Titanium wires

[Aal_]

Guys I tried the NR R wire but not on a wick. Sorry didn't have time yet. The problem I tried the 1.5 ohm which I think is 33 gauge 0.18mm and with that gauge it is hard to test my usual coils. So what I did is wrapped a coil around 2mm and stuck it in a dripper. What I noticed is what was mentioned before by Rossum in his blog. The wire heats up fast then turns off quite fast as well. I was running it on a provari which made it harder to know what was happening because the resistance was jumping. I know for sure is that testing the ohms in a provari let's a small amount of current pass through the coil. This small amount of current was making the wire go from 1.5 to exactly to 2.5 ohms when heated. Now when setting it to something like 13 watts the wire was glowing then dull glow. If you blow on it it becomes black and turns off like a candle. It is interesting. As you know a provari doesn't set the watts so it is like a mechanical at a certain voltage. In a variable wattage I would assume that the voltage will increase all the time with the resistance of the coil and might reach the electronics limits. With a mech or provari, actually the behavior from what I saw is desirable in a way. We have seen mods that start off high then lower the watts like the decodes or semovar (not sure). So a Ti wire will give you theoretically the same behavior which might be a nice experience for a change.

Regarding flakes @Rossum and @CaptSteve, I did not have any in mine BUT I don't think it is the grade of Ti but I think we are not reaching the high amounts of power to get these temperatures. For me at least before trying a device that delivers a constant high wattage over a period of time (increasing voltage with resistance), I cannot attribute the absence of the flakes to the type of wire as of yet. I will try soon the 0.5 ohm wire.

 

[soulseek]

I wasn't aware that the spooled Ti would be 24 or 26 ga only. Was hoping for something like 30. The current ready made are 33 ga and they're way too thin.
I did find these while googling around, anyone have any experience with them?

 

[monkkx]

I received some ready-wires of the different resistances: 0.5 , 1 and 1,5 ohm).
The first one I used was for some experimentation, a 0.5 ohm that I put in a dripper with no wick in order to stress test and see with my own eyes how it behaves. I used a DNA30 mod.
here are some random findings:
- the 0.5 ohm coil is measured at 1ohm by the DNA30 (I made an other test with a 1.5 ohm: dna30 read 2 ohms)
- at 10W, the coil glows super fast. The resistance went up to 1.5 ohms. I scrubbed it when it cooled down, my finger was clean after
- at 13W, the coil burntand break after few seconds (5 to 10 I'd say). No spectucular holliwood explosion though. I scrubbed it and found very little black residus on my fingers ... nothing compared to the picture someone shared here
- I'm now running a 1.5 (seens as 2 ohms by dna30) on a ithaka v3 with some rayon wick ... taste great so far, no metal taste, and very easy to wrap. I'll check the setup cleansingness after each tank and report back here

very non-scientific tests, so take it with a big scoop of salt

 

[Rossum]

What gauge Ti are you testing with Rossum?

30 gauge. This stuff:

Those calculations are probably pretty close because 10 turns on a 5/64" bit gives me 0.80 ohms:

However, your 0.01mm spacing is probably unrealistic and will probably make shorts between adjacent coils unavoidable.

I did dry-pulse this coil enough to convince myself that it doesn't have any really stupid hot spots and to burn off whatever contaminants are on it that make the wire off the spool smoke. Look at these purty colors:

Based on previous tests, that's about as far as I can go without starting to form white stuff.

I'm now debating what to try to wick it with.

 

[soulseek]

Oh I missed that link for the Ti wire. 200 ft of 30 Gauge grade 1 for $30, that's so cheap I'm wondering if there's anything fishy with it...

 

[Zanzibar]

What would be a more realistic coil spacing? I was operating under the illusion that touching coils wouldn't produce shorts. The idea was to coil on a coiling device insuring the wire was in complete contact at all times.

 

[Aal_]

What would be a more realistic coil spacing? I was operating under the illusion that touching coils wouldn't produce shorts. The idea was to coil on a coiling device insuring the wire was in complete contact at all times.

Short is not produced in regular wires because of alumina. In Ti world we don't know anything I guess.

 

[Rossum]

Oh I missed that link for the Ti wire. 200 ft of 30 Gauge grade 1 for $30, that's so cheap I'm wondering if there's anything fishy with it...

Huh? Titanium ingots are under $10/lb. That 200' of wire weighs less than an ounce.

 

[Aal_]

Oh I missed that link for the Ti wire. 200 ft of 30 Gauge grade 1 for $30, that's so cheap I'm wondering if there's anything fishy with it...

That's like 7 times the price of kanthal

 

[Zanzibar]

Oh I missed that link for the Ti wire. 200 ft of 30 Gauge grade 1 for $30, that's so cheap I'm wondering if there's anything fishy with it...

Shouldn't be, Grade 1 is the highest purity, and price being dictated by application (repairing titanium eye-glasses). However the exact purity isn't listed, but such info may be obtained by contacting the supplier.

