What tools you use for wrapping coils (coil jig, or metal rods, or etc.)

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rc3po

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Good for you and many others.

For myself, I have found the winding gizmo to be an invaluable tool. I never torch my wire prior to forming my coils. I build my coils with tension and utilizing the tool, I seem to build a perfect coil every single time. There is pretty much no futzing with it once it's wrapped.

Whatever works for each individual user and keeps them off of analogs, I am all for. A jig/winding tool works for me.

Absolutely, the main thing is staying off the analogs! I love working with my hands so I enjoy wrapping coils by hand. I guess that's why I started learning electronics. The jigs would probably be good for people that has arthritis in their hands and fingers as well.
 

herb

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To assist with poor eyesight (get more far sighted with age, sucks) I've got a headband with a built in magnifier. Inexpensive and it's a boon when threading wicks in a tiny microcoil.


Tell me about it lol, i was having a hell of a time wrapping coils when i started and couldn't figure out why ( i was a wiz at this kind of stuff years ago) and when i put on a pair of readers what a difference , i could see .

I now just have a small hardwood maple block carved out to fit my hand and have all different diameter rods embedded in it , as long as i have the readers on it's cake .

Eyes gave out rather recently , late 40's , really sucks getting old i'll tell ya.
 

MacTechVpr

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Also, for those that have issues with building coils, there are people on ebay that will build any kind of coil you want for any tank. Personally, I don't see how they can make & sell them that cheap.

Right?

Don't get me wrong rc3po, I'm not insisting everyone do it my way. But I love to encourage people to learn tension winding. It's just another form of physics applied to what we do and a powerful tool. It's efficient, fast and most importantly easy for newcomers to do. Well most of us. I have motor skill issues myself and find winding both relaxing and therapeutic. Can I do it all the time? No. Use a jig? Yes, occasionally. Torch? More often than you might think. I love complex winds and twisted in particular. It's not always practical or achievable to reach adhesion and forcing is necessary for very thick wire and large diameters.

I write to a different audience hoping to spur the enthusiasm for rebuilding. Happy to see it in the past several posts.

Good luck all.

:)
 

jaxgator

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Right?

Don't get me wrong rc3po, I'm not insisting everyone do it my way. But I love to encourage people to learn tension winding. It's just another form of physics applied to what we do and a powerful tool. It's efficient, fast and most importantly easy for newcomers to do. Well most of us. I have motor skill issues myself and find winding both relaxing and therapeutic. Can I do it all the time? No. Use a jig? Yes, occasionally. Torch? More often than you might think. I love complex winds and twisted in particular. It's not always practical or achievable to reach adhesion and forcing is necessary for very thick wire and large diameters.

I write to a different audience hoping to spur the enthusiasm for rebuilding. Happy to see it in the past several posts.

Good luck all.

:)

I have to say MTV, I have headed your guidance recently. Albeit, without even hearing it.

Throughout my limited time here (7-8 weeks?) I have read so many posts that talk about torching and annealing wire before building coils with it. I tried it once and it didn't seem to matter to me.

I actually kind of just stumbled upon the tension winding by accident. For whatever reason (I certainly didn't understand the physics behind it), I just starting keeping the wire really tight when winding and it was making these awesome coils that were neatly compacted amongst themselves. A couple of pulses and I was in business!

After becoming more than a novice at building coils and then reading your posts it all started to click. Holy crap! I've been doing it right all along and didn't even know it.

IMHO, listen to this man, MacTechVpr, as he is on to something here.
 

MacTechVpr

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I have to say MTV, I have headed your guidance recently. Albeit, without even hearing it.

Throughout my limited time here (7-8 weeks?) I have read so many posts that talk about torching and annealing wire before building coils with it. I tried it once and it didn't seem to matter to me.

I actually kind of just stumbled upon the tension winding by accident. For whatever reason (I certainly didn't understand the physics behind it), I just starting keeping the wire really tight when winding and it was making these awesome coils that were neatly compacted amongst themselves. A couple of pulses and I was in business!

After becoming more than a novice at building coils and then reading your posts it all started to click. Holy crap! I've been doing it right all along and didn't even know it.

IMHO, listen to this man, MacTechVpr, as he is on to something here.

Thanks gator. Hey, I didn't invent the microcoil or tension winding. They're widely used in other industries and for quite some time. I've just a little bit of knowledge in electronics going back a ways. And eight failed attempts at quitting the stinks. I knew it was gonna be trouble goin' in and having done so how much people struggled getting through. I was fortunate to have the background to adapt this technology quickly or I would have failed myself. Knowing that even I could do it quickly, I know others can too. That's all I'm sayin' and would like to see. There's probably a gzillion ways we can go about this. I just want to see folks get the basic correct electrical principles in place...so that they are in the driver's seat. Then you can pretty much take the road wherever it leads you.

Thanks for watchin' the road signs.

Good luck!

