My Devine Comedy - The build - what's going wrong?

[Huriyet]

Because there are no others who I'd rather share this with. Lets be honest, no body else I know would listen

. With that said, A brief history of my vaping universe. I started with an SVD. Not bad I suppose, but I quickly found myself looking for something less clunky and more durable - not disposable and of course, something I could have more control with. Those comments are not exclusive to the itaste but also what I connected to it. Iclears, pro tanks, aspire and the likes. All well and good, but I found to get those mainly VG based juices to hit, these devices were far from the best for the task. They just felt cheap. I have a great appreciation for simple yet well built machine.
So, now after many nights reading this very forum, gathering data, educations on possible thermal horror, the laws of OHM and wire configurations...it was time to build. Now lets go back in time a bit first as I had purchased an RDA not long after my dissatisfaction but before my educating. I found this small yet powerful and beautifully precise looking piece to provide more motivation to do this right. That being said, perhaps my ambition, as it can be, was blessed with a touch of hubris. But what's life with no suffering! Yes the dreaded build. 4 !@#$ coils! Have you lost your mind? What puerile foolishness! Ah what the hell right? So after lots of plugging figures into the steam engine to try and get .8 (that's as high as I could get without using a wire gauge that dissolves in your hands when you look at it) and two nights of twisting heating wrapping bending screwing and analyzing...I managed to tame 4 coils, 13 wraps, 32 gage wire at 1.02 mm to this high maintenance RDA. .8 ohm. The sad thing is that when I was researching atomizers some ..... went as far as to say "this deck is surprisingly easy to build on"

Well of course it will inevitably get easier right? Or I down size...
This thing is reading at .8ohms but it looks ridiculous. And one of these wires snapped when I was screwing it in. Suffice to say I did not fire this set up.

So second attempt. My goal is .6 ohm. Lets go with 26g, 3mm 11 wraps. Ok not bad, looks a little rough but hopefully I can touch it up when I light her up. It comes out at .6 but I know this reader is missing a line though.

Finlay the question - Trouble hits. So I attach the cats rda onto my changeling mod. Which is fussy because the sleeve is just higher than the tube on this mod. So adjusting for rattle is sometimes a pain. This mod is whole other topic though.

Now the issue is that the coils take close to 6 seconds to light up. And they don't all come on at the same time. I left the sleeve off and after a few lonng fires the mod is pretty warm. I have an Aw IMR 18650 1600mah high drain in here. And it's pretty new. Bought from a what I have to reason to believe is an untrustworthy store - have other batteries from them. Not EBAY! What's happening to these coils? What aren't they heating up?


Thanks for reading and thoughts of all manner are more than welcome.

appreciated.

1st. Laughable.



2nd. Looks some what normal.



I have no pics of it firing because I just didn't feel comfortable firing it again with length of time it took to heat up the coils. What could cause this? Battery? Mod? RDA?

 

[DetraMental]

If the coils are not firing at the same time your wraps are off a bit. I had trouble with this when I started doing dual coils. I began paying close attention to the number of wraps I gave each coil and this stopped the problem of one coil lighting up quicker than the other. You could try raising or lowering the coil not lighting fast enough to see if this helps before rebuilding it altogether.

 

[jblack741]

After you heated the coils did you compress them with tweezers or needle nose pliers? Questions: what dia rod did you use to build your coils? As DetraMental stated pay close attention to the # of wraps for your coils and I like to add just because there are 4 posts does not mean you have to build a quad coil setup. Try it with dual coil 26ga 5-6 wraps on a 1/8th bit. If you have 28ga wire, do 6-8 wraps.

Vape on!

 

[StrafeMalone]

The time to heat problem is due to the amount of metal you are trying to heat up at once, there is just not enough amperage in the AW to do that. I have noticed that some builds take a while to heat up on my 18350 Caravela with the 6 amp AW batteries vs the 18650 Copper Nemesis with 30 amp Sony VTC 4 batteries.

Edit: Forgot to post, the build I am referring to is a twisted Kantal Flat Ribbon wire duel build set at 1.2 ohms.

 

[InTheShade]

A quick tip when building dual coils is to cut both wires to the same length before wrapping. Assuming a wrap around the same diameter tool and identical mounting and trimming, your coils should fire at the same time.

Compressing and final adjustment will still be necessary. When fired, both coils should glow from the center out and you should not see any glow from the legs that attach to the posts.

Not trying to tell you what to do, but consider building a higher resistance setup to start with, maybe even a single touching wrap microcoil or something. What you learn from doing that will stand you in good stead when trying to build lower resistance dual (or multiple) coil set ups.

The tolerances are a little more forgiving and you'll be able to cut your teeth adjusting resistance, wicking and airflow to get a vape you enjoy a little easier.

Of course others may disagree but this is how I learnt what to adjust to fix certain issues I encountered.

