I recently upgraded to an ego c and got a vivi nova tank I want to rebuild the head im buying 32 gauge kanthal for the wiring I need to know what size wick to use on it 
wick size
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Just roll up a small piece of cotton into a long strand. I use sterile cotton balls from CVS. The less cotton you can use to acquire the desired wick size the better. It will depend on the diameter of your coil. Less is more when it comes to cotton.
i want to use silica for it i might go to cotton but i want it to be as simple as possible for now
But how do you not get the cotton taste is it a question of too much cotton or is it normal to always have that taste as well?
I've been rebuilding the coils in my T3S tanks... using 32ga is good, but the more important aspect is, what are you going to wrap the coils ON? I've been using a 5/64 drill bit, because it's the largest drill bit that will fit in the slots of the T3S in order to mount the coil to the head (and then only if you use the end of the drillbit where the threads are, hard to wiggle out of the coil but it can be done) and the smallest I can get a wick into, and for that size, 2mm seems about right; I've tried doubling the 1.5mm silica I have, but I cannot get it into the coil no matter how I try to thread it. So yesterday I ordered some 2mm braided hollow genuine ekowool from Lightning Vapes... best price I've found, and free 1st class shipping.
Cotton is great for flavor wicks, but for the coil itself, it leaves a great deal to be desired -- such as a decent taste.
Andria
Cotton is great for flavor wicks, but for the coil itself, it leaves a great deal to be desired -- such as a decent taste.
Andria
The cotton taste should fade out quickly in a new wick. If it's there for more than a few hits you either have to much cotton or you didn't let the juice soak in enough and you have a singed wick.
A lot of folks seem to really like that taste, but I can't abide it, in the coil itself -- it burns much too fast to have that close a contact with the heating element -- the coil itself.
For a flavor wick, cotton is great, really absorbent and prevents a lot of leaking, though if you get too much, you can still get that nasty burnt taste. But for the coil, silica seems much better to me, it's a lot hardier than cotton and can take a lot more heat before it begins to get that burnt taste. Plus, it's a HUGE pain to thread a new wick into a coil, and if you use cotton, you'll have to do it daily or at least every other day -- or any time you get a dry hit, because with even the slightest scorching, that cotton wick is toast, and will keep tasting that way.
Andria
I have been using the same vision vivi novas for over a year now and rebuild the heads with 32gauge kanthal and one strand of 3mm silica. I tend to make one side of the wick to the base of tank and the other midway. I never get dry hits and dry burn every couple days.
What do you do to stop the ekowool from collapsing - it's hollow? Won't it just contract away from the coil wrapped around it or something like this so the coil or parts of the coil are not touching the ekowool wick? Or, do you use something in the hollow of the ekowool to make it more rigid?
I haven't used it before; I'm getting that because of a thread similar to this one, in which someone who seems extremely experienced advised that it's air space that will hold liquid, and without air space, no absorbency. I wouldn't put anything in the coil/wick but the wick itself, for the simple reason that I don't want to possibly breathe it. In a 2mm wick, I really doubt there's much chance of "collapse," there's just no room for it, no space for it to collapse *to* and I'm assuming that when it's in use, the miniscule interior space is filled with e-juice.
I was hoping it would come today, but FL's postal service seems about as lame and lazy as GA's, so I expect it will be here tomorrow; unfortunately I won't be home tomorrow, have some plans, but I should be able to try this out on Sunday with some coils, and see how it vapes.
Andria
I ask my question because I have 10 kanger t3s tanks and want to start rebuilding the coils and making them less leaky (hopefully). This is my first attempt at rebuilding coils/wick assemblies and have read about the various wick materials. The ekowool does get a lot of raves just below this ceramic stuff XC-116 used by some as a wick that I'm not going to use.
I have seen photos of ekowool on ebay and other places but I can't tell much about it but . 2mm is very small as you say, but it seems like what ever stated size the ekowool is you would get a smaller coil than that once wound due to some collapse - just my guess.
*Also I never figured out where Kanger gets these rectangular or square pieces of wick material. All of my wicks have these nice squared corners that fit into the atomizer coil slots. A Lot to learn for me.
Sorry you didn't get it today. The mail is great isn't it
... . Thanks
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I ask my question because I have 10 kanger t3s tanks and want to start rebuilding the coils and making them less leaky (hopefully). This is my first attempt at rebuilding coils/wick assemblies and have read about the various wick materials. The ekowool does get a lot of raves just below this ceramic stuff XC-116 used by some as a wick that I'm not going to use.
