Wicking Speed And Liquid/atomiser Temperature

Hey all,

So, I've been really happy with my new setup (iStick 50w and 30w, Nautilus and Mini Nautilus). Everything has been working smoothly, but I have a problem with the replacement coils I purchased (and cannot return).

Went to go change out the coil in one of my tanks this evening. Filled the tank up as usual, made sure the air shaft and drip tip were clean, screwed on my new coil, filled the tank, and let it sit and wick up for half an hour. Took some pulls without firing, dropped it to 8w (to "step up" and prime the new coil), and immediately got a nasty burnt hit that I can still taste an hour later. Unscrewed the tank to see what was wrong, and noticed the wicking material was bone dry.

For the longest time, I could not figure out what happened, why it wasn't wicking...until I looked closer. The e-liquid holes on the replacement coil I have are TINY! The coils that came with the tanks have holes that are at least twice, maybe three times the diameter. The holes are so small that my e-liquid will not even enter them to soak the wicking material. I checked the serial number scratch off on Aspire's site and both boxes of replacement coils I have came up as authentic.

I'm displeased. $22 down the drain, now I have to rush and find a dealer who has the "correct" coils. I cannot use these coils whatsoever, and the dealer I purchased from does not accepted returns on atomizers.



On the left is the coil that came with the tank (both of my tanks came with this exact same coil, and two replacements that look exactly like it, but I've used them up and am on the new ones). On the right, the coil I purchased in a replacement pack of 5. You can see they look nearly identical, except for the size of the wicking holes. Also, the piece at the bottom seems a bit more flimsy, as you can see in the picture, it's not exactly straight with the rest of the atomizer.

So, can anyone point me to a dealer that has the coils I need? I'm afraid of ordering from somewhere and getting the ones on the right, which are useless and do not soak up any e-liquid whatsoever.  

Hey all.

So I've been vaping since January. I started out on a kanger ego and an aspire k1. Since then I've gone through aspire cf batteries, and finally made my way to my current set up. An mvp 3.0 or istick50w with my subtank mini.

At first using the stock occ coils with the subtank, I decided to buy some wire and cotton and here I am. Been building my own coils using the RBA section and loving it. I wick it properly and never get a dry hit, going anywhere from 18-25 watts, which is my preferred settings.

Now, it's only my preferred settings because I can't seem to go any higher. On either device. I get dry hits like crazy despite pancake wicking which I've specifically done to prevent said dry hits. I always have heard that it can possibly taste better the hotter it gets. And I don't mind a hot vape. But it won't let me try!

I'm well saturated, well wicked, and my juice can be anywhere form 50/50 to 70/30pg. I can do quick pulls on fully open, and slower toots on the middle setting on the subtank. I just can't go any higher than 25watts and I don't know why!


And that's not for just the coils I built. It's for the stock occ .5 ohm coil as well. And like I said all my cotton is beyond well saturated. Any help?  

So I'm using a juice that is pretty sticky. So sticky that when I squeeze the dropper to create suction I have to actually wait like 3 seconds before the air escapes the tube and longer for it to fill with juice.

So when I'm vaping this, the vape seems to be a bit on the weak side and I think its because of the wicking. could anyone advise me on how to wick my coils? (ex. more/less constricted inside, more/less in juice well)

The setup inside my RDA is dual 24g coils with an internal diameter of ~2mm with resistance ~0.2 ohms. Wicked very lightly constricted and just long enough to make a full contact with the juice well on both sides.  

I bought a Kanger Subtank and Atlantis V2, but sold them because they just weren't wicking my 100% VG liquid (Velvet Cloud & Gypsy eJuice) well at all. I tried using the atlantis with the .3 ohm coil installed at 70-80W, which was the stated operating range, and found it to be EXTREMELY hot. So hot that the tank quickly heated up to the point of almost burning my lips. The Kanger just burned the wick up at 20W+ with the .5 ohm coil, despite letting it sit filled for a few minutes and priming.

I am very interested in picking up a Royal Hunter, although I've no idea what pre-made coils (i dont want to make my own coils, just dont have the knowledge or time to learn how) and battery to get. VaporDNA sells UD pre-made coils in various resistances, but figuring out what resistance to use, and thus what wattage battery to get is where I am stuck. Not sure if it'd be better to run at lower ohms / higher wattages, or higher ohms / lower wattages. I'm not sure if it's possible to get massive clouds, but a cooler vape at the same time, but that's my aim.  

