Vivi Nova Rebuild tutorial

[Krystm]

Krystm, are you talking making the coil and then sliding it on the wick, or do the wick and screw, wrap coil then unscrew the screw out when you're done?

I make it on the screw back it off and then slide the wick in. I feel this is good because then you cannot get the coil too tight on the wick causing it to choke. Watch out though because if you happen to barely get it in there cotton still expands like crazy and can cause it to choke.

I have tried the paperclip and wrapping the wick but I always choked it with cotton as it was too tight. So far I have made 2 of these and they seem pretty good. I have flooded a few times so I may have too much or to little cotton. The guy using the 2mm screw said he just used that and #4 Medium cotton. I have #4 cotton but couldn't get it in at all so Using 2 strands of it and it seems to be working well. YMMV though.

 

[Lumpia]

It's worth a shot, I can source various screws pretty easy. Thanks.

 

[ratpack7]

I make it on the screw back it off and then slide the wick in. I feel this is good because then you cannot get the coil too tight on the wick causing it to choke. Watch out though because if you happen to barely get it in there cotton still expands like crazy and can cause it to choke.

I have tried the paperclip and wrapping the wick but I always choked it with cotton as it was too tight. So far I have made 2 of these and they seem pretty good. I have flooded a few times so I may have too much or to little cotton. The guy using the 2mm screw said he just used that and #4 Medium cotton. I have #4 cotton but couldn't get it in at all so Using 2 strands of it and it seems to be working well. YMMV though.

I use a plastic coated paper clip that measures 1.4mm. I use a plastic coated one so I can meter it with the coil still wrapped around it. I'm using #4 cotton yarn (worsted weight) I just snip off a piece of yarn about 2 inches long. lay the cotton yarn next to the paper clip to have something to wrap around. Wrap the coil then I wrap the legs with non resistant wire. I then found a trick for feeding the legs back though the head. I cut off a 1 inch length from a coffee straw. Feed the legs in to the straw up flush with the wick. Then feed the straw though the head push the wicks down the slots and the pull out the straw. No more getting the legs hung up on the inside of the head while trying to feed them though. no muss no fuss

 

[Krystm]

I use a plastic coated paper clip that measures 1.4mm. I use a plastic coated one so I can meter it with the coil still wrapped around it. I'm using #4 cotton yarn (worsted weight) I just snip off a piece of yarn about 2 inches long. lay the cotton yarn next to the paper clip to have something to wrap around. Wrap the coil then I wrap the legs with non resistant wire. I then found a trick for feeding the legs back though the head. I cut off a 1 inch length from a coffee straw. Feed the legs in to the straw up flush with the wick. Then feed the straw though the head push the wicks down the slots and the pull out the straw. No more getting the legs hung up on the inside of the head while trying to feed them though. no muss no fuss

I didn't think you needed the NR wire though for the legs. I know I haven't had any issues with just using the Kanthal. But, what I do want to ask you don't have any wicking or choking issues with just wrapping the coil around the #4 and a paperclip? Did you hone out the bottom where the wick feeds in?

 

[ratpack7]

I didn't think you needed the NR wire though for the legs. I know I haven't had any issues with just using the Kanthal. But, what I do want to ask you don't have any wicking or choking issues with just wrapping the coil around the #4 and a paperclip? Did you hone out the bottom where the wick feeds in?

With some juices I found it choking the wick with 4 strands but I have cut notches on some of my caps. I have been playing with using 3 strands (IE... pulling out one strand) and that works too. when I pull the paper clip out it is just lose enough to slide the wick back and forth. I found that to tight a coil will burn the wick. no I haven't honed out the bottom haven't seen a reason to go that far if I can alter the wick size.

 

[Krystm]

Sounds like I have work to do tonight. I have 2 Reg 2.5s and 2 Minis to play with. I have tried laying the a strand of wick over the silica wick Not sure how much I like that. It does wick like a .... and seems to work pretty well but the juices I am using are new to me so not sure if they are really THAT strong or what. I think they are working well enough but not 100% sure.

Also do you notice with cotton you have to use lower voltage for better taste? That was what I noticed and I saw a bunch of other people were talking about also.