:)
 
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CMD-Ky

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I would like to give proper credit here but I have forgotten who suggested a method for proper tension. I use it with success. Clip around four inches of the Kanthal off of its source. Clamp a hemostat on one end of the Kanthal. Let the hemostat hang free on that wire from one end of the rod, an inch or so. Then with the rod in my right hand and with weight of the hemostat providing the weight- tension I wrap the wire tightly to the number of wraps with my left hand. I wrap toward me so that I can see immediately how to lay down the wire wrap. My hands are out of the way so my view of the growing coil is unobstructed. The hanging hemostat is like a third hand. With no prior torching, the metal remains soft and malleable; the metal just melds itself to its final shape around the rod. A perfect tight coil emerges. With hemostat removed the tight contact "micro" coil is then installed on the atomizer base while the rod remains inside the coil as support and as a guide. After attaching the coil and removing the rod, a couple of pulse hits with the battery, the impurities burn off [sometimes this is quite visible] and the coil becomes solid. If needed, between each pulse, you can "pinch" the coil gently to increase the contact using a needle nose pliers. I need to do this pinching less often as my technique improves.

Since using the no torch method, the hanging hemostat and a pulse cleaning fusing on the battery, my coils have become as near perfect as I can imagine. I tried for easily six months to build coils and the result was, while not a waste in that they worked but, until I crossed paths with "No Torch MacTech", they were hit or miss but never great. I would go back to pre-made purchased on the Net. His explanation of why all of this works helps to understand why each step is taken and why the steps work. As I began to understand why I was doing or not doing each step, the "how" of doing just came naturally. I developed a technique that I am comfortable using. There probably is no "right" way to wrap. But knowing the effect that stressors [heat, tension and bending] have on metal makes arriving at your own method of implementation much easier and a great success.
:toast: [Whew, I haven't gabbed that much in weeks.]
 

herb

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Never heard of tension winding , i naturally apply a lot of tension on every coil i wrap , never even considered or thought about not wrapping a coil without a lot of tension, i would guess it would come out crappy.

Imo as long as you leave yourself enough wire length for your hand that's wrapping to get a good grip you will have all the tension you need on whatever diameter you use , if i applied anymore tension than i already do the wire would break.
 

gandymarsh

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I use drill blanks for wrapping micro coils under tension and a variety of different sized bolts for wrapping everything else. The threads help keep my coils perfectly spaced and after mounting the coils I simply unscrew the bolt and voila perfect coils every time.
What are drill blanks?
 

Singaw

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Do you get them from where you work?

A machinist friend sent me a set of four ranging from 1.5mm to 3mm when I asked him for drill bits, maybe you can ask a machinist friend. They can be found easily online but a quick check shows they are a bit expensive. Toy car axles are also available in various diameters and lengths for a much cheaper price.
 

k2zs

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snip....

Also I don't get why so many people are still torching. It's been written about everywhere here that this degrades the wire since super_X started tension winding. Annealing the wire just starts the oxidation process. Regardless we end up pulsing anyway. Why not do it with the virgin wire and get it right the first time?

All I'm sayin' folks. Don't have to be made more difficult.

After you try one of these and get the point of adhesion down and consistent end to end you will notice a radical coolness take over your vape. That's juice cooling the coil.

Straight up explanation — VAPORIZATION.

Electrical efficiency. And that's what ya want.

Thanks skimmer.

Good luck.

:)

When I first got my Kayfun I was amazed at how much better it was except for this funny taste it had. It sort of tasted like you would think Kanthel would taste. Every build I made I would first torch the wire (to remove the springyness (just like every video said to do)). Then I wound my coil and clamped it in a pair of tweezers and torched it into compression.

After finding this thread, I decided to try "tension winding" and made a jig of my own. Wow! A completely different flavor with NO wire taste! Try it, you'll like it!

As far as the jig goes, I took some random piece if plastic that I found laying around the house. It happened to be a part from an un-build "Visible V-8" model left over from when my kids were young. I drilled out the center to fit my favorite jewelers screw driver with friction to hold it in place. At the outer edge, I drilled a couple of 1/16" holes where I stick the end of my wire through and fold it back over the jig (instead of taping it to the screw driver).

This thing allows me to wrap perfect coils every time, under tension, with consistent results every time! So far, I've re-coiled my kayfun 4 times this weekend trying different builds and every time it worked perfectly! I finally settled on a 28ga 1.5 ohm build that turned my House of Hybrids DX350 Tube Mod into a perfect, stealthy, "pocket vape"

Here's a couple of picks of my jig with a random 30ga coil for illustration:
Coil Jig 1.jpg

This is it from the back side:
Coil Jig 2.jpg

The nice thing about this (vs taping it to the screw driver) is that you don't have to "over wrap" and then remove windings to get to your desired coil. Just count, clip, attach, and vape :)
 

gandymarsh

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A machinist friend sent me a set of four ranging from 1.5mm to 3mm when I asked him for drill bits, maybe you can ask a machinist friend. They can be found easily online but a quick check shows they are a bit expensive. Toy car axles are also available in various diameters and lengths for a much cheaper price.
I see, thanks. I googled it and yeah, there about the same price as regular drill bits. I'd like to have at least 2 of a few different sizes. I'll look for toy car axles.
 

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Singaw

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If the drill stock were free, that would be good.

Using drill stock sounds like a cool way to wind coils. As to them being close tolerence, I do not think there would be much difference between a coil wrapped on a 3.00mm piece of stock or a 3.05 mm bar or screw driver.

Yeah the close tolerance doesn't really make any difference I would ever be able to notice. I only use the drill blanks because that was what my friend sent me. I had never heard of them before but they work nice with no drill twist to get in the way. Anything you can wrap the wire around is better than nothing as I used to use whatever I could find lying around the house.
 
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