twisted coil question

Status
Not open for further replies.

TrolleyVW

Senior Member
ECF Veteran
Dec 19, 2013
112
43
Buffalo, NY
^^^agreed.

I do figure, however, that a general estimate would be that every strand after the first one will drop the gauge by 2. Example being 2 tightly twisted strands of 28 acting like 1 strand of 26. 3 strands of 28 twisted being like 26 and so on.

This of course is just based on my experience using a drill to twist, while pulling tight, until it snaps at either end. YMMV
 

Froth

Ultra Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Mar 1, 2014
1,184
1,592
Chipotle.
From my own personal tests, when twisting only two strands fairly tightly the wire will read ohms like a wire that is two gauges thicker than the base twist wire. For instance, my 26ga reads around .30 ohms/inch but when I twist two strands of 26ga together tightly it reads right around .18 ohms/inch, for comparison my 24ga wire reads at .18 ohms/inch. That is only as far as a comparison goes though, since there is more mass with a twisted wire the performance will be substantially different than single strand of wire two gauges thicker than the base wire of the twist, it will heat up differently and vaporize liquid differently. Hopefully that made sense.
 

Maurice Pudlo

Ultra Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Nov 27, 2013
1,601
2,232
United States
Resistance lowers as you add strands of wire to a wrap.

2 strands of any gauge wire will end up with a lower resistance per inch or whatever unit of measure you prefer.

Add another strand and the resistance will drop even farther.

Exactly how much is dependent on a bunch of factors; how tightly you wrap the wires together being the simplest of ways to describe all that is going on. In the end you want a tightly wound wire without any open loops, if you get open loops they will likely become hot spots.

I run 4 strands of 32 gauge kanthal a1 more often than not, first wound dual strand then folded and wound again. The result is about the same diameter as 28 core wrapped in 32 guitar string style maybe a little less. With wire this thick most coils are going to be in the sub ohm range, dual and triple wire wraps can easily be made into low 1.0+ ohm coils, the quad wrap would need to be really tiny and that's not particularly easy with how thick it is. It could be done I suppose, there are some highly creative people out there building neat nano coils.

This style of making coils works really well with an ultra fast wick method. If your having issues getting enough fluid to the coil it isn't going to result in a good vape.

As for why someone would do this, in my case I initially purchased 32 gauge kanthal a1, for me wrapping the wire gave me options beyond the resistance the wire in single strand form.

When it comes to vape quality, like I said before, if you can get juice and enough watts to the coil fast enough, wrapped coils throw plenty of vapor.

Just remember the lower the resistance the faster your battery is depleted, and depleting a battery faster than its rating will damage it. The result can be catastrophic failure resulting in injury to self or others.

There is plenty of information on this forum about how to determine if you are over your batteries limit, and calculators abound on the internet.

I'm no safety monger here, but there are some serious risks involved in going outside of the standard single wire coil type builds, for example if you do have a hot spot that burns out that portion of the coil and it shorts the device, you will have an issue in an unprotected mod. Be as safe as you need to be so you don't end up on the news and screw it up for the rest of us :ohmy: seriously.

If your not happy with your current rig, read up about your device, batteries, and build something that has a good safety margin, don't be a hero and push the limits of your battery, that's where folks get into serious trouble.

Maurice
 

Land0Calrissian

Senior Member
ECF Veteran
Dec 14, 2013
261
66
Cloud City
So I was put onto twisted wires a few months ago when I first started building. Haven't used regular wires since (except with parallel builds, but even in those now I use twisted wires). Flavor is much much better IMO. A few members put me on them, and then gave me some insight as to why and the difference, here's some of what they told me:

"when twisted the area is tremendously increased, after its twisted it should feel like a row of tiny beads. things that are curved have more surface area than thing that are flat. this is the reason why some of the most popular / effective swords in history have curved blades (more cutting edge / surface area) with out an increase in over all length. so what you have is row of tiny balls that get hot and vaporizer the liquid then you have spots between the balls that allow the vapor to flow out. you would think that 2 wires twisted together would cut the resistance in half vs one normal wire. but this is not the case i find it only drops about .25 ohms per inch but it is noticeable. for example if your normal wire is 1 ohm per inch and then you twist it, the twisted pair is now .75 ohms."

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/new-members-forum/512488-suggestions-dual-coil-builds.html

@happydave @emus

Quick rule of thumb: Tighter the coils, the thicker the wire = lower resistance
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users who are viewing this thread