I have seen photos of ekowool on ebay and other places but I can't tell much about it but . 2mm is very small as you say, but it seems like what ever stated size the ekowool is you would get a smaller coil than that once wound due to some collapse - just my guess.
*Also I never figured out where Kanger gets these rectangular or square pieces of wick material. All of my wicks have these nice squared corners that fit into the atomizer coil slots. A Lot to learn for me.
Sorry you didn't get it today. The mail is great isn't it
Yeah I'm pretty new at this coil building thing too; just did 7 T3S coils the other day, with varying success. The success or lack of it doesn't seem to be leaking or dry hits, but just the taste; with some of them, I got a distinct hot-metal taste, but I'm not sure why, if there's something that should be done to the wire other than "torching" it before wrapping it. I use a lighter, don't have a torch, but this 32ga kanthal is so fine that it glows very quickly, and I soon learned that it won't take very much of that, without becoming so brittle that it breaks when you try to wrap it. Maybe it should be rinsed with water after the torching, to get rid of that hot metal taste?
I've been using 2mm silica, just the regular kind, in the coil itself. At first I was also using silica for the flavor wick, but it's just not very absorbent; my juice is quite thin, 85% PG, so it just kinda runs thru if the wick isn't absorbent enough. So I started using the Peaches and Cream 100% cotton yarn for the flavor wick.
When I first started using that to replace the flavor wick after dry-burning the coils, I was using a whole strand of yarn, which is 4-ply (4 individual strands twisted together), but that seems to be too thick, got a lot of dry hits. So I started stripping out one of the strands before the boiling, so it's just 3-ply. With my thin juice, that seems to work pretty well; there might be a tiny bit of leaking that I notice when I remove the tank for refilling, but not enough to give that gurgle sound/sensation. With a thicker juice, more VG, it's possible that even 3-ply is too thick, and maybe 2 would do better, stripping the strand of yarn to half its normal width.
I'm still not a huge fan of cotton, it burns or scorches at such a low temp compared to silica, and it needs to be replaced fairly often, daily or every-other day, but it seems best to address the leaking problem. When I get that hollow ekowool silica, I thought I would try that for the flavor wick too, and see how it does.
It really does irk me that it didn't come today, but what can ya do. The postal service is kinda like god; you can pray, beseech, curse, scream, yell, but none of it does any good. They move at their own speed, which seems to be roughly the speed that a glacier moves. I just don't get how I can get something from Hong Kong in 3 wks, yet it takes 5 days to get from FL to GA.
Andria
I have read that if the coil is not well covered by e-liquid that you can get a metallic taste. However, I don't see why this would occur. Sounds like a reaction or oxidation , but I have never experienced with factory coils. This all sounds so much more complicated than I thought or the threads and videos would seem to portray.
I have read that quite a few a using yarn for wicks and flavor coils. I also don't want to deal with burning cotton.
My local BM vape store explains that most of their mod customers use cotton, like cotton balls as wick and never have a problem burning the cotton unless a long dry burn is done. So much info that is contradictory - must have a lot to do with technique / knowledge that is not easily or accurately conveyed on forum or youtube video - the finer points of coil and wick building...
I think I will try the yarn as a flavor wick as I do have a lot of trouble with leaking, gurgling and so on. So, I guess it is the boiling of the yarn that gets rid of all the nasty stuff. Do you use distilled water?
I have really hard water here and I think the yarn would get a heavy coat of calcium If I boiled it in tap water.
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I know exactly what you mean; when I was just getting prepared to do this, asking lots of questions about the proper materials and so on, at first I was told 30ga kanthal, but then found out that for the resistance I want, 2.5-3 ohms, I'd need at least 12 wraps, and that would be very hard to fit in a T3S head, and would take forever to heat up. So I had to buy some more wire, 32ga this time, and that works very well; 7 wraps gets me a solid 2.7Ω, just about exactly where I want to be, and 7 wraps doesn't take long to heat up and vaporize, so it works well.
I've been told a great deal about cotton balls, but the problem with that is that there are no cotton balls in my house; since I had to go and buy something anyway, it seemed to me that yarn was easier to deal with, than trying to figure out exactly how much and how tight to roll up some raw cotton, to say nothing of the difficulties of boiling loose cotton. With the yarn, it's fairly simple to customize the width you want, just by leaving it intact, or stripping out a strand at a time until you find the "sweet spot."
