Wire Rope for Wick?

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Vash

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Well went ahead and coiled up wick first with no mesh around top to see how it would work and nothing but hot spots and dry hits :glare:

So took it apart and wrapped a little mesh around top .Made it just long enough to wrap around part of wick that sits in the wick hole to make it more snug but not to tight so it wouldnt effect the wick.Was much easier to wrap coil and now its working perfect ! :)
Had to work out one or two small hotspots but that was no problem and considering I have only been using RSST for a week or so not to bad IMO.

Now Im getting nice vapor with no dry hits or bad taste .I really think these SS Rope wicks make it much easier to set up rba and no need for cutting and rolling right size wicks and needing something to help keep it stiff for wrapping coil. Glad I have about 10 feet worth of cable and my piece of mesh now will last me forever LOL

Im sure this has all been covered before but wanted to ramble for a min on my triumph setting it up :D

Big thumbs up to OP for having idea to try out SS rope for wicks :toast:
 

Njt07

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Makes me wonder, why not just go full cotton? I mean, you're using the rope to wick juice to the cotton right? Only reason would be that rope wicks better than cotton. Does it?

Thanks!

Actually I have tried that with 100% solid cheese cloth vertical wick. Either I messed it up, which is distinctly possible, or it didn't work that well.

What I did do was take Daves cotton tip wick and went one step further, I completely removed the center wire from the 7 wire strand and rolled it completely up in cheese cloth till it was the correct diameter to fit into the wire wicks coil that was still on the AGA-T+. So far I have gone through half a tank and it's vaping very well, I do have to tilt it genny style, but since I do that anyway its no biggie for me, I actually cant vape it straight up and down unless I use the tilting drip tip which I don't like.

I'll report back after a while with updates if it messes up, otherwise assume its working.
 

SuperDave68

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Makes me wonder, why not just go full cotton? I mean, you're using the rope to wick juice to the cotton right? Only reason would be that rope wicks better than cotton. Does it?

Thanks!

well i think there are alot of factors at work here and it's not so simple to say one material wicks better than another.

the 100% cotton wicks that i ran seem to have problems with vertical wicking, they are difficult to get demensioned correctly and in the coil area, any gunking would choke pretty much all further wicking. with the wire rope core, the cotton can get fairly gunked up and still wick fluid.

now this is just an assumption, but i think two major factors in this are, one, there is some heat transfer to the wire rope core, which is conducted into the fluid wich aides in wicking, because the phenomenon of wicking is basically a heat engine, but not so much heat that it cooks the juice.

and secondly, the wire core helps to heat stabilize the cotton and minimize it from overtemping and burning the fibers.

there are some running nextel ceramic and silica sleeves instead of cotton, but i tried both of these methods early on in my RBA adventures, and they both caused upper respiratory irritation with me.
 

thedesbois

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well i think there are alot of factors at work here and it's not so simple to say one material wicks better than another.

the 100% cotton wicks that i ran seem to have problems with vertical wicking, they are difficult to get demensioned correctly and in the coil area, any gunking would choke pretty much all further wicking. with the wire rope core, the cotton can get fairly gunked up and still wick fluid.

now this is just an assumption, but i think two major factors in this are, one, there is some heat transfer to the wire rope core, which is conducted into the fluid wich aides in wicking, because the phenomenon of wicking is basically a heat engine, but not so much heat that it cooks the juice.

and secondly, the wire core helps to heat stabilize the cotton and minimize it from overtemping and burning the fibers.

there are some running nextel ceramic and silica sleeves instead of cotton, but i tried both of these methods early on in my RBA adventures, and they both caused upper respiratory irritation with me.

