What's the voodoo behind cotton yarn wicking?

[Necrosis]

So I've been playing with Lily Sugar 'n Cream white cotton yarn, where each full strand is composed of four thinner strands twisted together. My experience has been... confusing.

So here's the 4 atomizers I've tested it on: Protank 2, AGA-T2, IGO-L, and an Oddy clone that came in a couple days ago.

Short story, works just fine in the Igo, seems to work fine on the Protank & Oddy depending on how I set it up, and fails beyond words on the Aga-t2.

Before I go on, it seems like tautness may be the key. Been fighting with the Oddy trying to figure out how to get it setup correctly, and in the end, ditched the NR wire and using just a single piece of 30g kanthal microcoil wrapped 4 times on a 1/16" drill bit. Since the length of the legs are running along saturated wick, there has been no issue and was easier and (for me) worked better than adding NR legs. Whatever, that battle is done for now.

1/16" microcoil is seems to be a perfect fit for a full strand of this cotton, but using the yarn as is, kept giving me flooding issues "sooner or later". I just took apart 4 individual strands and threaded them through, and ran them down the feeding channels, but this time making them pulled very tight, absolutely no slack anywhere, and so far it seems to be wicking and vaping without issue. There's still time for the "or later" part to come rearing it's head though, so I'm not holding my breath.

The protank was just a one time test for juice someone gave me that they didn't like, so cant speak much for it.

The Igo-L is just an easy beast altogether. My last build on it was a 30g kanthal microcoil wrapped 6 times on a 7/64" drill bit, if I remember correctly. Through that, I threaded two full strands of yarn, still wound the way they came, with maybe an inch on either end sticking out. This thing has absolutely no problems whatsoever.

Now the damn genesis, Aga-T2. I have been unable to get any configuration to use yarn successfully. While any given configuration works if I saturate the wicks/coil from the top, once used up, they dont wick from the tank. I've had vertical and horizontal coils, positioned directly over the hole, inbetween holes, single wick going into a hole, u-wicks, and even one setup w/ a horizontal coil of 6 individual strands split so 3 from each end went into a different hole, wicking from four holes total (with a 5th open). This last one worked for 10 minutes, but when I came back to it an hour later, it wasn't wicking worth a damn anymore.

So I guess the question is, how is that much wick submerged inside liquid unable to wick when it doesn't seem to be an issue for my oddy or protank. There has to be some kind of law of physics I'm overlooking and would love to know, if anyone else does. My only theory at the moment is that it has to do with wick tautness, since my Oddy started working fine once I pulled the yarn real tight. The protank likely has a habit of pulling the wick tight and pinching them on the ends just by the design of inserting the chimney. The wicks submerged in liquid in the genesis tank are just free floating inside with nothing pulling them tight, which makes this seem like a plausible theory.... But then my Igo-L doesn't care, two strands of un-taut yarn have no problem sucking everything up in the juice pan and feeding it to the coil, so I don't know what to think.

tl;dr I want to get a cotton yarn wick to work in a genesis style atty. I received a steam turbine clone from FT, though the glass came shattered, so waiting to hear back from them. Would love to be able to set that thing up w/ yarn whenever a replacement comes in. Got two Kayfun clones I'm waiting on, but ultimately if they perform as good as I've heard, I may be eventually ditching everything else with exception to tank cracking juices. Right now I'm working w/ cotton yarn, and hell bent on getting it to work w/ all my tanks, so I'm not looking for alternatives like mesh or anything else.

 

[folkphys]

Did you boil the yarn first? Apologies, if that goes without saying, but I'm told it helps prep the material for maximal sucking-ness; removing foreign particles, opening up the fibers and whatnot. I know you said no alternative wick suggestions but I've been loving my wicks made from rolled/twisted stips of sterile cotton balls. Methinks a strand/fiber density issue could be at work here....

 

[armoworrior]

Boiled cotton in the cotton brain style works well. When it dries out just pull up a new fresh peice

 

[Necrosis]

Yes, I boiled the yarn for 20 minutes, but I didn't have any distilled water handy so just regular water filtered through a carbon block filter. Maybe that could be the issue. I thought boiling was related to cleaner flavor production rather than any kind alteration to the it's wicking properties. Perhaps there is something to that.

