Excellent points about the difficulty getting consistent readings of very low resistances at low voltage due to contact oxidation or other surface variances.
Pico problem - How accurate are mods' resistance measurements?
- Thread starter Hawise
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I use my Pico (ArcticFox firmware) to TC the single Clapton 0.33 ohm build in my AMMIT RTA, 55W @460F and it performs flawlessly with the 316L profile. That is the great thing about the Arctic Fox firmware is you can load DNA wire .CSV profiles from Steam Engine and install them on the Pico (SS430).Hey TD I really appreciate the links!
I'm vaping Temco SS316L right now, its annealed so easy to work, vapes with no metallic taste at all. I really trust wire from a US manufacturer, and theirs is always clean, be it SS, Kanthal, or Nichrome 80. Plus free shipping, and if you order it from amazon you typically get a discount for ordering two of any rolls of wire.
I"ve also bought wire from Kidney Puncher, and found it to be good wire.
You have me interested in the 28 AWG SS430 from creatingunkamen. Do you know if its annealed and easy to work, or is it really springy?I do wish I knew their source. Thats certainly a good price for 200 ft, and no doubt it would improve temperature control. I see a lot of sources in the UK, but the only US SS430 I find is large rolls from US manufacturers, no small rolls for vapers. I could buy a 1000 ft made here in the US though, lol.I've read up on the corrosion resistance of SS430, looks like fine vaping wire to me. I will definitely give it a shot at some point.
Oh man, my goal on my very sold but very cheap priced Picos is to eventually put Artic Fox firmware on one of them (I have another Pico just hit the continent and will be here soon), tune it with PI congtrol,calibrate resistance offset, and have it vaping SS in temperature control so good it'll give a DNA75 a run for its money. A Pico on steroids, vrooom
While I might not quite get there, the Pico does have decently stable control (but not accuracy on SS without tweaks as you've read), and even now is giving me good temp control on SS316 though initially it didn't look promising without tweaks, so the measuring input and control output electronics have the capability of utilizing some high performance tuning with advanced firmware.
It's all about the initial base line cold resistance when connecting the atty. Using Arctic Fox you can have the Pico read the resistance of the coil anytime you want, then you could manually bump it up 0.01 ohm and lock it to make the vape a little warmer if you wish.
I do love my DNA mods and squonkers though.
The Unk SS430 is quite springy. I don't have any issues wrapping, but some will anneal it with a lighter before wrapping to make it softer.
Zivipf from Germany, ships worldwide and has various gauges of SS430 too . It is top quality wire used by a lot of the SS430 fans. The Crazy Wire (UK) brand has a totally different TCR than regular SS430 and was not well received.
Zivipf carries everything you will even need in vape wire, mesh, rope etc...
Stainless Steel Wire 430 - Zivipf Onlineshop
I also use AVS's 28g 316L fused Clapton wire, both in their dual core and triple core variety.
I see they now have some prebuilt single 26g/30g SS430 clapton wire. It might be a little too big of a wire for your application, but I'm going to grab some on my next order.
*NEW* 10 Pack Clapton Coils (Gr. 430 SS) (26g/30g)
"It's all about the initial base line cold resistance when connecting the atty."I use my Pico (ArcticFox firmware) to TC the single Clapton 0.33 ohm build in my AMMIT RTA, 55W @460F and it performs flawlessly with the 316L profile. That is the great thing about the Arctic Fox firmware is you can load DNA wire .CSV profiles from Steam Engine and install them on the Pico (SS430).
It's all about the initial base line cold resistance when connecting the atty. Using Arctic Fox you can have the Pico read the resistance of the coil anytime you want, then you could manually bump it up 0.01 ohm and lock it to make the vape a little warmer if you wish.
I do love my DNA mods and squonkers though.
The Unk SS430 is quite springy. I don't have any issues wrapping, but some will anneal it with a lighter before wrapping to make it softer.
Zivipf from Germany, ships worldwide and has various gauges of SS430 too . It is top quality wire used by a lot of the SS430 fans. The Crazy Wire (UK) brand has a totally different TCR than regular SS430 and was not well received.
