Wick choice? Substitute for cotton ball

[CMD-Ky]

Cotton makes an excellent vape for me with one problem. It burns too quickly for me. I use 1.9 ohm with 7.3 watts, 32 ga Kanthal around five wraps per coil and organic cotton ball shreds for a wick. After several hours at work (12-14) it should be re-built. I would like a suggestion another wick choice, one that is less prone to burning. I guess I am seeking second best as a wick material.

Thanks.

 

[Dissonance]

Silica, ekowool, ceramic, and stainless steel are gonna be your best bets. What atty are you using?

 

[CMD-Ky]

kayfun 3.1, I think the ekowool may be my next try.

Thanks

 

[Nomoreash]

You'll get several ideas for other options, which is best depends on the person but you shouldn't be having issues with burning cotton, especially with that build and wattage. Cotton won't burn as long as it's wet, I've changed cotton after a week and it looked just as white under the coil as when it was put in. Some liquids, usually dark and or sweet flavors will gunk it up faster though and leave a thick crust on the coil that needs to be burned off.

If you're burning cotton it sounds like the juice isn't feeding like it should and drying the wick out, might want to investigate that first.

 

[CMD-Ky]

I noticed when I take the 3.1 apart that the the cotton is scorched under the coil, perhaps I put too much in the coil, choking the flow. Make sense to you?

You'll get several ideas for other options, which is best depends on the person but you shouldn't be having issues with burning cotton, especially with that build and wattage. Cotton won't burn as long as it's wet, I've changed cotton after a week and it looked just as white under the coil as when it was put in. Some liquids, usually dark and or sweet flavors will gunk it up faster though and leave a thick crust on the coil that needs to be burned off.

If you're burning cotton it sounds like the juice isn't feeding like it should and drying the wick out, might want to investigate that first.

 

[alkaiser]

yup, sounds like you're using too much cotton. should be just enough so that is can slide easily between the coil

 

[CMD-Ky]

I slide it back and forth and it seems to move smooth without fraying, but I will try again this weekend. I like cotton and would certainly like to make this work.

yup, sounds like you're using too much cotton. should be just enough so that is can slide easily between the coil

 

[Shootist]

Cotton makes an excellent vape for me with one problem. It burns too quickly for me. I use 1.9 ohm with 7.3 watts, 32 ga Kanthal around five wraps per coil and organic cotton ball shreds for a wick. After several hours at work (12-14) it should be re-built. I would like a suggestion another wick choice, one that is less prone to burning. I guess I am seeking second best as a wick material.

Thanks.

I think you should dump the 32g Kanthal and start using 28g. With 32g you only have about 4 coil wraps, using a 3/32 drill bit as the mandrel, and you are putting all the heat into that small area. With 28g you would need about 11/12 coils to equal that 1.9 ohms which will spread the heat out over a bigger section of the wick which will stop it from burning.

It also might have something to do with the Mod you are using. If it is one that have the 33Hz chip, PWM to the MAX, they deliver 6 volts to the coil when it is in the On cycle of the PWM and because of that very short coil it is frying the wick.

 

[alkaiser]

also, make sure not to 'twist up' your cotton too much. make sure it is somewhat loose. cotton swells when it is filled with juice and it wicks best when it's not too twisted/tight.

also, make sure the cotton is not blocking the juice canals and just sitting on the deck. less is definitely more for the kayfun

 

[dhaiken]

All of the above recommendations seem valid.
If you can get some Sheseido Cotton Pads from Sephora you will be amazed at the quality. It makes it very easy to do consistent and repeatable wicks.

 

[Rat2chat2]

to ecf and the wonderful world of vaping. So many wonderful people here. So much information that is sometimes gets almost overwhelming. Thank goodness there are some wonderful people here to help.

When dealing with cotton, I find less is better. Easy enough to change. If you are dripping you have to make sure the wick stays saturated. It is worth the fiddling to experience the taste IMO.

Good luck to you and happy vaping.