For months I've been exclusively using cotton balls, unboiled sterile cotton balls, and while I've had varied success with running rolled cotton wicks down into a genesis tank, one of my best vapes to date is still the aga-t2 with a horizontal coil over one hole, with a loosely rolled cotton ball wick half the width of the cotton ball running under the coil, and bending up against the back of the coil forming an L shape. Long as the hole is not completely blocked by the wick, a momentary tilt saturates the hell out of that cotton and tastes great. Just been getting tired of tilting the thing every hit. Been hoping that playing w/ yarn, I can also procure something more consistently reproducable (no matter how I measure and cut my uncurled cotton ball, it'll always have some variance).

Had to google the cotton brain, but that looks interesting, basically a massive amount of wick in the tank. Think I may give that a try today. Would have definitely been something easier to setup in the turbine, since the glass slides out independent of the top cap and I can do a clean threading into the tank, oh well

 

[Necrosis]

Well, tried several coil sizes and failed miserably. 1/16" seems too small despite working on all my other devices, 3/32" is too big and glows, 5/64" was just right... looks pretty (pic 1) but after a few good vapes it just cant wick. It will rewick itself into a moist-like state (pic 2), but it's not enough for even a 1 second hit. Burning cotton. Pretty much identical to every other failed attempt with the cotton wicking.

Meanwhile my oddy is hitting like a train with the same exact yarn (and like a bullet train at 15 watts) on the original 1/16" 8 wrap micro. I just dont get it.

 

[JD1]

I think there's way too much cotton there. As an experiment, try just a short piece into the tank (1/2 inch or so). Another thing that will work is to take the cotton out of the wick hole and just resting against the deck. You'd feed the juice up to the deck by tilting. That may not be a satisfactory arrangement because you can't lay it on it's side.

Of the cottons, the wicks from cotton balls wicks best, then cheesecloth, then the yarn. I think it's because the yarn is woven too tight to start with. Still some folks use with good results, so I'm thinking that if you shorten that wick, it should work for you. I use cheesecloth because it's easy to work with and has a minimal cotton taste the disappears in just a few puffs.

Most of the pictures I've seen use wicks from cotton balls or cheesecloth. Here's an example of one made from cotton balls. http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/blogs/donnah/4743-i-love-micro-coils-cotton.html

 

[folkphys]

I think we're dealing with a fiber density issue using yarn over balls. I've found that in my gennies, wick length matters. Short, but not too short. Protruding into the tank only about 1/8" or so. It seems like in order to resoak the top part of the wick where the coils are, too much cotton down below the deck might be slowing the process down. As if the liquid is having to fight its way upwards. Obviously, this set up still requires a tilt to resoak the wick, however for me, it seems that tilt is quite brief needing only the amount of time it takes to albeit slowly bring the mod to my face horizontally. But that's just the way I do things. All that said, I'll likely be switching back to porous ceramic wicks in my gennies because they're very nearly everlasting, require no tilting and are only minimally less flavorfull than cotton. Though I'll be sticking with cotton in my bottom coil RBA's for the time being anyway.

 

[MrStik]

That is an aweful lot of yarn for that genny. I would do what they 2 above suggested and just run a short strand down to the bottom of that tank. I found that less is more when it comes to cotton in general

 

[folkphys]

Yeah. The whole point with the "brain style" wick is that when the bit of the wick in contact with the coils dries out, you just pull it up and snip it off. Fresh wick.

 

[armoworrior]

And you need to have alot of juice in the wick.

 

[Necrosis]

I've run strands before this no longer than the bottom of the tank with identical results, even with a u-wick, all variations with both vertical and horizontal (to date, I have never had a horizontal coil setup that worked). Even had a setup with the wick split in half, with each half running into it's own hole for a total of 4. To be fair, my luck with rolled cotton wick into the genesis tank has had about the same luck, from uber thin wicks that leave plenty of space to breath in the hole, to choking. The pictures above were my attempt at the cotton brain. If the device requires tilting, then I would be better off going back to coil ontop of a bed of cotton sitting above the wick hole, which works really well and just a momentary tip saturates the cotton to perfection.

Currently thinking one of two things. It could be that the wick needs to sit in something besides free floating in liquid, IE some kind of juice channel. If I had a thin coffee straw handy, I'd test this by splitting the straw, cutting it to the exact length so it would sit level and not above the deck, and running the wick through the straw, which is sitting in the liquid, exposed due to the split, and held in place by the wick hole. Whether this could change anything, I don't know.