 

[Huriyet]

If the coils are not firing at the same time your wraps are off a bit. I had trouble with this when I started doing dual coils. I began paying close attention to the number of wraps I gave each coil and this stopped the problem of one coil lighting up quicker than the other. You could try raising or lowering the coil not lighting fast enough to see if this helps before rebuilding it altogether.

Thank you DetraMental. I really should have started with dual coil or even a single but this RDA has been noted to perform best as a 4 coil. Not the best thing to learn on. I'm staring at 4 coils all at once as there lighting trying to see each one as there own and make adjustments. It's overwhelming. I still seem to have difficulty finding a precise way to know the amount of wraps I've just done. Even if I'm counting while wrapping. 11 wraps when I wish it was just 6 or 8. I guess either way I need to work on a practical way to keep the wraps consistent regardless of the amount of wraps.

I did try raising and lowering the coils, I believe the problem is as you stated - in the wraps. Thanks again! Back to building. This damn 4 post design is pretty time consuming. Maybe I just try 2 coils. Now If I could figure why they take so long to heat up.

 

[Huriyet]

After you heated the coils did you compress them with tweezers or needle nose pliers? Questions: what dia rod did you use to build your coils? As DetraMental stated pay close attention to the # of wraps for your coils and I like to add just because there are 4 posts does not mean you have to build a quad coil setup. Try it with dual coil 26ga 5-6 wraps on a 1/8th bit. If you have 28ga wire, do 6-8 wraps.

Vape on!

Thanks jblack. I did pinch them after I heated them on the MOD. I do most of the compressing prior to mounting the RDA on the mod though. I'm using a 3mm precision screwdriver to wrap the coils. I then heat them with a micro torch till red hot on the screwdriver and compress them. It works well I find because compressing coils is much easier to do when there still red hot. As soon as they begin to fade it's harder. And of course you can't get that kind of control when the RDA is on the mod because you have to release the button before you start pinching. Unless you you want to short the whole thing and get a nice shock

Your right, I should go for a dual set up to get the feel for building and everything concomitant that comes with it. I only have 28g here with me right now. I'm up north for a while.

 

[Huriyet]

The time to heat problem is due to the amount of metal you are trying to heat up at once, there is just not enough amperage in the AW to do that. I have noticed that some builds take a while to heat up on my 18350 Caravela with the 6 amp AW batteries vs the 18650 Copper Nemesis with 30 amp Sony VTC 4 batteries.

Edit: Forgot to post, the build I am referring to is a twisted Kantal Flat Ribbon wire duel build set at 1.2 ohms.

Hmm I really wonder if that's the issue. This battery can't handle the build. ..... Well I'll try a build with 2 coils and see what happens. I may need a sony after all if I want this at 4 coils. Thanks for that SM.

 

[Huriyet]

A quick tip when building dual coils is to cut both wires to the same length before wrapping. Assuming a wrap around the same diameter tool and identical mounting and trimming, your coils should fire at the same time.

Compressing and final adjustment will still be necessary. When fired, both coils should glow from the center out and you should not see any glow from the legs that attach to the posts.

Not trying to tell you what to do, but consider building a higher resistance setup to start with, maybe even a single touching wrap microcoil or something. What you learn from doing that will stand you in good stead when trying to build lower resistance dual (or multiple) coil set ups.

The tolerances are a little more forgiving and you'll be able to cut your teeth adjusting resistance, wicking and airflow to get a vape you enjoy a little easier.

Of course others may disagree but this is how I learnt what to adjust to fix certain issues I encountered.

I don't any one could disagree with any of this advice. Pre-cutting does intimidate me though seeing having the spool in hand allows for could tension on the wrap...but what your saying is as good as a guarantee that the lengths are consistent. Just the leg trimming being the only variable left. That and quality of the coil build of course. As everyone, including yourself has mentioned, I feel going down to one or two coils is the best laid plan. Thank you Intheshade!

 

[Huriyet]

Thanks everyone for your input. Any other thoughts on the length of time the coils are taking to heat up? Is the hindrance in the battery?

 

[Huriyet]

I may be the only one here, but I need to say it. As per some advice I went with a 2 coil build. 28g, 3mm, 5 wrap at .6 ohm. Looks like the battery was not able to handle the 4 coil build. My 2 coil lit up nicely and the coils were almost perfect. The issue now was the draw. Very harsh and super low vapor amount. I thought maybe the wicking was the issue but no matter what wicking I had I ended up with the same results. Now what?!?! I also had one of legs on a coil turn black and snap. I had pulled the wick out completely at that point though so maybe some juice burnt on it? And lastly the damn nurl lock ring on my changeling comes off and the whole button falls out! This is all very discouraging. ...! I better call it a day. Up the cottage and what am I doing? Building coils and having my mod fall apart. Ahh what a life. I'm fairly certain the bug repellant has done me in.