Wick materials. Safe vs dangerous.

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RavenTai

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My juice is clear. With the silica wicks, I'd do a water rinse and dry burn about every 3-5days because after a couple of days the juice would start to develop some color (from burning and draining back into the reservoir??). I've only been using this for a day and I did a wash last evening; but at no time have I seen any color developing.

I have noticed this also, orange de sangra from highbrow used to darken badly on me as the level dropped and the flavor would change, it went from just light yellow to used motor oil black at the end on silica wicks in both the joytech "c" and even more in ce3/phoenix xl, my cottonball wick is not darkening fluid at all in a ce3, the little bits of cotton i can see in the openings are still white and flavor consistent through the whole "tank"

what was this black stuff? I thought it was burnt liquid? my cotton coil is 5 ohms and i am vaping at 6 to 7 volts maybe that is part of it, the heat is spread out over a longer coil. I will know soon, I have to make 2.5 ohm coils for my ego so I can have cotton on the go.


EDIT: just tried 8 volts on a my 5 ohm cottonball wick, (still going) and I instantly (first vape) got a bit of discoloration in the liquid at the bottom of the ce3, lots of vapor, so that tells me that my cotton wick is just running cooler than the silica wicks I was running. cotton has excellent wicking properties.


Thank you for the link to silver wire that is the next step
 
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blackwater

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Hi,

So I read the first 15 pages or so and jumped to the end here and am still unclear on the subject. Is there a safe wick material or not. I bought wick from COV an assume it's Silica but cvould be wrong. Sounds like this will definitely splinter and leave particles in my lungs. So is there anything that is really safe?

Thanks,

Chris
 

hildicat

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Possibly, Q. But compared to the stock silica wicks in the clearos, this is a clear winner in the actual wicking of the juice. And personally, as long as it has some taste and that taste isn't crap, I'm fine with it. A couple of months or so after starting vaping full time, I had the 'loss of taste' issue and switched to mixing unflavored juice. I had no problem vaping that for a few weeks. I've never been a 'taste chaser', once I found the peppermint, I've been perfectly satisfied with that.

I'm also a fan of peppermint and have started to consider DIY. Do you have a recipe you could share?
 

RavenTai

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Hi,

So I read the first 15 pages or so and jumped to the end here and am still unclear on the subject. Is there a safe wick material or not. I bought wick from COV an assume it's Silica but cvould be wrong. Sounds like this will definitely splinter and leave particles in my lungs. So is there anything that is really safe?

Thanks,

Chris


I am still working on the whole thread but untreated %100 cotton gauze seams to be the answer
 

kwalka

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Its easy for me to say this since I dont posses the knowledge to do it myself. I noticed another member chimed in asking for a rundown or a list of what to use. The title of this thread is leading people to believe all the answers are here, and I know they are but, I propose a chart, list type of deal with devices and recommended materials. Nothing too elaborate just maybe something where we can say to new folks who come around asking every couple of days "look at post # 999".
As I mentioned b4 I just ordered Penelope and now that I have 150' of Kanthal and a bunch of SS mesh its time to start over w silver and cotton or rope. Now I am confident that one of you "wierdos" would be more than happy to spend a little while putting together a "recommendation only" list. I bet if its comprehensive enough you will end up w your own sticky. Now how can you resist that? Get it resist, ty, ty very much, I just made that up all by myself.
 

vikeme28

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I'm starting to enjoy unflavored more and more these days as well!

+1 for that. Flavor chasing was way too expensive. I go plain with a little menthol crystal for some kick. Although when I first received my crystals I almost booked a flight to the north pole to build my house then my wife explained to me that I am NOT the son of jor-ei ;)
 

Gummy Bear

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@ kwalka
et al,
I can't put together a list as some had requested but it does seem that this group of "Weirdos" have concluded that any form of 100% cotton seems to be the best and tastes good too. In a nut shell there could be something wrong with almost anything that could be used for a wick but the cotton seems to be the best at this point. Manufacturers won't use it because it will burn if someone tries to dry burn a coil and that would just give them a bad name.
 

kwalka

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@ kwalka
et al,
I can't put together a list as some had requested but it does seem that this group of "Weirdos" have concluded that any form of 100% cotton seems to be the best and tastes good too. In a nut shell there could be something wrong with almost anything that could be used for a wick but the cotton seems to be the best at this point. Manufacturers won't use it because it will burn if someone tries to dry burn a coil and that would just give them a bad name.

Ok so then thats the simple answer then. Thats cool. You get where I'm coming from, I just see people continually coming in and asking the same question. Fair enough.
 

Quigsworth

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Ok so then thats the simple answer then. Thats cool. You get where I'm coming from, I just see people continually coming in and asking the same question. Fair enough.

When I read page one and Evil's kick-off post I thought...we've all fired our devices and watched (with fascination) our coils/wicks in action...the pops and bangs of sugars exploding...actually feeling the mini impacts of juice particles if one actually hit us...