 

[Zanzibar]

Huh? Titanium ingots are under $10/lb. That 200' of wire weighs less than an ounce.

Quite a bit goes into making wire of specific dimensions, especially with something like Ti. And then theirs commercial markup.

As far as the price difference between K1 and Ti goes that's up to you to decide its worth. I only posted the link to point out how cheap it is compared to Imeos exaggerations and for those looking to experiment without paying any obscene vape shop markup.

 

[soulseek]

Quite a bit goes into making wire of specific dimensions, especially with something like Ti. And then theirs commercial markup.

As far as the price difference between K1 and Ti goes that's up to you to decide its worth. I only posted the link to point out how cheap it is compared to Imeos exaggerations and for those looking to experiment without paying any obscene vape shop markup.

a) This isn't Imeo selling the wires. He's not making any money off of it, he's supporting e-smokeguru as well as trying to convince people to vape safely.
b) We don't know the prices for the spools yet. The ready-made NR-R-NR wires are a different thing, the price as you'll see is not too different to the Kanthal version.

 

[Zanzibar]

Not quite what I meant soulseek... I was reffering to Imeo talking about high purity (i.e. Grade 1) Ti being extremely expensive. And it doesn't matter who profits off of sales, vape shop prices are always high compared to other sources.

 

[imeothanasis]

I start liking this thread because it becomes a serious one. Some people put really nice arguments. My input on this matter for one more time is: Dont burn your wires and use biocompatible materials. Stay on the safe side

 

[Rossum]

Quite a bit goes into making wire of specific dimensions, especially with something like Ti.

Apparently so, 'cause you can buy 200' of 30 gauge .999 pure silver wire for about 50% over the spot price of the metal.

 

[imeothanasis]

something more about ready NR-R-NR wires. They work at about 10-15% better than simple wires because you use all the available resistance without loosing the resistance of the 2 parts of the wire between coil and posts

 

[katking]

I tried making my coils with titanium wire and it kept shorting and breaking. Then I though it might be because I was building a Steam Turban with mesh. So tried on an APO dripper with cotton wick. Still broke. Any idea on what could cause this? Think I used 8 wraps, maybe I need to do more wraps?

 

[ZeroOhms]

It's been mentioned a few times already that Ti wires don't have the same metallic taste.

Yup. Just wanted to get confirmation from people who tried it. In theory, Kanthal shouldn't give off the metallic taste either but we encounter them. I was hoping to establish a feedback based validation.

 

[ZeroOhms]

What gauge Ti are you testing with Rossum? Using Steam Engine with Vwls's chart I've found that 30 ga with a 25/24 coil and a 2mm ID you get 1.8 Ohms (using default coil spacing of 0.01mm and 0mm total leg length) which should make a coil with at total width of 6.3mm.

Here's a link to the specific test I ran: Coil wrapping | Steam Engine | free vaping calculators

EDIT: Another thing to keep in mind is how using different coiling techniques (twisting, braiding, parallel, and sequencing) can alter the final Ohms. To be honest I have no clue what changes they make and looking around hasn't dug up any definitive answers, if someone would be kind enough to explain I'd be highly grateful. I know some setups will multiply the end result while others will divide but now clue as to which or how lol

I am hoping many of us try out the baseline configuration of a single micro (which seems to be most common) and get some basic attributes checked off.

 

[ZeroOhms]

Guys I tried the NR R wire but not on a wick. Sorry didn't have time yet. The problem I tried the 1.5 ohm which I think is 33 gauge 0.18mm and with that gauge it is hard to test my usual coils. So what I did is wrapped a coil around 2mm and stuck it in a dripper. What I noticed is what was mentioned before by Rossum in his blog. The wire heats up fast then turns off quite fast as well. I was running it on a provari which made it harder to know what was happening because the resistance was jumping. I know for sure is that testing the ohms in a provari let's a small amount of current pass through the coil. This small amount of current was making the wire go from 1.5 to exactly to 2.5 ohms when heated. Now when setting it to something like 13 watts the wire was glowing then dull glow. If you blow on it it becomes black and turns off like a candle. It is interesting. As you know a provari doesn't set the watts so it is like a mechanical at a certain voltage. In a variable wattage I would assume that the voltage will increase all the time with the resistance of the coil and might reach the electronics limits. With a mech or provari, actually the behavior from what I saw is desirable in a way. We have seen mods that start off high then lower the watts like the decodes or semovar (not sure). So a Ti wire will give you theoretically the same behavior which might be a nice experience for a change.

Regarding flakes @Rossum and @CaptSteve, I did not have any in mine BUT I don't think it is the grade of Ti but I think we are not reaching the high amounts of power to get these temperatures. For me at least before trying a device that delivers a constant high wattage over a period of time (increasing voltage with resistance), I cannot attribute the absence of the flakes to the type of wire as of yet. I will try soon the 0.5 ohm wire.

Sounds like the coil is shorting. Anybody else seeing shorts with Ti micro coil?