 

[scrappy]

I had the same problem burning cotton wicks on my 3.1 clone. The problem ended up being my juice channels were too small.

 

[treehead]

All of the above recommendations seem valid.
If you can get some Sheseido Cotton Pads from Sephora you will be amazed at the quality. It makes it very easy to do consistent and repeatable wicks.

Interesting haha, I hadn't thought about using womens facial cotton, it has to be the softest. I looked on their site, and the kho gen do brand looks even better.

 

[treehead]

I noticed when I take the 3.1 apart that the the cotton is scorched under the coil, perhaps I put too much in the coil, choking the flow. Make sense to you?

That was a big clue brother, for me that exact problem came from a tight wick, but more importantly, *the coil was too close to the airflow*, I found that if I raised it slightly higher (about the distance of 2-3 nickels, not too high), it didn't shoot all of the air straight at that one spot. What happens is it vapes that one section of the coil and dries out that one spot extra fast, whereas if it has some distance, the airflow can evenly surround the coil.

Also, try more wraps if your able too, I know your vaping it at 7 watts, but 5 wraps of 32ga (no matter how big the diameter) will get hot FAST, and the Kayfun works best with the most amount of wraps you can power up with your battery device. What diameter are you wrapping on? The thicker the wick, the less it will burn, I'd try the same amount of wraps on something substantially thicker if that'd work for you.

(Also I'm sure you know already, but the juice channels should have a clear empty corner with no cotton in them for the kayfun to work best (on the 91% anyway), for my preferences I liked a thick diameter coil, with 26ga kanthal at lower than 1ohm, thin enough wick to be able to barely hold firm in the coil, and super thin wicking taking up half (or less) of the juice deck, it shouldn't be full of cotton for sure. Try some larger, or more numerous wraps, a slightly raised coil, and drastically thinner wicking and I'll be she'll be catapulting the vapor.)

Unfortunately, if you have 100% VG juice, it doesn't agree with the kayfun's that well (I drilled my juice channels, and airflow out (carefully) , turned into a whole new animal, it was a monster, one that would flood if you didn't give it enough power when inhaling, but it never dried up on me, I got used to blowing the excess out of the airflow into an old shirt or something, and it was quite the honeymoon phase until I got my Squape/Prometheus. I hope this helps brother! If nothing else works for your vape style, I'd go with straight silica for the coil itself, and cotton for the juice deck as close to the coils as you dare, I found silica to be the most hassle-free way of kayfunning.

 

[CMD-Ky]

I want to thank you all for the information. This is going to be a project. As I look at the build, I probably put too much cotton in the base blocking the the juice flow. Also, I will move to a larger wire using more wraps with a little higher over the air flow.

Thanks again to everyone.

 

[scrappy]

You should have almost no cotton in the well. You should have just enough to touch the bottom and that's about it. There's a few videos on YouTube showing this type of build if you need a visual. If you want to build with cotton in the well you'll have to open up the juice channels.

Give this a try. Do a new build in there, juice it up, throw the chimney on and have a vape. If it vapes exactly the same when the tank is on then you know the problem isn't juice flow.

 

[Loopy1224]

Most of the burning comes from dry hits


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[CMD-Ky]

Update: Once again, many thanks. My coil with burnt cotton has been cured. I had a total loss of institutional control in my finished product. I raised the coil and started using a larger gauge kanthal with more wraps per coil. Those two helped improve the general flavor and "heat" in the vapor. The final thing I did was to reduce the amount of cotton in the well. I had watched a video in which the author cut the wick a little over the barrel of the evaporation chamber and then, appeared to me, just kind of stuffed what remained down into the well around the well without much care. I cut mine much shorter, actually measuring the cotton, wetting it and carefully placing it to avoid the channels. I did these a step at a time so I could isolate the problems. Turned out that each step helped the vaping experience.
Great help, advice taken!

 

[Tbev]

I only read like 3 posts here but I think your using too much cotton.

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