 

[BJ43]

Sounds like I have work to do tonight. I have 2 Reg 2.5s and 2 Minis to play with. I have tried laying the a strand of wick over the silica wick Not sure how much I like that. It does wick like a .... and seems to work pretty well but the juices I am using are new to me so not sure if they are really THAT strong or what. I think they are working well enough but not 100% sure.

Also do you notice with cotton you have to use lower voltage for better taste? That was what I noticed and I saw a bunch of other people were talking about also.

I have found that since the air is coming from directly under the coil and straight to the mouth, the flavor and TH is greater than with other PVs. I have been using less voltage than normal and still get very good flavor. The flavor is much different than a genesis SS.

 

[hildicat]

Sounds like I have work to do tonight. I have 2 Reg 2.5s and 2 Minis to play with. I have tried laying the a strand of wick over the silica wick Not sure how much I like that. It does wick like a .... and seems to work pretty well but the juices I am using are new to me so not sure if they are really THAT strong or what. I think they are working well enough but not 100% sure.

Also do you notice with cotton you have to use lower voltage for better taste? That was what I noticed and I saw a bunch of other people were talking about also.

I've been rocking a cotton roll wick with 4 or 5 wraps of kanthal since Sunday. After probably 4 full tanks through this thing its still metering right at 1.6. Been vaping it between 3.5~3.8 volts. I can see the wick has darkened right where it meets the head, but its working so well I'm not going to change anything till it breaks or just tastes bad. Oh, and I did not use NR OR double up on the legs. At least for me, no burning the rubber piece this time.

 

[Lumpia]

I think I have found an addiction stronger than smoking, that I have had for a long time, and I'm feeling it now. Knobdicking is the official term I use. Just put in an order for 34 and 36 awg wire as well

 

[nordoe]

Having a little problem. Rebuilt my vivi a bunch of times but was getting a little burning. I tried to double and twist the resistance wire on the legs and it didn't really help. I picked up some NR wire today and I can't get it to fire. I get how to make the legs. My question is what is supposed to make contact. The twisted legs or do you make contact with R wire or Nr wire. I tried both NR wire and the twisted combo with bad results. On the multimeter the measured below 1 and they wouldn't even fire. Any thoughts?

 

[LucentShadow]

Having a little problem. Rebuilt my vivi a bunch of times but was getting a little burning. I tried to double and twist the resistance wire on the legs and it didn't really help. I picked up some NR wire today and I can't get it to fire. I get how to make the legs. My question is what is supposed to make contact. The twisted legs or do you make contact with R wire or Nr wire. I tried both NR wire and the twisted combo with bad results. On the multimeter the measured below 1 and they wouldn't even fire. Any thoughts?

Not sure what you mean by 'make contact', so I'll try to explain it in detail.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f337/urquidezj/IMAG0980.jpg

Referencing that pic from the original post here, the two long legs are NR wire, and they will be making contact with the positive and negative terminals of the head connector.

The R wire should be fully in contact with the wick to prevent any of it from becoming red hot.

The two twisted legs on either side of the R wire (where the NR-R-NR wires meet, and are twisted together) should be clipped as short as possible, while still letting them retain enough twists to keep them firmly together. I usually leave the two twisted together portions sticking straight up, but sometimes the alignment is wrong for that, so you can fold them down onto the coil, as in the picture. That could lead to shorting coils together and slightly reducing your resistance, if you are not careful.

The big thing to watch for is that either end of the coil does not touch the inside of the body. If it looks like that will be a problem, make sure that the side that may touch is wired to the negative side of the connector, as it will not matter much if that side shorts. Make sure that the side of the coil that is wired to the center pin of the connector does not touch the inside of the body, as that will be a dead short.

 

[nordoe]

Not sure what you mean by 'make contact', so I'll try to explain it in detail.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f337/urquidezj/IMAG0980.jpg

Referencing that pic from the original post here, the two long legs are NR wire, and they will be making contact with the positive and negative terminals of the head connector.

The R wire should be fully in contact with the wick to prevent any of it from becoming red hot.

The two twisted legs on either side of the R wire (where the NR-R-NR wires meet, and are twisted together) should be clipped as short as possible, while still letting them retain enough twists to keep them firmly together. I usually leave the two twisted together portions sticking straight up, but sometimes the alignment is wrong for that, so you can fold them down onto the coil, as in the picture. That could lead to shorting coils together and slightly reducing your resistance, if you are not careful.