My other thought, is it's the lack of a pressure system. Stuff like the oddy and protank create negative pressure while inhaling, whatever differential there is between your inhale and the air intake, the rest applies a sucking pressure from the tank forcing juice into the wick. Not sure this can be created in a genesis, unless perhaps any extra holes are plugged and the remaining wick is wide enough to seal off the wick hole, but then I'm not so sure that would make any sense since the wick is exposed to air before the liquid. Maybe this effect is already supposed to exist with the air hole right over the coil to increase the pressure pulling on the wick hole from the top while pulling from the inside of the tank on the fill hole.

On a side note, have 7x7 and 7x16 ss cables that I never managed to get to wick either. Pretty much the same results as I've had w/ yarn, works for a moment but just doesn't work. If they had, I would have loved to have been able to either build a vertical microcoil, apply a thin layer of cotton towards the tip, and slide it down through the coil & wick hole. Or even the same wick, just wrapping a coil around it, which only takes a few seconds with all the experience I've forced down my own throat building coils. But nope, none of that works either for reasons beyond my knowledge

Only wicking system I had that worked, that doesn't require tilting, was something I was calling a W-wick that was a horizontal microcoil u-wick using, I think, a quarter thickness strip of cotton ball rolled tight, with a third seperate wick running into it's own hole and underneath the coil. Worked for a few days, then when I tried to rewick it, suddenly didn't work and I had trouble reproducing the success and gave up.

 

[mackman]

Well, tried several coil sizes and failed miserably. 1/16" seems too small despite working on all my other devices, 3/32" is too big and glows, 5/64" was just right... looks pretty (pic 1) but after a few good vapes it just cant wick. It will rewick itself into a moist-like state (pic 2), but it's not enough for even a 1 second hit. Burning cotton. Pretty much identical to every other failed attempt with the cotton wicking.

Meanwhile my oddy is hitting like a train with the same exact yarn (and like a bullet train at 15 watts) on the original 1/16" 8 wrap micro. I just dont get it.

Holy S*^# how much yarn is packed in there? It's cotton, the ultimate wicking material; less is more. Think about it like this; it is easier for the juice to travel up one 4 strand wick (line of least resistance) than to wind its way around 800' of yarn.
Seriously it you try less of the yarn, wrap the coil taunt around the wick without choking it off you will be fine.

 

[Ahagin107]

I dont like the yarn personally. Istick to cotton balls.

 

[TheSystemHasFailed]

I've had an idea for a bit, based off of something I heard from a member here once *pdib*. He liked genesis atty's more as a dripper...so, make whatever build you gotta make coil wise. With the cotton, just try and use a longer intact piece, so as to pull bad wick through. And as far as the tank portion, before you screw it together, just wad up some cotton in there. And make sure to obviously run as many wick channels as possible.

Tweak as necessary...

 

[TheSystemHasFailed]

Well, tried several coil sizes and failed miserably. 1/16" seems too small despite working on all my other devices, 3/32" is too big and glows, 5/64" was just right... looks pretty (pic 1) but after a few good vapes it just cant wick. It will rewick itself into a moist-like state (pic 2), but it's not enough for even a 1 second hit. Burning cotton. Pretty much identical to every other failed attempt with the cotton wicking.

Meanwhile my oddy is hitting like a train with the same exact yarn (and like a bullet train at 15 watts) on the original 1/16" 8 wrap micro. I just don't get it.

I swear I didn't read past the lengthy question...I never saw these pics. This is just what I was thinking. Although all those open holes on the deck I'd run cotton through, and lay/wrap the ends around the coil wick. This is more of an auto dripper, can't think of it as a genesis I've thought to myself. And...after you've done that, check it's wicking rate, and if inadequate, don't hesitate to invert the tank for half a second or more. Simple genesis tilt...

 

[Necrosis]

So been screwing around for a few more days with this and calling it quits for now. Going back to cotton balls, I ended doing a horizontal microcoil with a loosely spun strip of the cotton threaded in. One side snipped short, the other extending a good inch and a half or so to wind around the deck. Left all the wick holes open, it's pretty much the same as my igo like this, except instead of dripping from time to time, I get to do the same old tilt to saturate the cotton and maybe flood the deck a little bit so it has more juice to sop up. At least, unlike my normal genesis cotton setup underneath the coil, this doesn't need to be re-saturated every hit.

My oddy is back to a cotton ball wick too, in the end the yarn just doesn't perform as well no matter how I've played with it. The cotton ball simply wicks better and tastes better, and I don't even boil them. The one thing the yarn had to it's benefit was that the coil didn't splatter nearly as much. Doesn't matter to me in a genesis or rba, but it does when it builds up liquid in a chamber/chimney that'll eventually start gurgling.