Problems trying to start with rebuildables and micro coils

[oedo808]

Sorry for the length of this post.. I have a bad habit of typing a long message when I'm having trouble.

I've been using clearomizers and cartomizers for around 8 or 9 months now and enjoy them but wanted to venture out. After watching hours of videos and reading threads about what I want to do, I purchased an IGo-W and an RSST from a local vape shop. The gentleman who sold it to me built the first micro coil (i think with the small strand of 24 AWG kanthal that came with it) on the IGo-W, it wound up being .68 ohms, which was under what I wanted, with cotton as the liquid medium. Using a King mechanical mod (my VV/VW device broke a few weeks ago, so its my only mod) I loved it so much, and was using a delicious juice which was a 3 part combo of 2 aromatic tobaccos and caramel. After the first day I started receiving a harsh taste so I swapped out the wick with some new cotton and still had the harsh taste. I switched to an organic cotton and it didn't improve. It might be important to note that I didn't realize I was supposed to dry fire the coil without a wick in it when I'm swapping it out so I didn't do it this time but have every time since. Because I was still getting the awful taste I decided to build a new coil with some 28AWG (I got from LightningVapes on Amazon) for it and wound up just over an ohm, used the old cotton ball that originally gave me the great experience and the whole thing seemed worse with a chemically taste to it.

I decided to try my luck with the RSST at this point. I don't feel comfortable with SS mesh or silica as a wick, but wanted to use cotton and set up an auto dripper like I had seen in some videos. I wrapped a new microcoil and mounted it vertically without touching anything but the appropriate posts/screws. I checked for hotspots and the coil was burning from the inside out like it should. Put it on the ohm meter and it was a little over an ohm again so I stuffed my cotton, primed it and the coil, filled the tank and gave it a go. The flavor was very harsh so I looked and noticed that the air hole was very far below the coil. I decided to remove the wick and mount the coil a little lower, very close but not touching the wick hole right near the level of the air hole. I dry fired it again to make sure the coils were firing smoothly and checked it on the ohms meter again showing only a slight change. This time when I tried it out I instantly got the harsh metallic taste I was getting on the IGo-W. I've yet to try to rebuild this again.

Some things I want to try but haven't yet:

• clean all of the parts of my devices, and maybe boil the stainless steel parts
• boil my cotton in distilled water a couple of times
• try the 24 AWG kanthal sample that came with the devices

Steps I use to build the micro coils I've been using (in case I'm missing one or doing something wrong):

• torch a strand of kanthal to remove springiness
• wrap 8 times around a 5/64' drill bit, keeping as tight as possible and pinching with tweezers a few times while going
• torch the coil and while its cooling down pinch down with tweezers to get the wraps to touch
• mount the coil off of the base, tighten the screws, clip the excess so it won't short
• test on one of those black box atomizer ohm meters (my multimeter is dirt cheap and autoranging and just seems to count up from .7 to 1.6 ohms then back down to .7.. could be a problem with the multimeter or maybe I've done something wrong that the multimeter is telling me that the atomizer ohm meter isn't?)
• fire it on the mod to make sure the coils are heating inside out and evenly (I actually haven't had trouble here maybe because I've only done microcoils and I've only a few?)
• on the IGo-W I roll some cotton down and pull it through the coil, saturate it and the coil, loop the excess to rest underneath the coil
• on the RSST I roll the cotton leaving a tuft at the top and stick it through the coil and wick hole about mid way down the tank and saturate it and the coil
• fire the device.. sometimes I can almost instantly smell the chemical metallic taste.. I've tried to burn it through a bit (making sure not to burn the cotton) to see if it's maybe from the cotton and it will go away but it doesn't seem to. My firing switch doesn't ever seem to get hot at all in this process and I assume if I had a short the ohm meter would show 0 or extremely low resistance or maybe some other message?

I used to have a decent grasp on basic electronics from having an electrical engineer teach my vo-tech computer repair class when I was in highschool in 1998 but I'm afraid with little practice a lot of that has slipped away. I assume my problem here is with my coil though.. I must be doing something incorrect, as they've been too easy to make. I just thought a failure in the coil would be more obvious in the ohm meter or in the dry firing of the coil?

 

[Enoch777]

It really sounds like you have a very good understanding and fully grasp the techniques of mastering the micro coil. However, as is the case with many who say they have a bad taste using cotton, I highly suspect you are using entirely too much cotton for your wicks.

