I've started rebuilding my protank coils, they seem to be pretty good for a few hours but then just rapidly decrease in performance... i use 3mm braided silica wick and 32gauge a1 kanthal , when i do 4 wraps i get 1.8ohms, 5 wraps 2-2.2 ohms. Everything seems fine , i spread out the coil as much as i can and the ohm reader comes in at the right values. I'm using 60%PG 40% VG liquid , i normally use a fruit flavour at 3.6-3.7 volts on my MVP2. I noticed it has decreased in performance when it doesnt "crackle" as much as it did when i had first built the coil. It's getting to be annoying now because i'm building a new coil every second day, they don't die they just aren't worth vaping anymore. Any idea what could be wrong here?
New at building coils - decreasing performance after a few hours
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sounds like gunk. your juice has a large role to play with it. it may have too much sweetner or of that nature
Open it up and look at the coil, like defdock said, it's probably gunked up. I use cotton wicks, so I just pull them out, dry burn the gunk off the coils until they're clean, rinse/dry it, and re-wick them. You can probably just dry burn yours-silica wick and all, as the wicks won't burn.
Video, 3.6V sounds pretty low for 1.8-2.2 ohm coils. Have you tried higher voltage? You can bump up 0.1V at a time. I almost never run that low with my MVP and just realized I should be turning mine up higher. I'm just starting to use about 4.2-4.4 volts (or 10W when on that setting). I use a lot of fruit and dessert flavors, but I'm running 30g kanthal for my coils at 1.8-2.0 ohms. I'm also wrapping around a 1/16" drill bit. 3mm sounds pretty thick - your juice sounds thin enough to handle that, but I'm wondering if there just isn't enough heat?
I didn't run that high because I was afraid of burning my juices (and I was trying to conserve battery life.) However, I've just opened up a new flavor world, as I'm starting to taste components of my juices I'd previously not noticed.
:edit: forgot to +1 the comments on "gunk" on the coils. You can try dry-burning, especially with the silica. I wick with cotton, and I get about a week out of a coil (unless it's really dark, sweet juice) before I pull the wick and dry-burn the coil. Only time I completely redo a coil is when the resistance gets weird (like doubles and won't come back down).
Let us know what you find....
I didn't run that high because I was afraid of burning my juices (and I was trying to conserve battery life.) However, I've just opened up a new flavor world, as I'm starting to taste components of my juices I'd previously not noticed.
:edit: forgot to +1 the comments on "gunk" on the coils. You can try dry-burning, especially with the silica. I wick with cotton, and I get about a week out of a coil (unless it's really dark, sweet juice) before I pull the wick and dry-burn the coil. Only time I completely redo a coil is when the resistance gets weird (like doubles and won't come back down).
Let us know what you find....
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Good point. I don't know, but it seems like running low power would do a poor job of completely vaporizing the juice, so the coil might gunk up quicker.
The rule of thumb I've seen is atomizer resistance plus 2 = starting volt setting, adjust up from there.
The rule of thumb I've seen is atomizer resistance plus 2 = starting volt setting, adjust up from there.
Probably just gunk on your coil.
Make sure when wrapping a coil around silica you also use a small wire or straightened paper clip. It is real easy to wrap too tight and choke the wick. After wrapping and mounting or coil just slip the wire out.
Make sure when wrapping a coil around silica you also use a small wire or straightened paper clip. It is real easy to wrap too tight and choke the wick. After wrapping and mounting or coil just slip the wire out.
Back when was using a Protank I liked a particular dark juice, and it gunked up the coils pretty quick. I got to rebuilding the coils and had a bunch of them going, about 20 of them. Here's how I wound my coils back then:
I used 32 kanthal and tied the end of the silica so it wouldn't unwind on me. Worked pretty well, but the way I vaped they didn't last long. Eventually I gravitated to a mech and RBA.
I used 32 kanthal and tied the end of the silica so it wouldn't unwind on me. Worked pretty well, but the way I vaped they didn't last long. Eventually I gravitated to a mech and RBA.
When I rebuilt protank3 coils for 6 months, I had a very similar experience. I was using sweet juices from ecblends and they only lasted 1 tank before I wanted that crackel back and a better vape. My advice is to move on from protanks if you're rebuilding. Try a kayfun from fasttech for 15$. It'll be way more satisfying and your coils will last longer.
The best coils I could ever get on the protanks were .9 ohms 30g dual micro coils. Still had to re wick and dry burn them once a day though. Too much work for me in the long run when I just wanted to vape. Alternatively, a single micro coil of 28g is almost just as nice.
Now I run Magmas exclusively at .3 ohm dual coil and I couldn't be happier with the lack of maintaining it needs. Only changing the wicks with a dry burn once a week but my juices are not as sweet now.
