Why oh WHY is my Silica Wick shredding?!?!?

[skoony]

i take that back.silica doesn't melt under normal flame. i did a test. using a one inch piece of un-burnt 2 mm silica wick obtained from mt baker i tried to stress it enough to get shredding. no luck. a slight un raveling was observed. repeated the same with a piece i thoroughly heated over the burner of my stove. still no shredding. the wick from mt baker seems to have real fine filamentation. looks and feels like cotton wicks as near as i can tell as i have no real cotton wick on hand. i notice that my esmart clearomisers appear to have thicker filamentation. could it be thicker filaments are more brittle?
regards
mike

 

[zoiDman]

i take that back.silica doesn't melt under normal flame. i did a test. using a one inch piece of un-burnt 2 mm silica wick obtained from mt baker i tried to stress it enough to get shredding. no luck. a slight un raveling was observed. repeated the same with a piece i thoroughly heated over the burner of my stove. still no shredding. the wick from mt baker seems to have real fine filamentation. looks and feels like cotton wicks as near as i can tell as i have no real cotton wick on hand. i notice that my esmart clearomisers appear to have thicker filamentation. could it be thicker filaments are more brittle?

regards
mike

This is what I like to read. People doing their own Tests and Back Yard Engineering.

 

[zoiDman]

... It just seems odd...I've done everything I can think of short of buying a digital multimeter that will cost me a couple hundred dollars. I think I spent $125 on the Ideal...that seemed like enough for me...lol

I really Don't Think you need to spend a couple hundred dollars to get a Decent DMM.

I'm not an Electrician or a Tech. But I think you can get a Pretty Decent Meter for around $35.

 

[rurwin]

Even if the analogue meter worked, it is too insensitive to measure a coil. The Ideal meter should be sufficient; it has a 0.0-99.9 ohms range. What reading do you get with that?

 

[HeyYouComOvrHere]

Even if the analogue meter worked, it is too insensitive to measure a coil. The Ideal meter should be sufficient; it has a 0.0-99.9 ohms range. What reading do you get with that?

I got 4 or 5. I could not get decimal places. At least with the analog, I could see the tenths in between the numbers...I cannot figure out how to get decimals out of the Ideal.

 

[zoiDman]

I got 4 or 5. I could not get decimal places. At least with the analog, I could see the tenths in between the numbers...I cannot figure out how to get decimals out of the Ideal.

I think if I was you I would March Boldly into the 90's and buy a DMM. It's a Good Tool to have to Check Other Things like batteries.

Maybe someone can recommend a Good Unit for around $30 ~ $35.

 

[rurwin]

On the x10 range of the analogue meter, each whole number is ten ohms. So the tenths are ohms, not tenths of ohms. The difference between a short circuit and a standard Kanger coil will be around two tenths on the scale. That's far too small a difference to be usable, but you should be able to see it.

The Ideal seems to be able to measure tenths of an ohm: http://www.idealindustries.com/media/pdfs/products/manuals/61-096_manual_v1.pdf

You should see the omega symbol and the sound symbol in the display while measuring resistance, and a beeper will sound at any time you try to take a measurement.

If the display does not show the omega, you are not measuring resistance, even if the beeper sounds.

The accuracy of the resistance range is +/- 2% +/- 1 ohm. So it may indeed be that it doesn't measure to tenths of an ohm, even though the range is described as 0.0 - 99.9, which implies it does. But in the calibration procedure one is instructed to adjust for a resistance in a range specified to one decimal place, which implies that you can see that decimal place.

 

[Jimi D.]

I use silica on all my builds. I've seen silica shred apart when too much heat is applied. That's from a butane torch. I just lighty torch silica and it's good to go. Some have higher heat resistance than others. There is no point to torch the hell out of it.