Makes sense. I'll have to try SS rope now. :)

Thanks!
 

holy_handgrenade

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So, quick question for everyone doing this now. I keep hearing about how easy it is to setup, but I've had nothing but problems. Takes on avg a good 45mins to an hour to get a working coil out of the deal. I'm using an AGA T2 3/32" Steel cable wick. I've got both 7x7 and 7x19 wicks and use a tiny piece of mesh - tried both 400x400 and 500x500 mesh with same results:

First, I cannot get this thing to not register a short on the multimeter. It bounces all over the place. Even with this, I can get the coils very evenly heating and the coil warms from middle first then out to ends. No hot legs at all.

Vaping is much much better on it, however I'm missing the "amazing pure flavor" vape that I hear others are recieving. While vaping on the wonky setup I've got, it does consistently produce clouds of vapor and quite a nice flavor - but I've had and currently recieve somewhat stronger flavor from the Kanger T3 clearos I was using before going the RBA route.

For notes on the coil setup; I've done multiple so here's a full listing, this is over the past 2 weeks of testing and experimenting and good ol' trial and error:

Kanthal A1 32 GA: 3/2 wrap, 4/3 wrap, 5/4 wrap
Kanthal A1 30 GA: 3/2 wrap, 4/3 wrap, 2/1 wrap
Kanthal A1 28 GA: 4/3 wrap, 3/2 wrap

Using this all on a K100+ mech mod and some testing on eVic VV mod. eVic rarely fires as it either reports a short or software limiters wont fire on less than 1ohm resistance and has limiters on volts and watts.

Any ideas?
 

Xenolance

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I'm patiently waiting for my SS mesh and wire to come in. Going to set this up first on a brand new RSST I have sitting in my vape lockbox hidden from the GF's prying eyes.

Then I get to replicate it in the AGA-T2. I need to figure out a better system than the silly thumb nuts. I know I have something laying around here, just need to find it.
 

Gummy Bare

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Got to play with some 3/32nd rope and some Nextel this weekend. Also used ribbon wire which was interesting to manipulate and twist around. Came out pretty good on my AGA-T, seems to wick a lot better than plain old mesh.

e2ype8e3.jpg
 

SuperDave68

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I have a original cobra and I have 3/32 wire rope but its very snug fit , would a 1/16 rope wick better ? and if it does wick better do I need to worry about it moving a lot ?

I haven't used the 1/16, but others have on here with good results. I wouldn't worry about movement, and I personally prefer the wick to be fairly loose in the hole, it helps with tilting and priming the sleeve material.

I have noticed with my juice DIY 50/50 with with 10% PGA that in temps above 75 F it wicks great without much tilt/priming, but when temps drop below this, it helps to have this extra space around the wick.
 

Statistic

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After a few frustrating days of every xc-116 build not coming out well I decided to fire up the SS rope again. Using ribbon kanthal for the first time and it's pretty dang good!

3/32 7*7 SS rope, xc-116 sleeve, 3/2 wrap of .8mm ribbon, 0.7ohms... hitting fantastic.

Vaping Teaberry from Mount Baker, which is about the clearest juice I've seen yet. I'm very hopeful this juice won't look like a fossil fuel by the time I get down the the last 1/4 of the tank.
 
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Vash

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Quick question.Has anyone had issue where wick has touched top cap of RBA and felt a slight shock? This happened to me today ! I also drop my mod this morning and had batt collapse spring in my KTS so Im wondering if batt was the issue and not the wick.I plan on tossing batt anyways and getting new one but just wondering if shock issue could come from wick touching top cap. I have since made new coil with wick that isnt touching cap at all with different batt and its working fine :)
 

Vash

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Not sure how you could get a shock from something that puts out ~4 volts regardless of what part the wick is touching ... :?:

Thats what I was thinking .All I can figure is some how when I drooped my mod it messed up the battery and might have some how caused it . Once I put battery in my other mod to pulse new coil thats when spring collapsed so I know for sure batt is no good so tossing it.Was just wondering if wick could have caused any issue too.

Coil was 1.2 ohm so not super low.I have safety fuse on the way incase this happens again.The mod that dropped is fine it was just spring in my KTS that collapsed which sucks becasue I cant find replacement for it :glare:
 
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