The key is to make sure your cotton is loose, fluffy, and when pulled through the micro coils yields no resistance i.e. friction.
While it's hard to guess or diagnose any problems with your coils themselves without a picture this is what I would absolutely check first. Second I would say perhaps there's some machining oil left over in your RDA and RSST. I heard mention a story of a horrible taste that wouldn't go away until the entire thing was heavily cleaned using PGA.

Give it a go and let me know if flavor improves.

 

[Dakota Jim]

your steps are very accurate and correct as I would do the same thing

possible problem #1 - trying to stuff too much cotton through coil and through wick hole - too much will hinder wicking and cause dry burnt vapes

possible issue #2 - you are vaping at about 17.64 watts with a 1 ohm coil at 4.2 volts on a fresh battery - what setting did you use on your VV/VW mod you had? you may need to make higher ohm coils

Possible issue #3 - not enough airflow - most people end up drilling out their air holes slightly larger for more air flow (which is why I love my kayfun lite+ tobeco clone (no logo) - great flavor, great vapor with a 2ohm cotton coil)


here is a link to a good online ohms law calculator

http://www.the12volt.com/ohm/ohmslawcalculators.asp

 

[oedo808]

@Enoch777 Thanks! I did tons of research before starting. Great suggestion on the cotton, I think I do have it too tight within the coil itself.. I will also be cleaning both devices thoroughly. Cleaning with PGA would be better than boiling or soaking in distilled water?

 

[oedo808]

@Dakota Jim Thanks for your reply, I knew I'd be pushing quite a bit of wattage I was just comparing it with the sub ohm one that the guy from the vape store started me out with and wanted to work my way up to 1 - 1.5 ohms. I can try to wrap a higher resistance one too to give it a shot. When I had my VV/VW mod I was only using clearo/carto's and would fluctuate to higher 12 - 15 watts based on the level of alcohol I consumed but mostly used 9 or 10 watts. I really liked the warm flavor the sub ohm build gave me but I want to mess around with higher resistance coils more, maybe just because to me sub ohm stuff seems to be more about clouds and I'm much more interested in rich intense flavor.. I just got some ridiculous flavor out of that first .68 build though and want to make sure I can match it at higher resistance coils before I mess around with sub ohm stuff.

Actually the guy at the vape store drilled out the IGo-W to something greater than 5/64' and I drilled out the RSST to 3/32' (probably what the IGo-W is at). I was afraid maybe the airflow was too much for me but I kind of like the loose draw. Thanks for the ohms law calculator link!

It sounds like my cotton stuffing is where the problem most likely is. Now that both of you mention it and I think back I'm almost certain I have it in there too tight.

 

[dripdaze]

I don't have anything to add to the good info above. I just thought I would let you know that the IGO-W I got yesterday tasted fine right out of the box so the cotton is a good place to look.

 

[Enoch777]

Cleaning with PGA would be better than boiling or soaking in distilled water?

If I have a very stubborn flavor I will use cheap vodka. I don't think PGA is necessary. Most of the time I just soak in spring water and agitate the solution by swirling in a circular motion inside a tupperware bowl container. I'll replace the water at least once to really soak the flavor out, but that's just when I want to switch from two incompatible flavors.

Something like machine oil I'd say vodka or PGA would do nicely, but I see no reason why boiling wouldn't work. Not that I boil my RDAs but you may want to take the O-rings out if you do. I could be wrong here. This is why I tend to stick with soaking and a good air dry. It might take more time but it works well and is simple enough to do.

I also definitely agree with Dakota Jim. Flavors can improve at lower wattage or higher wattage. Just depends on the juice and the setup. Worth experimenting until the flavor, vapor, and TH feels more right for you.

Best of luck

 

[InTheShade]

Some great advice here already. I'll just add that the type of cotton could cause after-tastes and weird flavors. Make sure you are using 100% natural, 100% organic (non-bleached, peroxide treated if you have to)

Also, if you can post up a photo of your build we might be able to help further narrow it down.

Sounds like you know your stuff though, I'm not sure I would know what the next step is either except for changing out the cotton.

 

[oedo808]

Now I wish I would have brought some with me at work instead of my carto.. guess I'll have to wait until this evening, or go home for lunch so I can tinker with it some more! I'm close to certain it was the cotton after your suggestions.. I rolled it tight to go inside the coil but I certainly didn't make sure it could move around freely after I pulled it though. I was thinking I would have it in tight so that all the coils would make contact but thinking about it I see the error in that line of thought because if it moves freely once it's saturated it will swell up.