Zivipf carries everything you will even need in vape wire, mesh, rope etc...
Stainless Steel Wire 430 - Zivipf Onlineshop
I also use AVS's 28g 316L fused Clapton wire, both in their dual core and triple core variety.
I see they now have some prebuilt single 26g/30g SS430 clapton wire. It might be a little too big of a wire for your application, but I'm going to grab some on my next order.
*NEW* 10 Pack Clapton Coils (Gr. 430 SS) (26g/30g)
You hit the nail on the head, I was forced to learn that the hard way when I changed coils and got inconsistent temperature control before I learned how to force the Pico to give me the "New coil up same down" message, allowing me to set the cold resistance on my new coil properly. And then a TCR that worked for the Pico on SS 316L to make it more accurate filled in the rest of the critical steps for me. You know what you're talking about TD, I'm gonna learn a few things from you, lol.
I'm kind of glad I started with a basic Pico for temp control, it forced me to learn the basics. I read a lot in the forum and elsewhere people having to set their temperature to 200 deg F sometimes, and 500 F other times, and I have little doubt its the cold resistance for their coil not being set, like you say. Had I started out on a DNA I would have been tweaking all kinds of things and never figured out the basic stuff like the just how critical cold resistance is. Oh, about those DNAs, that Hcigar VT75C is a good looking machine, I'm gonna keep my eye on that one, haha
My second new Pico should arrive this weekend, and if I get it in time I'm going to test it out and then install install Artic Fox on one of them and start playing. For sure I will look into putting Steam Engine CSV files for SS 316 on it, I've seen those setups there.
Hey thanks for the new source for 430 SS! I sent them an email asking if their wire was annealed. Not critical, but would be nice to have it a little less springy. Europe seems to know the value of SS430 in TC vaping, hard to find it in the US isn't it. I did find two sources, one with a US site, but pretty sure it would ship from somewhere in Europe:
All products - Stainless Steel Wire : Wires and Rods Online Shop
The Stainless Steel Wire Shop
Looking at the labeling, I think both sites get their wire from the same source. SS 430/F17, annealed and F17 is food grade! I want! But um, smallest lengths is 330 to 1000 METERS? haha. That should last me a few weeks
That is the biggest problem with TC vaping. Like DaveP commented, you could screw an atty off and on 10 times getting a different resistance reading on most of them. I have also found that some attys are just not TC friendly. The resistance will change due to poor post connections to the base, also post screws that will loosen by themselves because of poor threading etc. Those attys will work perfectly in power mode, but wreak havoc in TC. I think you will really enjoy Arctic Fox where you can have the Pico reread the base line resistance any time you want.
I have found that anyone who claims to get a decent vape at 200F usually has no idea what they are doing with TC. Their baseline resistance would be way off, the build would burn dry cotton to a char and provide no dry hit protection at all. These people are also quite adamant about their settings, and will defend them tooth and nail. "If it vapes then TC MUST be working" or "I tried that temperature thing once but it burnt out my coils..."
Yes the 75C has a sweet looking screen and great features. I'll get one down the road, just don't know which one yet.
A few thousand feet of SS430/F17 should last the life time of the big Sally's Rayon box.
I have found that anyone who claims to get a decent vape at 200F usually has no idea what they are doing with TC. Their baseline resistance would be way off, the build would burn dry cotton to a char and provide no dry hit protection at all. These people are also quite adamant about their settings, and will defend them tooth and nail. "If it vapes then TC MUST be working" or "I tried that temperature thing once but it burnt out my coils..."
Yes the 75C has a sweet looking screen and great features. I'll get one down the road, just don't know which one yet.
A few thousand feet of SS430/F17 should last the life time of the big Sally's Rayon box.
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I vaped 3mm 28ga coils for years at 10W and wondered at the flavor comments on various juices that were posted. I wasn't getting that flavor level, so I started experimenting with coil diameter and finally decided 2mm coils were the best for my Kayfun LP V2 and the SS316L wire I use.
With smaller coils come smaller wicks and less impedance to air flow. The decreased mass of the wire in the coil also speeds up heating.
