Wrapping a coil that reduces plastic, harsh, metallic, and burnt tastes when vaping a CE style device.

I am a dripper at heart, but I have been on a quest to find an acceptable CE style clearomizer, like the Vivi Nova, Kanger T3, or any other repairable/rebuildable device that I can use while driving, or other thing where dripping isn't convienient.  I wanted something like the Vivi Nova that can hold a decent amount of juice, handle some power, and not distort the juice or give me a plasticy harsh vape.  With clearomizers that have the wicks leading up  to the top coil, the juice gets darker as you vape the tank down.  When you have about a quarter of a tank left there is much less flavor and nicotine left.  SteelJan says that this does not happen on bottom coils.  This is not true, it just doesn't happen as much because you don't have the long wicks pulling up the.lighter parts of the juice.  She was using a Phoenix Bottom Coil at the time with a small capacity so the change in color was probably very hard to notice. 

Since the bottom coil distorts the juice less and a working Kanger T3 has better flavor than the Vivi Nova, I decided to try and make them work for me. The T3s had problems with the first run, and I was not impressed with the second run. There was still plastic tastes at high voltage and the coil was crudely and inconsistantly wrapped. So, I set out to build the best coil I could and set it up for the best wicking with no leaking or gurgling.  I tried many different things and have finally found a method that works extremely well. I have a lot of posts scheduled for this blog, but I knew I had to do this post first because the results were so good.  This information is not on my Twitter, except a link to this new blog.

This may be obvious to some vapers out there, but hopefully somebody will find it useful.  In a device like the T3 or Vivi Nova  you have a coil that is wrapped around a wick with two pieces of that wire reaching down from that wick to the connection or post that the current travels thru. Those two pieces of wire do not come in contact with the wick they are not usually wet. If they do have juice on them  they are a immediately dried out when you fire the coil. This causes those two leads of wire to get very hot even glow red during normal use. This can cause you to get a harsh, metallic, burnt taste, which I hate. Even if it is mild, it makes the throat hit harsher.  Because these leads aren't that long it is considered okay to have these pieces be that hot. The idea is that the vape from the coil and wick should cover up the bad taste.  To me this is unacceptable. If there is something you can do to make the vape better why not do it? Another reason this is bad is because those pieces of wire travel down and come in contact with a silicone or rubber gasket. This is where the bad plastic taste comes from in the T3. Some people say that it's the silicone top, above the coil but I don't think that is true because the taste would have to travel through the juice.and wouldn't give an instant plasticy taste when you turn up the heat. Obviously if you used non resistant wire to travel up to the coil you would not have this problem. But joining non resistance wire with resistance wire can be difficult for some people and I wanted an easier solution. That easier solution is to keep the power on the wick and coil and away from those leads. I have used non resistant leads before but it is not necessary with my coils.

The way to get less power to go to the leads and more power to the wick is to reduce the percentage of lead and increase the percentage of coil. For example, if you have 40 millimeters of wire total and each lead is 10 millimeters long then that means a large percentage of your power is going to the leads rather than the coil. You may think that it is half the power because it is half the length but it's not because slightly more power will go towards the center of the wire. If you had 100 millimeters of wire still only 10 millimeters going to each lead, the majority of your power would be going to the coil and very little would be going to leads. This would eliminate the harsh taste because the leads would not get so hot without juice on them and eliminate the plastic taste because the gasket at the bottom would be much cooler.  The numbers I just used are made up, for the example but I do use this concept when rebuilding anything. Instead if doing four or five wraps around a 2.5 or 3 millimeter wick, I am now using ten or more wraps. The quality of the materials I am using is also better. Better silica, better wire, better vape. I am also working with ceramic, but that post will be coming in the future. For now don't worry about the better materials, decent silica and kanthal is fine. For the T3, use nine or ten wraps to make it manageable with 32 gauge kanthal. With a different gauge, adjust the wraps. Many people wrap it loose enough that the wick can easily slide left to right when in the coil , in this case, wrap it tighter than that. Give a decent pull on it as you are wrapping . Don't worry the T3 will have the mother wicks on top to help provide juice. Split a piece of 3 mm wick up into It's six or so pieces that make up the braid. Use three of those pieces as the mother wick. Lay them on one at a time. They will be curved so alternate the curves back and forth. Trim the wicks, no need to dry burn. After the head is all together, run it under the tap, let water run through it. Blow it out, pat the wicks dry if you want. Fill up the tank and vape, the wicks can be damp still. Once the water is burned off, it should vape great. Adjust the number of mother wicks for more or less wicking if needed. If it is really harsh or something is wrong, you don't need to vape a tank waiting for it to break in. It should be great within a minute or so of using. Let me know if you need any help. Xtianapi@Comcast.net Future posts will be detailed with pictures. This is not really a scheduled post , just wanted to share.

With my setup you can now vape a Kanger T3 at eleven, twelve, even thirteen watts with having any nasty tastes, wicking issues, loud pops and hissing, and without burning or gunking up your wick. Spreading the heat out over the entire width of the wick and ten or more wraps of wire is mainly what makes this possible but there are some other factors, like quality material and more attention to detail, spacing, and pressure of the wraps.

I am working on some other things that will allow me to eliminate silicone and rubber entirely from T3, Vivi, and other CE heads and replacing it with heat resistant, food grade material. That would allow.you to get an even cleaner vape and crank up the.power even more. Once that is done I will bring it to you guys. This is a new blog and Twitter feed, but stick with it, there is much to come. Don't worry, it won't all be really technical posts. Sorry no pictures for this post yet, still setting up everything. Let me know if you have any requests.

UPDATE: We need the mother wick to stop flooding, other than that, in my opinon, it doesn't do us any good. By pushing the mother wick to the sides, away from the coil to the edges, so the coil is exposed to the air flow, I have increased flavor to crazy levels. It tastes like I am drinking the juice minus that stinging from the nicotine. Of course, by the edges, where the wick meets the juice, you need to have mother wick pushed to the sides to prevent flooding, but keep it off the top of the coil and you will be surprised by the flavor, vapor, and throat hit. All you want to do is fit the round wick into the square hole of the head without covering the coil. Good luck, comment if you need help.

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