How long and how to properly dry burn coils what wattage to use? New to RBA (HELP)

[Alphantor]

A hot spot happens when one, or more, areas of a coil heats up faster than the rest of the coil.

Hot spots look like this on a coil that is being dry burned.
View attachment 988923

You do not want that.

If you see one or more hot spots on your coil take your tweezers and very gently strum across the coil the coil. Gently!!! ---> you don't want to damage the coil!!! Pulse the coil to see if the hot spots are gone. If not then strum the coil again. Repeat as needed. That will work out any hot spots. Like so:
View attachment 988924

When you dry burn a new or used coil - you want to see a smooth, or even, glow from the inside wraps to the outer wraps.

When you clean your coils, and dry burn, between wick changes, use a brush to remove any gunk from the coil. Do not use a metal brush as those will damage a coil. I use brushes like these.
View attachment 988925

Those are excellent for cleaning both the outside and inside of a coil. Don't use those on a hot coil!!! Run some water over your coil to cool it down, then use the brush. After brushing pulse your coil so any remaining water evaporates (dull orange).

And again, when dry burning a coil, depending on the coil 10w - 20w is plenty. Any more than that is total overkill. Exotic coils will require a higher wattage versus simple round wire.

When doing a dry burn... pulse the coil 0.5 - 1 second at a time... until you see the coil getting to a dull orange color. At that point run the coil under some water and repeat the dry burn.

Hope that helps!!!

very helpful thank you so much!

 

[Alphantor]

The hot spot happens when your coil isn't build evenly - correctly - has some imperfections, so the current meets the specific spot and the current finds more resistance in there and it can't pass freely like in the previous part of the coil (in other words you end up with a much shorter coil that really is) and your coil doesn't heat up evenly, you simply burnng the coil in a specific spot ! And that's why when you are building your coil you have to test it almost slightly right before the glowing part, so you can see that is heating up evenly... !

Thank you!

 

[KurtVD]

EDITED POST (Actually it's the second edit, sorry about that).

I would add that a hot or cold spot on a spaced coil (where the wires don't touch each other. The glowing example shown in another post is a so-called contact coil, in case you didn't know) So with a spaced coil, these hot and cold spots can happen real easily, it's sufficient that at one point, two windings touch each other or come too close (usually on the underside, where it's hard to see). And if the difference is big enough (between the hotter and the cooler areas on the coil), you can get burnt cotton at relatively low wattages. Because you don't get a lot of vapour if only one or two windings start glowing, you'll have to raise the wattage or keep firing at the same wattage for a longer duration, and the cotton might burn at these hot windings while the rest of it isn't even hot enough to produce any vapour at all...

So that's why it's best to pulse it at a low wattage, but in a dark room (or a dark corner, as dark as possible). That will allow you to "fine-tune" your coil without high (too high) temperatures.

 

[Alphantor]

Double post - had to delete the content since I don't think I can delete it entirely...

not sure what you mean sorry

 

[KurtVD]

not sure what you mean sorry

Me neither lol...for some reason (probably a browser error) a post I had written showed up twice on my computer, so I deleted one...only to find out that now it had disappeared completely. I will have to rewrite it...

 

[TARTARA]

I don't know what happened here, but it could be nice to able to see the post... !

Yeah, in general...
I'm not an expert and i don't try to play one... im just trying to share my "experience" with all my rights and wrong things... and maybe i can help someone... !?
Plus my English isn't the best out there, so sometimes it's a little difficult to explain exactly what i mean, or sometimes im a little late with my responses... !
Something in between these lines in general... !

 

[KurtVD]

I don't know what happened here, but it could be nice to able to see the post... !

The post is up now, just have to scroll upwards a couple of posts.

 

[TARTARA]

Nice, thanks !