I don't need to use distilled water, but only because 1) we have a whole-house filtration system, and 2) on top of the existing filtration, there's a reverse-osmosis "drinking water" tap at my kitchen sink. We got that system because we were sick of having to buy massive quantities of distilled water, adding to the planet-wide plastics explosion (as well as not being cheap to buy!), and we had always wanted one of the whole-house systems, so as soon as we bought this house in the fall of '11, we got that system installed; I use the reverse-osmosis purified water for anything that's going to go in my mouth, including boiling this cotton for vaping with. If you have hard water (as we do also), then yes, I think distilled would be much better, so as not to introduce a lot of calcium, iron, and god knows what else, to the cotton you'll be using in your vaporizer; not only would it probably not taste very good, but with all that "stuff" in the water, could decrease the cotton's absorbency considerably.
And it looks like maybe our plans here might be postponed till Sunday, so I could get started with the new wick tomorrow. Yippee!
Andria
I've been told a great deal about cotton balls, but the problem with that is that there are no cotton balls in my house; since I had to go and buy something anyway, it seemed to me that yarn was easier to deal with, than trying to figure out exactly how much and how tight to roll up some raw cotton, to say nothing of the difficulties of boiling loose cotton. With the yarn, it's fairly simple to customize the width you want, just by leaving it intact, or stripping out a strand at a time until you find the "sweet spot."
I don't need to use distilled water, but only because 1) we have a whole-house filtration system, and 2) on top of the existing filtration, there's a reverse-osmosis "drinking water" tap at my kitchen sink. We got that system because we were sick of having to buy massive quantities of distilled water, adding to the planet-wide plastics explosion (as well as not being cheap to buy!), and we had always wanted one of the whole-house systems, so as soon as we bought this house in the fall of '11, we got that system installed; I use the reverse-osmosis purified water for anything that's going to go in my mouth, including boiling this cotton for vaping with. If you have hard water (as we do also), then yes, I think distilled would be much better, so as not to introduce a lot of calcium, iron, and god knows what else, to the cotton you'll be using in your vaporizer; not only would it probably not taste very good, but with all that "stuff" in the water, could decrease the cotton's absorbency considerably.
And it looks like maybe our plans here might be postponed till Sunday, so I could get started with the new wick tomorrow. Yippee!
Andria
I know exactly what you mean; when I was just getting prepared to do this, asking lots of questions about the proper materials and so on, at first I was told 30ga kanthal, but then found out that for the resistance I want, 2.5-3 ohms, I'd need at least 12 wraps, and that would be very hard to fit in a T3S head, and would take forever to heat up. So I had to buy some more wire, 32ga this time, and that works very well; 7 wraps gets me a solid 2.7Ω, just about exactly where I want to be, and 7 wraps doesn't take long to heat up and vaporize, so it works well.
I've been told a great deal about cotton balls, but the problem with that is that there are no cotton balls in my house; since I had to go and buy something anyway, it seemed to me that yarn was easier to deal with, than trying to figure out exactly how much and how tight to roll up some raw cotton, to say nothing of the difficulties of boiling loose cotton. With the yarn, it's fairly simple to customize the width you want, just by leaving it intact, or stripping out a strand at a time until you find the "sweet spot."
I don't need to use distilled water, but only because 1) we have a whole-house filtration system, and 2) on top of the existing filtration, there's a reverse-osmosis "drinking water" tap at my kitchen sink. We got that system because we were sick of having to buy massive quantities of distilled water, adding to the planet-wide plastics explosion (as well as not being cheap to buy!), and we had always wanted one of the whole-house systems, so as soon as we bought this house in the fall of '11, we got that system installed; I use the reverse-osmosis purified water for anything that's going to go in my mouth, including boiling this cotton for vaping with. If you have hard water (as we do also), then yes, I think distilled would be much better, so as not to introduce a lot of calcium, iron, and god knows what else, to the cotton you'll be using in your vaporizer; not only would it probably not taste very good, but with all that "stuff" in the water, could decrease the cotton's absorbency considerably.
And it looks like maybe our plans here might be postponed till Sunday, so I could get started with the new wick tomorrow. Yippee!
Andria
Yes, I will have to buy distilled water if I want to boil any atomizer stuff. I can't think of a great way to dry the yarn except in the oven on low temp... .
I really hope I can get the coil wound to the correct tightness on the silica. My reading is that too tight or too loose - problems. So lots of experimenting to get to where I want to be.
Well I hope you get your ekowool Saturday and look forward to getting some info on your experience with it. I am of course in limbo sort of undecided. But I think I will go with Silica for ease of use and try the cotton yarn for flavor wicks. I think I will wait till you post back before I commit to ekowool.
Try using Lily Sugar n Cream white yarn. I boil it in water for 15 minutes then rinse and boil again for 15 minutes and no cotton taste. Using the yarn for me is easier to be consistence with the amount of wick to use.
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