Silica, fiberglass, ceramic...they are all mineral based and easily fractured into sometimes microscopic sized pieces...surely there is some spalling of our mineral based wicks as a result of these mini explosions, where those pieces end up?...cotton is a natural fiber, it doesn't fracture, and if kept wet, doesn't burn...but even if it did and cotton particulate in our lungs was dangerous...we'd all be dead a long time ago...

but that's just my opinion :)
 

TomCatt

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I'm also a fan of peppermint and have started to consider DIY. Do you have a recipe you could share?

I do an extremely simple peppermint:

Currently 60/40 PG/VG (but have mixed from 80/20 to 50/50)

12-15% The Perfumer's Apprentice Peppermint (my recent batch is 13%, just because :D)
1-2% TPA Sweetner

ETA:
for DIY juice, use the dilution equation:

[mg/mL 1] x [mL 1] = [mg/mL 2] x [mL 2]

rearrange the equation to get:

[mL 1] = ([mg/mL 2] x [mL 2]) / [mg/mL 1]

1 = concentrated nic
2 = vaping level nic

So if you have concentrated nic at 60mg/mL and want to make 50mL of 18mg/mL juice; then you'd calculate:

[mL of 60mg/mL] = ([18 mg/mL] x [50 mL]) / [60 mg/mL]
[mL of 60mg/mL] = 15 mL
So 15mL of 60mg/mL diluted to 50mL is equal to 18mg/mL nic.
 
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Cool_Breeze

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Any size or link to a supplier. Thanks.

The string I use is coiled on a carboard tube from the manufacturer. I've had it around for several years and decided to put it to use with the discussion of cotton. I don't have the plastic wrap it no doubt came with and label, etc. It's about 1/16" in diamter. I'd think most hardware store or WalMart type store would have some. Just be sure it is all cotton.

My roll looks something like what's in the picture, but shorter and smaller depth of string on the carboard tube. I don't know how big the original package may have been.

Better yet, here's my string.
 

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RavenTai

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Thanks Wolcen,
This may help someone who is having trouble making nice looking coils (every time).
2j5jf5x.jpg

197eok.jpg

13zsav6.jpg

291yyba.jpg


I clamp a 2mm screw in the helping hands and wrap 5 turns around the screw, (as tight as you can) then just un-screw the coil from the screw and thread the #4 medium cotton yarn through the coil.
This gives a perfect 2 ohm coil/wick when using 32 ga. Kanthal in a Vivi Nova.

Um that is awesome,

I have been day dreaming about a coil wrapping machine, a complex 2 part machine that has a spindle and a moving head that progresses as the spindle rotates, kinda like a mini lathe, the two would have to be geared together through some complex expensive mechanism

Then I see wire on a screw, the simplest bit of hardware in my garage will do it perfectly every time, available in many pitches and diameters for no money at all. brilliant!


Edit: just tried a #6-32 tpi screw, the 32 Threads Per Inch is about right but the #6 screw is too big, also I used a shiny silvery screw and there is no contrast to be able to see the resistance wire , a black oxide screw as pictured above would make this much easier to see, the next machine screw size down is #4-40, I think this will be too close of a thread pitch, probably need to look as a very small wood screw to get the right diameter/pitch
 
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Cool_Breeze

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supervape - I have a coil of cotton string on a cardboard tuble that's been around for years. I don't know where it came from, nor do I have the original wrapping indicating the product. Just be sure what you get is 'cotton' and nothing else. Mine is maybe 1/16" in diameter.

Just now I received a sample of WWSS in the mail. I'm making a tuble about 1/8" long to put over the cotton string and place the coil on top of that. The 1/8" will fit inside the center tube of the Echo Crystal Vision cartos I am using. My hope is this will make for a dry-burnable wick system. I'll attempt to provide follow-up reports.

The wick assembly with SS Mesh over the coil portion of the wick has worked fine. I've not noticed any difference between that and pure string, though I haven't done much in the way of side-by-side comparison. TH, vapor and flavor seem to be as usual.

After 2+ days with the SS Mesh around the cotton string at the coil only, I began having a problem. My batteries' protection circut started kicking in. After examining my home-brew vv mod and finding nothing amiss, I decided to investigate the carto. I'm disappointed that I didn't put it on the Ohmeter before rinsing it with PGA and tearing into it.

I found it was fairly well gunked up...I've been doing dark and some organic tobacco flavors. I could not tell for certain if it were shorting to the SS Mesh, or that the coil wraps were touching when heated. I suspect the latter as the spacing was irrgular and apparently close in a location or two. A low enough resistance could cause high amperage and battery shutdown. After resetting the batteries I was routinely getting about 1/2 a draw before shutdown...clearly heat was a part of the equation.

With the gunk on the assembly, it wasn't possible to respace the windings. I unwound and rewound the coil. In removing it, some of the gunk came off. After several tries at rewrapping/installing in the pedistal with the original wire, I found success. I then did several dry burns.

After the dry burns there appeared no certain damage to the cotton wick, but it's a bit hard to tell when it is covered by SS Mesh. After a few burns, the assembly looked clean.

Estimation of success of wrapping cotton wick with SS Mesh at the coil and preserving the cotton, 50% with a 50% certaintly factor. lol
 
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