It's about that time that I have started to re-wick the OCC coils in the subtank. Looking for some performance tips. I'm currently using Muji japanese cotton which is working well and this is what I have noticed...

too little cotton, the atom will leak and burn easily
too much cotton; no issues burning at all but the flavor is muted.

I've re-wicked 5-6 times this week to experiment. With the Muji sheets, I cut about 5-6mm strip, remove 1/2 the thickness, then after threading through the coil, I will cut about 4mm from the end and stuff it back in the OCC head.

What are your tips and preferred materials?  

I have seen very different explanations of vapor production on ECF, sometimes quite weird. So, I decided to clarify a bit the process.

Disclaimer: I am not involved in any e-cig research, but I have some background in physics.

Aerosol – a cloud of tiny particles (for us – liquid droplets) in air. Each droplet is too small to be visible individually, but it reflects a tiny amount of light in odd directions and all droplets together look like a cloud or fog (clouds and fog are water aerosol).

Solubility. Solubility could be full (infinite), like PG in VG or alcohol in water, or limited, like salt in water. If solubility is limited, then saturation point exists – excess of salt will not dissolve in water, will stay on the bottom of the cap. If we leave a cap with solution, water will evaporate with time and more and more salt will settle on the bottom (like in Great Salt Lake). The same true for air. For example, water is soluble in air, but its solubility greatly depends on temperature. If after a hot humid day we have a cold night, amount of water which was good for air at high daytime temperature will become excessive for low night temperatures and excess of water dissolved in air should “settle” somehow; the result we usually see is dew or fog.

Human lungs are famous for their wetness and they provide exhaled air with a lot of water in gaseous state at the temperature of a human body. But when a human body is outside at low temperatures exhaled gases (warm air + gaseous water) are chilled and will contain excess of water, which will “settle” as tiny droplets, i.e. aerosol, and we will see clouds of exhaled breath. Nice evaporator, always with us (just add a cold room)…

Boiling. Easy explanation for single liquid system (like water). Heated to boiling point temperature water will boil and produce water vapor. A bit more complicated is boiling of two component liquid, like PG-VG mixture. Liquid will boil as a single system (no separate boiling of its components) at a temperature between boiling points of its components and it will produce vapor of both PG and VG.

Now to vaping. Coil heat liquid supplied by a wick and transfer it into gaseous state (by boiling). But this vaporized liquid can stay in gaseous state only in small area of hot air surrounding a coil. Air draw is chilling this gaseous mixture and PG and VG form tiny aerosol droplets, our beloved clouds.

What’s wrong in my simplified explanations. When multicomponent liquid boils it produces more vapor of its components with lower boiling point, sometimes much more. For example, if we vape 30/70 solution of PG/VG, then PG (boiling point 371 F) will evaporate much faster than VG (477). If things were going as I described above, pretty soon we will be vaping almost pure VG (PG will be gone). It could be even worse. Suppose we have a third component – raspberry ketone (raspberry flavor) with boiling point of just 284 F. It should be gone in no time and most of the tank will be left flavorless.

Fortunately things are a bit more complicated then were described (a bit more complicated than my ability to comprehend them fully). In reality we have a mild overheating and a mild undersupply of liquid by a wick, plus mostly unidirectional liquid movement along a wick. In these conditions boiling produce vapor which is much closer in it composition to composition of a juice.  

Well, over the time all changes, even the beloved habits and hobbies, so is vaping, I do remember when I did started, a bit confused, a bit scared and with some doubts, then enjoyed a lot RDA’s, rolls, making coils and all those new things that changed out the habit… for example to switch the cigarettes pack and light on your pocket for a vape mod and maybe a juice bottle too,

so at the beginning I did used some sub-ohm tanks, then moved to RBA’s…. oh boy, the RDA’s, the coiling art and wicking, what a times on some stores, talking, vaping having great times!
Then, the need of more liquid, the hassle of dripping and there were no squonks available… so, decided to try RTA’s, oh what a wonderful land, tank capacity and dripper alike sensation, draw, flavor and vapor production..

