Wicking Issues

[JoppaRoadCruiser]

So I picked up my first mech mod a few weeks ago. Got vtc4s and a charger this weekend so I've been experimenting with coil building and dripping. Last night I finally got my first good build....when I say good I mean something in your head clicks and says "I now see why people like dripping so much."

Anyways, with the prior three coil builds I attempted I kept getting this nasty cotton taste and eventually burnt taste. Took out the wicks and saw a little bit of black build up on the cotton...so there was definitely a little bit of burning going on. Last night I used a smaller amount of cotton. I would have originally thought this was too small but I didn't want to go through another bad wick. Worked out perfectly. Great flavor, vapor, no nasty cotton burnt smells, etc. I'm still getting used to how much cotton to use but I'm still confused if I'm doing it correctly. Previously I would slide enough cotton in until it was somewhat snug in the coil....kept getting burnt hits like this. What are the biggest reasons for burnt wicks? What is the general rule of thumb when wicking with cotton on a micro coil?

Forgot to add....I'm running a .71 ohm dual coil setup on a patriot. Wrapped 10 times on a 1/16" drill bit. Using pima cotton sliver for the wick. Adding pictures of the wicks.

 

[st0nedpenguin]

There's a pretty big variance as far as cotton goes and the amount you need to use for a given coil. Some cotton works better when it's pretty snug in there and some when it's almost loose.

You already pretty much hit on the only real solution, trial and error is your friend!

 

[MrPlink]

Keep experimenting, it is just cotton!
Hard to really tell from pix, but looking at your build I would say lower the density of the cotton but increase the area (of the deck) it covers

If you can get past his facade, Rip Trippers on youtube has a lot of good build tutorials.

How many hits until you are going dry?
While .7ohm certainly does not seem that extreme by todays standards, it is still certainly quite powerful and you also may just not be used to the rate that drippers consume juice, esp if you are going for fast and deep cloud chasing lung inhales.

 

[JoppaRoadCruiser]

Well I have yet to run it dry. Last night I was constantly saturating the wicks because I was paranoid about any sort of burning. You aren't lying about the amount of juice you go through dripping too....I bought a 15 ml of some space jam Andromeda on Saturday and I'm down to probably 4 mls. Granted I had to toss some wicks that were holding a good amount of juice....

As to videos, I'm pretty familiar with RT. I've watched many tutorials on building and the general consensus I kept coming across is to pull the cotton until it is snug. I must have been overdoing it. I haven't attempted any of RT's builds yet because I'm just working on getting the basic micro coil down. I think my next coil attempt will be a parallel one. But yeah dripping is where its at. The nic buzz I get off of 6 mg juice is insane....and I vape 18 mgs all day in a carto tank.

 

[JoppaRoadCruiser]

There's a pretty big variance as far as cotton goes and the amount you need to use for a given coil. Some cotton works better when it's pretty snug in there and some when it's almost loose.

You already pretty much hit on the only real solution, trial and error is your friend!

Yeah that's exactly right! The build in that picture was pretty loose. I was concerned I was using too little but apparently not because the bad cotton burnt taste disappeared.

I tried to re upload a better quality photo but it doesn't seem to help.