Wick materials. Safe vs dangerous.

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Quigsworth

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Just a tip...if you want to either try or are looking for a "I need some now" supply of non res wire...next time you are at Lowes or Home Depot go to the elect wire section and they'll usually have a reel of that clear vinyl insulated lamp cord (14 - 16 awg) where you can see the silver stranded wire through the insulation...the size of the individual strands are about 30 - 32 awg and it's nickel plated copper...pick up 5ft and you're done for a looong time...

The .999 silver non res wire is crazy overkill...even the nickel plated copper won't be in your juice anywhere near long enough to be concerned with a corrosion issue.

Sure, I use HH Argentium Silver for the leads in my home made genny's because of the long term exposure but for coil leaders?...again, overkill :2c:
 

L7D4N

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Just a tip...if you want to either try or are looking for a "I need some now" supply of non res wire...next time you are at Lowes or Home Depot go to the elect wire section and they'll usually have a reel of that clear vinyl insulated lamp cord (14 - 16 awg) where you can see the silver stranded wire through the insulation...the size of the individual strands are about 30 - 32 awg and it's nickel plated copper...pick up 5ft and you're done for a looong time...

The .999 silver non res wire is crazy overkill...even the nickel plated copper won't be in your juice anywhere near long enough to be concerned with a corrosion issue.

Sure, I use HH Argentium Silver for the leads in my home made genny's because of the long term exposure but for coil leaders?...again, overkill :2c:

I completely agree, and the cost/benefit ratio using Silver over Nickel is overkill, but when you have 30ft laying around in your garage after fixing a few broken Clockworks RDA's, it comes in handy :D
 

Quigsworth

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I completely agree, and the cost/benefit ratio using Silver over Nickel is overkill, but when you have 30ft laying around in your garage after fixing a few broken Clockworks RDA's, it comes in handy :D

LOL, at least you're not using the .999 as a twist tie to keep you bread from getting stale...
 

Quigsworth

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:laugh:...the poor Swiss, the country is pretty much divided into French, Italian and German speakers, yet no one from France, Italy or Germany/Austria can understand what the hell they're saying:D...one thing I do love about Schwyzerdütsch is there's no spelling mistakes...spell it anyway you want...
 

wolcen

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I'm pretty certain I'm in the minority in playing with my "RBA" Stardust (I have none of money/time/space to do better presently), so FWIW anyway...

I ended up trying a twisted piece pulled from a cotton ball in it, and so far, it's working better than the cheesecloth. I originally made the coil I'm using on a screw and had cheesecloth in it. I ended up pulling that out and re-threading through a small piece of cotton. Now, I haven't tried a quigstick in it (I had been using strands), but so far, it is better than my strands. I've been using it on/off for a couple days, and I also wanted to note that getting it well saturated does seem to help flavor presentation as well. i.e. using it for a bit the flavor improves. It was a bit bland/"cottony" for a few hours.

I'm using short wicks so I can somewhat control their moisture by pay attention to tipping. The longer strands of cheesecloth I was using were causing excessive gurgling when the tank was more than 1/2 full. Note that I'm using a replacement tank made from a 5ml syringe. This allowed me to pull the tip away from the top a bit - normally in a Stardust you are screwed down onto the top, and placing the tip lower, the suction in addition to wicking seemed to overwhelm the coil.

Nothing scientific for certain... I ended up cramming the coil down a little because the readings weren't solid at first. :-/ but there you are anyway.

So a couple lessons for my setup seem to be:
- Cotton ballz seems to be working better, but it may be a result of two things:
- A duration of use improved flavor
- Restricting vacuum to the coil seems to make feeding more consistent where there was too much liquid previously

Moral of the story: Versuch es weiter! (No, I don't know German [un peu Francais]...hopefully Google translate did me right ;-))
 

Tarkvemada

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I finally got my perfect wick. After trying silica, fiberglass, ceramic, bamboo, cotton yarn.. It's cotton 2mm square wick from e-bay. Awesome wicking, safe, doesn't burn, taste great with no any accents like silica.. Finally I'm totally enjoying my Ody and Penelope. Here is the link wgere I've bought it. 2mm wick is #1/0
Square Braided 100% Cotton wick 6/0, 4/0, 2/0, 1/0, #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 | eBay
I'm using 3 pieces wick - one longer and 2 short ones.
 

MikeE3

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Somebody should probably check my math; but here's what I've come up with for Kanthal resistances for the different grades:

Kanthal Grade------ A-1 ------- A -------- D

30 awg (Ω/in)----- 0.7 ------ 0.7 ------ 0.7
31 awg (Ω/in)----- 0.9 ------ 0.9 ------ 0.8
32 awg (Ω/in)----- 1.2 ------ 1.1 ------ 1.1
33 awg (Ω/in)----- 1.4 ------ 1.4 ------ 1.3
34 awg (Ω/in)----- 1.8 ------ 1.8 ------ 1.7
35 awg (Ω/in)----- 2.3 ------ 2.2 ------ 2.1
36 awg (Ω/in)----- 2.9 ------ 2.8 ------ 2.7


Spreadsheet calculations

ETA: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!! I did it!! I got this (#$#$*))(%*($)# forum to set my $*$$*##&@@) stuff up as a TABLE!!!!!!! :blink: :blush:

Didn't happen w/o a video tutorial to show how it's done. :D
 
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