With smaller coils come smaller wicks and less impedance to air flow. The decreased mass of the wire in the coil also speeds up heating.
I got my second Pico the other day, and after trying it out, this morning I put Artic Fox firmware on it. I love that software, won't go back. Already seeing things about the Pico performance (cold resistance jumps around +-0.03 ohms at times) that affect its ability to perform TC very consistantly with a 0.6 ohm 316L SS coil. On the other hand, Pico controls well at the temperature setting, varying around the setpoint quite well, though the accuracy varies due to inconsistent resistance readings. I'm already making tweaks (pre heat) that have improved it, and doing live monitoring and saving trends to files and importing to Excel. This is fun and is improving my knowledge of TC and the Pico. Oh, I did import the DNA200 csv file for 316L into it, that actually works quite well. So 2 hours into this and I already feel very comfortable with Artic Fox.
What a good post clear and concise. Although I'm still a newbie i feel like I mostly follow along.I appreciate what you guys are saying, if it''s a good ride, it's a good ride...or vape.
Being an engineer though, I have to look under the hood because well, this is me. I researched the Pico up one side and down the other before and after I got my Pico and started using Temp Control with 316L SS. And what I found is both good and ugly, there are two notable problems with the Pico on Temp Control:
1. Doesn't always lock properly on a new coil if the resistance changes only .02 to .03 ohms with the new coil - still keeps the setting of the previous coil (doesn't matter if you unlock and relock). Even a 0.02 ohm resistance change from coil to coil makes a big difference in temperature accuracy with SS in temperature control if your Pico doesn't give you the "New coil up same down" message and allow you to select new coil so its resistance can be properly set.
I posted the workaround for this here:
Eleaf iStick "pico"
2. Temperature error 50 deg F or more higher than displayed temperature with SS setting for temp control using SS316/316L. I posted the proof and the fix for this here and here:
Eleaf iStick "pico"
Eleaf iStick "pico"
The Pico temperature accuracy isn't bad for nickle and titanium, but if you trust your temperature display using SS on the standard Pico SS setting you're fooling yourself and likely 50 deg F or higher than your display shows. That might matter to folks concerned about aldehydes:
New studies find carcinogens in vg and pg at high temps, even in tootle puffers
As far as stable temperature control goes, the Pico does control well, in fact better than the AL85 per DJLsb Vapes. It just controls it very inaccurately with the standard settings for SS.
My Pico with stock settings controlled my 316L SS build very inconsistently from coil to coil until I researched, did my own testing, and learned tips 1 & 2 above. Now I have it fined tuned with those methods and its running like a well oiled machine with decent accuracy and repeats coil to coil. Folks using the Pico firmware need to rebuild their Pico engines using steps 1 & 2 above
So I'll just blatantly ask a question. I have the pico 25 Version with 1.00 software.
Do you know what TCR value I should be using for the stock eleaf HW1 coil?
Not trying to derail the thread by any means, It would take me awhile to catch up to where you guys are at.
Hey 3heavens, I haven't used the HW1 coil, so hopefully someone who uses that coil on a Pico can give you better advice than I. I did look at the specs on it, 0.2 ohm 316L SS, not sure what gauge wire it is.
My only experience thus far is with 0.6 ohm 316L 28 AWG, and for me (and also the fellow in the video I linked to in one of the links in that post), for the Pico using 1.00 to 1.03 version sofware a TCR of 79 works best for accuracy (I actually have my TCR on M1 set to 80 now, for no special reason, lol). So you might try that setting. One thing I will say, is that it's probably going to be hard to get decent temp control on a resistance that low, but give it a shot. You can always use Power control and go by Watts, since SS is good for either.
I'm still new at this, and vape mouth to lung at low power (11W) and 350-420 deg F on temp control (typically 380 F), but one thing I recommend is set your Watts to the power you usually vape on Power control even when you vape on Temp control, that way if your TC flakes out you are still limited by your normal power setting.
Good luck!
Update: I just now noticed you said you have the Pico 25, that's different firmware than the Pico 75W I have that I tested so I can't say for sure the TCR I suggested is appropriate for you, but you can still try it.
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I never thought I would say it but I officially own a Pico now.
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