 

[oedo808]

Thanks InTheShade, I think I'm going to run home and grab them so I can post pictures and tinker a little. The first cotton ball that came with my devices I'm not sure about. The bag I purchased is 100% organic chlorine free and some other stuff I don't remember. You guys are freaking awesome by the way, I love the support here.

Here's the cotton: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00592D70E/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
"Chlorine/Dioxin, Pesticide and Herbicide free! Maxim's 100% Organic Cotton Balls are Eco-Friendly and entirely Biodegradable because they're made with non-chlorine bleached pure organic cotton"

 

[Enoch777]

Hehe, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't guilty of the exact same scenario

InTheShade brings up a good point. While the inclinations of users vary from person to person on cotton, such as organic, boiling, both, or whatever else... I'm sure the one thing we can all agree on is that you should absolutely be using 100% cotton. Accept no substitute.

 

[InTheShade]

Thanks InTheShade, I think I'm going to run home and grab them so I can post pictures and tinker a little. The first cotton ball that came with my devices I'm not sure about. The bag I purchased is 100% organic chlorine free and some other stuff I don't remember. You guys are freaking awesome by the way, I love the support here.

Here's the cotton: Amazon.com: Maxim Hygiene Products Organic Cotton Balls -- 100 Cotton Balls: Beauty
"Chlorine/Dioxin, Pesticide and Herbicide free! Maxim's 100% Organic Cotton Balls are Eco-Friendly and entirely Biodegradable because they're made with non-chlorine bleached pure organic cotton"

Cotton looks good to me sir - must be something else... We'll get there. This forum is amazing at finding solutions to almost every problem I have ever seen posted. Post those pics, I am sure someone will know...

Good luck oedo808, we're all here for the same thing

 

[DrillRX]

I use cotton on all my RDA's. A combination of cotton rope pulled through micro coils with a cotton cloud below them to serve as a reservoir.

To little cotton can be as bad as too much cotton. It will create hot spots where the cotton is not touching the coils properly and overheat and burn the cotton and the surrounding fluid.

 

[oedo808]

I use cotton on all my RDA's. A combination of cotton rope pulled through micro coils with a cotton cloud below them to serve as a reservoir.

To little cotton can be as bad as too much cotton. It will create hot spots where the cotton is not touching the coils properly and overheat and burn the cotton and the surrounding fluid.

What's a cotton rope? Just a tuft of cotton you've twisted together yourself or a bit of something like this? https://www.etsy.com/listing/989624...supplies_low&gclid=CKu83_DU8bsCFWRk7AodAVUAiA

I've ordered some natural hemp from the Just Hemp thread BJ43 started that I want to use after treating it when it comes in this weekend instead of cotton in the RSST, but I planned to continue using cotton in the RDA.

 

[6spdtls]

Sorry for the length of this post.. I have a bad habit of typing a long message when I'm having trouble.

I've been using clearomizers and cartomizers for around 8 or 9 months now and enjoy them but wanted to venture out. After watching hours of videos and reading threads about what I want to do, I purchased an IGo-W and an RSST from a local vape shop. The gentleman who sold it to me built the first micro coil (i think with the small strand of 24 AWG kanthal that came with it) on the IGo-W, it wound up being .68 ohms, which was under what I wanted, with cotton as the liquid medium. Using a King mechanical mod (my VV/VW device broke a few weeks ago, so its my only mod) I loved it so much, and was using a delicious juice which was a 3 part combo of 2 aromatic tobaccos and caramel. After the first day I started receiving a harsh taste so I swapped out the wick with some new cotton and still had the harsh taste. I switched to an organic cotton and it didn't improve. It might be important to note that I didn't realize I was supposed to dry fire the coil without a wick in it when I'm swapping it out so I didn't do it this time but have every time since. Because I was still getting the awful taste I decided to build a new coil with some 28AWG (I got from LightningVapes on Amazon) for it and wound up just over an ohm, used the old cotton ball that originally gave me the great experience and the whole thing seemed worse with a chemically taste to it.