Then… maybe a bit late, started using more mtl rta and pods, the vaping sensation changed a lot, I was maybe using 120ml per week on RTA’s and seldom a RDA, the liquid consumption reduced that much that I maybe use 10ml per day, 25max on a hard stressful day, the salt nic consumption raised when started using salts on TC mode with a RTA mtl and single battery mod,


How have your vaping habits and hobby changed, has It been affected by new devices and new trends?



Regards,  

So i'm not familiar with every single atomizer on the market. They're all different in their design. One potential problem i do believe to be universal in all these devices though is an "Airlock".

Regardless of how much cotton wool has been crammed into the wells of an RTA, or whether you primed your drop in coil enough, an airlock will prevent the e liquid from getting to the wick everytime. Time and time again you either re-wick or swap out the drop in coil. Then you think "there is definitely something wrong with the atomizer".

How many times have you built a new coil, or simply re-fiiled on an existing wick, and then found all you get is dry hits and you can't figure out why ?. Maybe you eventually decide "this atomizer is no good".

The simple solution is to add more e liquid than you think you should when "priming" the coil/wick. It's not a process which takes just a minute or two. The whole idea is to let the e liquid soak right through the cotton wool, through the channels until it starts to seep out the other end of those channels, where ever that might be !. To go from a tank to a coil/wick the e liquid has to travel through the channels.

If cotton wool soaked in e liquid is at one end of the channels then that is what is causing the "airlock".

Simply put "it's "trapping" the air in the channels and causing an airlock".

You get rid of all the air in the channels by "bleeding" the system. This should be the most important part of "priming". Allowing the e liquid you've added as a primer to expel all the air from the system. Without doing this you are running the risk of successive dry hits and confusion.

So you add e liquid as a primer, let it soak into the cotton wool then add a few drops more. Then, wait a few minutes to see how far the e liquid has got. Wait for it to come out the other end because that what you should be looking for. Once you see it coming out the other end of the channels you know the system has been fully bled. And then you can reassemble your device and fill the tank.

 

Imagine your self filling an RTA with fresh juice, only to have the worst vape you can endure as you cough up a lung. No its not a dry hit. Do you blame the juice or a clogged up coil? In this episode, I will take a short journey and explore to a better vape.


After a week of chain vaping, over 50ml of juice, a mix of 3mg and 6mg Nic, the rayon wick has finally given up and no longer produced a clean vape. After visual inspection, the coil and the wick has indeed had a significant build up from juice. To the point that I could no longer see wick material between a spaced coil.

After discarding old wicking material and cleaning the coil, i wicked an RTA with fresh Rayon and filled it with juice. My favorite tobacco juice has come a live, i can now take long and deep direct lung hits with enjoyment. My taste buds are intoxicated, as my lungs fill up with smooth and silky vapor with every inhale.


Keep an eye on your coil by visually inspecting it on daily basis. Trust your body and your taste buds when a juice no longer tastes as it should. Re-wicking your RTA/RDA on regular basis or every few days, will help you eliminate many concerns and issues that you might be having with juice flavor or vaping experience.

It only takes ten minutes to rewick, and in return you will continue to enjoy many hours and days of pleasurable vaping experience.


Good Night.  

Just bought the Kangertech Subtank..... Was told I couldn't use my Max VG juice and I needed to buy some of their lower VG juice. I told the guy no thank you, I know what i'm doing and I can make it wick the Max VG.

Needless to say I got home, the STOCK OCC coil, .5 ohm, wicks my Max VG perfectly fine, even with chain vaping.

I ripped the pre-made coil out of the 1.2 ohm OCC head, and built my own .6 ohm coil in it, wicked it with Organic Cotton (Not KGD or Bacon, Just organic cotton from Walgreens) and it wicks perfectly fine with my Max VG.

I built a single coil .7 ohm spaced coil, wicked it with the double tails on each side, cut off to where it touches the deck, but not touching the threads, put the chimney cap on, and made sure the juice channel was free of blockage, and it wicks perfect with the Max VG.

No leaks, no dry hits, running each OCC head at 30 watts, and the RBA deck at 35 watts.

This is the original Subtank, 6ml for OCC and 4.2 for RBA, (NOT THE NEW 7.0mL version).

So let me hear it.... What have you guys noticed or seen about the wicking ideas, why has yours not worked?

WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE SAY YOU CANT USE MAX VG ON RTA's, especially on the Kanger Subtank????