The big thing to watch for is that either end of the coil does not touch the inside of the body. If it looks like that will be a problem, make sure that the side that may touch is wired to the negative side of the connector, as it will not matter much if that side shorts. Make sure that the side of the coil that is wired to the center pin of the connector does not touch the inside of the body, as that will be a dead short.

I would say my twisted portion was like a quarter of an inch and came down as part of the legs. The picture shows the twisted area almost being part of the coil, or just at the very top of the leg. Is that right?

 

[LucentShadow]

Yeah, the picture shows the twisted portions folded down onto the coil. You can't really see the one on the right side, as it seems to be behind the wick.

You can make the joined section part of the legs, as long as it's not so bulky that it shorts to the body or the opposite leg. The idea is just to make sure that the NR wire goes up to the wick, so that the R wire is always in contact with juice, with no open-air sections that will get too hot.

I usually cut mine to just a bit longer than 1/8 inch, as long as the twist is good and tight. I try to leave the twists pointing up, and very slightly inward, so I can see that they are not shorting to the body.

There are some good pics of another method where they crimp the wires together for a real rebuildable that may help to visualize the idea, below:

Crimp Beads & Odysseus coiling (image intensive)

 

[nordoe]

So I finally got it working. I think I was shorting it out with the twisted area. My problem now is that 32 gage kanthal I can only get like 2 to 3 coils because of the area without shorting it out. Measuring at 1.3. Vapes really well though.

 

[LucentShadow]

Good to hear you got it working.

The 1.3 ohms is a bit worrisome, though. That would be pulling about 3.2 amps from a freshly charged lithium battery, which is a bit of a tough load. Probably not dangerous, but possibly detrimental to the battery unit's longevity.

Anyway, I've managed to get 7 wraps of 34 gauge in one of these, so it's definitely possible for you to get 4-5 of 32 gauge in there. Just takes some practice. I try to get each loop very close together, and when I fail that while wrapping the wire, I use tweezers to squish the coil a bit afterwards.

 

[hildicat]

Got my order of 1/0 square braid cotton candle wick in today. Boiled it for 20 min and was impatient to try it out so I dried it in the micro. I set out to re-wick my vivi head and was done in less than 10 min including washing and drying everything. Wrapped a length of wick along side a thin paper clip. Ended up with 5 loops. Put it all back into the head, and though the wick was just a little tight in the grooves it seemed to fit nicely. Topped the coil off with a tiny piece of cotton roll then applied the silicon cap. Filled her up and let her sit for a few. The atty checked out at 2Ω. Started her out at 3.2v and have been slowly creeping up to 4.0v.*

So far, this has turned out quite nicely. The flavor seems neutral, if not just a tad muted, but its only been 20 min since I put it all back together. This has been my easiest rebuild to date. Much of that has to do with practice, but I have to give a nod to the candle wick for ease of use, just snip and wrap. I can't tell if the extra cotton roll on top is helping or hurting, but I'm going to leave it there while this setup breaks in. Would be great to get a week outta this one. Will report my findings as I use it for the next several days.

*Just an FYI for those that are curious. I did not use NR wire, nor did I double the legs, and I used Kanthal A1, 32 awg.

 

[Suthrnbuckhunter]

I just used the OPs picture tutorial and built my 1st head for my vivi nova.Came out 1.7 and no shorts on the 1st try.This is a great tutorial....Thank you for your efforts and for sharing this knowledge...
Bucky

 

[urquidezj]

Great glad it's serving you guys well. I tried cotton but it just wasn't for me. Silica rope is what I like personally

 

[Butters78]

I can't wait to try this guys.. I already built a coil on the phoenix, this shouldn't be any more difficult right?

My nova 2.5 should be here tommorow. I got the v1 but i figured id better try this with the newest version. The heads off the v1 fit on the 2.5? If so that would be great. Means I have 6 heads to full around with heh.

 

[sgehrking]

ok has anyone ripped and replaced the rubber gromet on the vivi head if so what did you use or where did you get replacements. Or is it just a matter of ordering new heads?