I decided to try my luck with the RSST at this point. I don't feel comfortable with SS mesh or silica as a wick, but wanted to use cotton and set up an auto dripper like I had seen in some videos. I wrapped a new microcoil and mounted it vertically without touching anything but the appropriate posts/screws. I checked for hotspots and the coil was burning from the inside out like it should. Put it on the ohm meter and it was a little over an ohm again so I stuffed my cotton, primed it and the coil, filled the tank and gave it a go. The flavor was very harsh so I looked and noticed that the air hole was very far below the coil. I decided to remove the wick and mount the coil a little lower, very close but not touching the wick hole right near the level of the air hole. I dry fired it again to make sure the coils were firing smoothly and checked it on the ohms meter again showing only a slight change. This time when I tried it out I instantly got the harsh metallic taste I was getting on the IGo-W. I've yet to try to rebuild this again.

Some things I want to try but haven't yet:

• clean all of the parts of my devices, and maybe boil the stainless steel parts
• boil my cotton in distilled water a couple of times
• try the 24 AWG kanthal sample that came with the devices

Steps I use to build the micro coils I've been using (in case I'm missing one or doing something wrong):

• torch a strand of kanthal to remove springiness
• wrap 8 times around a 5/64' drill bit, keeping as tight as possible and pinching with tweezers a few times while going
• torch the coil and while its cooling down pinch down with tweezers to get the wraps to touch
• mount the coil off of the base, tighten the screws, clip the excess so it won't short
• test on one of those black box atomizer ohm meters (my multimeter is dirt cheap and autoranging and just seems to count up from .7 to 1.6 ohms then back down to .7.. could be a problem with the multimeter or maybe I've done something wrong that the multimeter is telling me that the atomizer ohm meter isn't?)
• fire it on the mod to make sure the coils are heating inside out and evenly (I actually haven't had trouble here maybe because I've only done microcoils and I've only a few?)
• on the IGo-W I roll some cotton down and pull it through the coil, saturate it and the coil, loop the excess to rest underneath the coil
• on the RSST I roll the cotton leaving a tuft at the top and stick it through the coil and wick hole about mid way down the tank and saturate it and the coil
• fire the device.. sometimes I can almost instantly smell the chemical metallic taste.. I've tried to burn it through a bit (making sure not to burn the cotton) to see if it's maybe from the cotton and it will go away but it doesn't seem to. My firing switch doesn't ever seem to get hot at all in this process and I assume if I had a short the ohm meter would show 0 or extremely low resistance or maybe some other message?

I used to have a decent grasp on basic electronics from having an electrical engineer teach my vo-tech computer repair class when I was in highschool in 1998 but I'm afraid with little practice a lot of that has slipped away. I assume my problem here is with my coil though.. I must be doing something incorrect, as they've been too easy to make. I just thought a failure in the coil would be more obvious in the ohm meter or in the dry firing of the coil?

you can buy 100% sterile cotton at cvs which cuts down the time from boiling and drying.
As far as frequent dry hit goes on microcoil, there is nothing that would fix it correctly and that's how it vapes usually @ sub ohm. What you can do is buy another dripper (I know I know it's a pain to spend another money) that can hold plenty of juice and wick....or try different coiling method other than microcoil.

 

[DrillRX]

What's a cotton rope? Just a tuft of cotton you've twisted together yourself or a bit of something like this? https://www.etsy.com/listing/989624...supplies_low&gclid=CKu83_DU8bsCFWRk7AodAVUAiA

I've ordered some natural hemp from the Just Hemp thread BJ43 started that I want to use after treating it when it comes in this weekend instead of cotton in the RSST, but I planned to continue using cotton in the RDA.

It's a bit like yarn. Only with no die in it. 2mm is what I use.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[oedo808]

Starting with the IGo-W, the coil is 1 ohm, and the juice I'm using is 6mg nicotine Vanilla Sky mixed up at a local shop, something different than what I was trying to use before (no idea what pg/vg mixture it is). I started off just wetting down one side and not the coil to see how long it would take for traces of juice to show up on the other side of the coil. Within 10 seconds the other side showed signs of juice being wicked to it and at this point of me typing the message its mostly wicked to the other side although not super saturated. At this point I wet down the coil with juice and saturated the other side. First hit was harsh followed by some really decent tasting flavor (probably not great just because I like sweetened tobacco flavors, instead of just the sweet flavor). I re-wet the coil and the hit was harsh again but mellowed out. Maybe it's because I'm so new to this and what I'm experiencing is an over saturated coil in combination with a liquid that doesn't play well with my setup (EDIT: tried a very similar wick with the previous juice I was trying with awful results before this last one)? I was definitely using too much cotton jammed into the coil initially as well.

Anyways, it kind of seems like problem solved and I've learned a freaking ton and built like 7 coils trying to muck with it! Thanks for everyone's help!