The best coils I could ever get on the protanks were .9 ohms 30g dual micro coils. Still had to re wick and dry burn them once a day though. Too much work for me in the long run when I just wanted to vape. Alternatively, a single micro coil of 28g is almost just as nice.
Now I run Magmas exclusively at .3 ohm dual coil and I couldn't be happier with the lack of maintaining it needs. Only changing the wicks with a dry burn once a week but my juices are not as sweet now.
Thanks for the replys im gonna try building later tonight using 2mm silica instead of 3 and im gonna put in 1mm "flavour" wick to prevent flooding also going to try a higher voltage setting, in the meantime i've been vaping on an evod which i found surprisingly good. Hopefully i can work out this building thing because it will save me a lot of money, not willing to be paying for heads anymore, sometimes i get 2 defective ones in a 5 pack which is unacceptable when you charge that price for them!
You might also consider using 30 Kanthal, and more wraps to git your desired resistance. With more surface area heating up, it might gunk less quickly.
Hey vat, the pigments in juice are the primary culprits that saturate your wick prematurely and gunk up your coils. But it's inefficiency that does the dirty on ya. And inefficiency is the measure of how much energy is lost by a wind not doing work, in our case vaporization.. That means things like hand winds (inefficient contact), loose turns (unbalanced heating, wire heating air), etc. You can throw power at it but it still won't solve the problem. With more pigment, a bigger mess faster. The trials and tribulations we go through. There is an easier way. Earlier today I wrote
...I'm on a mission to try and help more vapers to adopt the vaping lifestyle by rebuilding as I posted above...What is a tensioned micro coil? I'd love to see more users trying some of the principles I and others describe here. These will have you rebuilding with exceptional results within a few days or weeks. When folks wonder why it doesn't work when they followed the video exactly well, there's a reason. A lot of times you need to know the why something works. And in rebuilding that happens a lot. For answers, follow the preceding links.
As for the dismal state of a typical consumer coil historically
ECF's pages and the internet are chock full of accounts of the pathetic quality and performance inadequacies of the typical factory coil. We wouldn't spend a dime on any other kind of consumer device that contained such an electrical abomination. We'd laugh in the merchants face. Yet we do it willingly for a device we use to inhale vapor from an essentially shorting circuit. We'd blast a vendor selling scalding coffee in a leaky cup but never question a coil product that does that to your vape.
Now a lot of us are curious whether it's worth the time to rebuild or even learning how to. They could try an example of a properly built coil by ordering one from a reputable vendor...Hand Tensioned Super Coils. My tests of this design show it easily outlasting a 5-coil blister pack. Not being as subject to shorting and other failures as a conventional factory coil the improvements in flavor and vapor by comparison are like night and day for the typical user. More demonstrative of the experience of vaping on a proper rebuildable device. And that is where we start to really savor the adventure of vaping.
Good luck all.
Hit me up one one of the above threads when you're ready to make the jump to hyperdrive.
Good luck.
So i built another coil last night, came in exactly 1.8 ohms. Used the 2mm silica and 1mm flavour wicks on top, this time i used a small sowing needle and held it against the wick and did my wraps around it , removed the needle and twisted to close the gap it had created... the coil looked much better than my previous attempts, i did a dry burn to test and it was heating up much faster this time and the general performance is definately better, but there is a weird taste, i'm unsure if it's the eliquid or the wick that's the problem. I can tasted the strawberry - mint flavour liquid when i vape and i get good clouds but there's an aftertaste... should i be boiling the wicks? i don't get why this is because i used a bic lighter over the wick before i even started and then did a dry burn after that. Anyone else have this problem? it's just a bad aftertaste like you get when you've been using a stock protank head for way too long (it tastes like socks).
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Did you torch the kanthal before winding the coil? There's a residue that needs to be burned off, and the annealing (heat treating) makes it easier to work with, as well. If not, that might be what you're tasting, and hopefully it hasn't fatally contaminated your wick.
And no, don't boil silica. Some boil cotton, although I don't. Well, didn't, use cellucotton/rayon now.
And no, don't boil silica. Some boil cotton, although I don't. Well, didn't, use cellucotton/rayon now.
That's possible. It's the equivalent of too much wick, which restricts the flow of juice.
It's as others above have noted that you're getting over-saturation. Wick clogged, gunky. Perhaps too much wick, insufficient power, shorts. Hard to say. Much easier when you develop a standard wind that just works and is repeatable. A noodle wind is not going to get you there. I know, I know…but everybody does it that way. Trying to save you months of time and fiddly, not to mention your juice and hardware budget wasted on bad vapes.
Just sayin'.
Good luck.
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