how to tell if you have a short in you coil?

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Gummy Bare

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I’m wondering if there’s an easy way to tell if you have a short in your newly (or older) made coil? I have made some SS mesh coils before and noticed I had a short because of the nasty metallic taste I would get from it. But I’ve been doing a lot more silica coils and I’m not quite sure how to tell. I will try and make sure the coils arn’t touching or overlapping each other and look for hot spots before using it. I also test the resistance to make sure its around where it should be. I use a lot of vv\vw mods like the Vamo and tesla, which I believe have built in protection so if I have a short it won’t hurt anything (I could be wrong on that). But I use vision spinner and ego twists at work with rba drippers I’ve coiled up and I’m not sure if I’m gonna break my battery or run into any issues if I’ve coiled something wrong and it’s got a short.

Would a way off resistance reading be an indication of a bad coil? Are there meters I can purchase that will indicate if I have a short, or are they more for checking resistance?

I’m sure this has been covered before on ecf, but a search of the word “short” comes up with all kinds of unrelated stuff. If there’s a good thread that answers my questions please drop me a link.

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04stinugget

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A short should not be an issue with a non metallic wick. As long as your coils are not touching the cap or droopimg down onto the base. With a non metallic wick the only short your going to get would be issues with the positive post shorting before the coil in which case you won't be getting any power to the coil so no vape anyways. When we say short we mean the coil is grounding out through the wick and not the ground screw. Effectively shortening the circuit.
 

dnrtn2342

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Your metallic taste doesn't necessarily mean a short. Newly oxidized ss mesh wicks will taste slightly metallic majority of the time. You can tell a short on ss mesh if you get a hot spot, noticeable offset heating, or popping a coil. If your ohms reading is jumping that's another indication. Its a lot easier to tell a short in a rba tank if its empty with dry wick.
 

Gummy Bare

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A short should not be an issue with a non metallic wick. As long as your coils are not touching the cap or droopimg down onto the base. With a non metallic wick the only short your going to get would be issues with the positive post shorting before the coil in which case you won't be getting any power to the coil so no vape anyways. When we say short we mean the coil is grounding out through the wick and not the ground screw. Effectively shortening the circuit.

Nice, thanks man. That's an answer I can live with.

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Gummy Bare

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Your metallic taste doesn't necessarily mean a short. Newly oxidized ss mesh wicks will taste slightly metallic majority of the time. You can tell a short on ss mesh if you get a hot spot, noticeable offset heating, or popping a coil. If your ohms reading is jumping that's another indication. Its a lot easier to tell a short in a rba tank if its empty with dry wick.

Thanks man, I'll have to play with the SS some more than. I did a kanger T3 rebuild with SS and it vaped like a champ, but it had a super bad metallic taste... like I was smoking a hot circuit board or somthing. Just figured it was a bad short.

By the ohms reading jumping, do you mean just being really high resistance, or do you mean being inconsistent like jumping up in ohms, then down in ohms?

Fluctuating I guess is the word I was thinking of.
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04stinugget

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He means fluctuating ohms. If your resistance is changing you have a short. However as mentioned while using silica you will not get shorts from the wick. Any short on a non metallic wick will be from bad battery connection, bad positive post connection, bad ground connection, or coil touching lid/base of rba. Basically if using silica your resistance should be steady until the coil gunks up. It will however change slightly over time due to the heating cooling of the coil that's nothing to worry about. However if you are reading your resistance and the numbers are constantly changing without firing the device you do have a short.
 

Gummy Bare

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So, I've been recoiling my Phoenix v3 (or rainbow as some sites call it) a bunch trying to get it down really good and have been running into some issues. Sometimes it taste's not so good, and I figured it was maybe because the coil was wrapped around the silica to tight or to loss so I kept experimenting with wrapping them over and over to get them as perfect as I can.

One thing in noticing its the omhs keep jumping around like was mentioned in this post I was asking questions about shorts in. I made one last night and tested the resistance on my Vamo and my Tesla. It came out to 2.6ohms, then after vaping for a while it was at 3.0ohms... I took the cap of and adjusted the coil a bit with a thumb tack thinking maybe one off the coil loops was touching a post. Then it read 2.0ohms. It read that way for the rest of the night and seemed to function good. Then I went to bed.

Well, this morning I wake up and the atomizer read 4.8ohms. I vaped on it for a while and it went down to 4.0, then back up to 4.6. Needless to say I'm frustrated and have no idea what's going on.

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Gummy Bare

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Now I opened it up and moved the coiles around with a tooth pick a little.. no rhyme or reason to the movement, just slid them and moved them a little. After that it read 2.6. Then after putting 5 drops on it and vaping for a few minutes the resistance read 4.1ohms.

I don't get it

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Gummy Bare

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Chances are, you have a poor connection somewhere. check your positive and negative connections, and make sure they're snug.

Cool, thanks man. I'll check it out. This atty has vertical holes in the posts with the screws on the side of the posts. I hear some people don't like it because of this... maybe that's why.

I might try to to just wrap the coil around the screw then tighten it down instead of putting it in the vertical hole then tightening it.

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04stinugget

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If you wrap the wire around the screw before it in the hole when u tighten it down your not going to bottom out your threads because the wire gets In them making the screw feel like it is tight when it's not. Take the screw out and fold the lead of you wire over a bit on the end and stick the folded bit into the connection and crank your screw in. Also check your post insulators and make sure your center post is making good connection with the battery some devices need their posts pulled to make a solid connection. Good luck.
 

Gummy Bare

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If you wrap the wire around the screw before it in the hole when u tighten it down your not going to bottom out your threads because the wire gets In them making the screw feel like it is tight when it's not. Take the screw out and fold the lead of you wire over a bit on the end and stick the folded bit into the connection and crank your screw in. Also check your post insulators and make sure your center post is making good connection with the battery some devices need their posts pulled to make a solid connection. Good luck.

Good idea on the fold, I'll give that a shot in the next one. It definitely was a coil connection issue. Not sure why this atty doesn't connect or conduct as good on the posts as others I've had. It took a few more trys of wrapping around the screws different ways, and positioning it in the holes different ways until I finally got a coil that would read the same resistance each time I tested it, even after using it all Sunday.

Folding it sounds like a good idea. I normally don't take the screws all the way out because their a pain in the ... to get back in. I need to get some magnetic screw drivers.

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