and see. Or go back into Ni200 mode with a Ti build. It'll be hotter even tho it only goes to 50 joules.
I have the Ipv4s model and it only goes to 100 joules in titanium, I think the 120 joule setting is only for the original ipv4 with the firmware update.
I will have to try it in Ni200 mode an see how that goes.

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Are you actually hitting 572F or is that just where it is set? I've had times where I increased the temp limit, but didn't increase the watts, so it wasn't actually getting warmer. I've also had issues where I was getting wonky temperature readings from the coil not having a good connection [read: loose screws].

Did a new build in my Zephyrus (2x 26g 2.5mm ID 7 spaced wrap, .14ohm) that's doing well so far. Currently running at 38W and 330F (Ni mode, so temp is higher of course).
I can't tell if I'm reaching 572F or not as the only active part of my screen when I fire it is the voltage, but I did have the watts/joules at 100 joules max.

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TheBloke

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I've got Unkamen 26g, 28g, 30g, and 32g. I haven't had a whole lot of time to do builds recently so plenty of each. If you want any I'll ship some of each to you. I'll even let you have the entire 32g spool cuz I don't think I'm going to touch it, lol.

Thanks so much! PM sent
 

2legsshrt

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Well I am really sold on Ti now. Last night one of my coils wasn't performing quite like it was so I figured in needed rewicking. Took it apart and while the wick KGD was still as white as snow the coil had a little gunk on it not a lot for 3 weeks and probably 25 tanks though this STM. I pulled the wick out and cleaned the coil under hot running water with a soft tootbrush. It cleaned up to a pretty gold color replaced the wick put it back together and the resistance was right where it was when I installed it. Vapes like brand new maybe better. Had to lower my temp back to where I was in the beginning and working great. Kept its form and looked great. This is Vape Mesh company Ti wire. I'm definately impressed. Best darned TC coil I have ever used. And the flavor is back to excellent It was getting just to the good.
 

2legsshrt

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I've got Unkamen 26g, 28g, 30g, and 32g. I haven't had a whole lot of time to do builds recently so plenty of each. If you want any I'll ship some of each to you. I'll even let you have the entire 32g spool cuz I don't think I'm going to touch it, lol.
Yep Vape Mesh sent me a sample roll of 32 I tried to wrap a coil with it but it is just too thin by itself. Don't think I'll use it at all. I really like the 26 though. Very good wire. Still haven't tried the Unkamen but when I saw how the Crazy Wire cleaned up not sure if I will. I think the shiny wire works best for me. Saw a pic of Unkamen cleaned up and looked like a dirty grey the Crazy Wire cleans up very easily to a nice gold color.
 
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Madnapali

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Yep Vape Mesh sent me a sample roll of 32 I tried to wrap a coil with it but it is just too thin by itself. Don't think I'll use it at all. I really like the 26 though. Very good wire. Still haven't tried the Unkamen but when I saw how the Crazy Wire cleaned up not sure if I will. I think the shiny wire works best for me. Saw a pic of Unkamen cleaned up and looked like a dirty grey the Crazy Wire cleans up very easily to a nice gold color.
So far I like the 26g best, but it's not gonna hold in some of my gennies. I twisted some of the 30g and it's so soft it snapped in the middle! Have to be careful with it. Didn't seem to make a difference, anyway, so I may end up avoiding it after some builds.
 

AtmizrOpin

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This rba section from the Smok TFV4 is going to see a lot of Ti. I think this might be the biggest rba I've seen for these types of tanks. I think for my first build with this I'm gonna twist two strands of 26 gauge Ti. The juice channels are about 3 times larger than the Kanger subtank rba (v2). I have v3 in my hand for comparison.
IMG_20150810_183115-1.jpg
View attachment 479860
IMG_20150810_183653-1.jpg
IMG_20150810_203309-1.jpg
 
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AlaskaVaper

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Yes, exactly the same. The mods that currently have full TCR adjustment are the Smok; the SXK chip mods: VF, Zero, rDNA clones (both under SXK brand, and Geeco), and the Nebula (re-branded Hana 4DS clone); Dicodes chip mods; and the DNA 200. Yihi chip mods and the Joyetech EVIC-VT have selection between Ni200 and Titanium but not a full TCR scale.

FYI you should already have the TCR adjustment. Just you can't lower it below 0.004 without the app and the $0.45 payment.

The correct TCR for Titanium is 0.0035, so you can actually get pretty close to it. And given that the tendency of the Smok seems to be to set the temp too high, that suggests that setting the TCR a little too high could balance that out.

In other words, you could - without the app or a payment, just in the mod menu - set your TCR to 0.004 and then try setting your temp to the real desired temp, say 230°C / 450°F or whatever you want, and it might be pretty accurate.

If you don't have the TCR adjustment in your menu, you need to upgrade your firmware to the latest FW 1.07. You can download the PC software and the firmware on their website, and it's an easy procedure to upgrade via USB cable.

Oh, that is assuming you have a Windows PC available, or a Bootcamp installation on your Mac? :) If not, then you can't upgrade the FW :) Though we can't exclusively blame Smok for that situation, as I believe it's the case for all mods with upgradeable FW - including the DNA 200. No love for the Macsters.

If you haven't upgraded the firmware and can't because of lack of access to a Windows PC, then be aware that getting the phone/tablet app working might not do you any good. You can't upgrade the FW through the app, I know that for sure. I don't know for sure if the app can set the TCR on the Smok even if the FW hasn't been upgraded. It might or might not.
Thanks again Bloke. You have provided such a great amount of good information here that it will take me some time to digest it all. FYI I am an older Mac user using older Macs. lol...guess I am out of luck in the software front. As I mentioned in a welcome back post earlier, "let the education continue", and that is certainly proving true. Your generous sharing as you yourself journey to greater insight of TC and your knowledge of this subject is a great attribute. It is an example of why the vape community is such a wonderful place for vapers to feel welcome and comfortable. I hope all is well over in there in jolly old England and that the anti-vape politics is not evolving as it seems to be here in the US. Cheers...from Alaskavaper
 
Wife has declared the velocity rda "not allowed in the house" apparently the fog is too thick for her to see candy crush on her phone lol.

I haven't tried these Ti coils in Ni200 mode yet , still on 100 joules at max of 572F in Ti mode, think I'm growing fond of the cooler vape.
I don't have to worry that I'm scorching my throat or lungs but I am hitting it longer and more often so I am guzzling Eliquid at an amazing rate.


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