# Ekowool advice please



## Bonez007 (15/11/14)

hey guys,

So I have some ekowool which i bought some time back from SOV (I can't remember the diameter). I tried wicking with that by building a micro coil and feeding the eko though the centre. When I finally got it in, there were many burnt tastes. I also tried on a Russian by building a 3mm dia coil and pushing through three strands of eko. It cracked and popped too much, with my tongue getting burnt because of the droplets of juice.

Now I wanna try again, a single coil setup that doesn't pop like crazy, using ekowool, for my magma. I prefer higher ohm coils, between 1.6 to 1.8ohms... And I only have 28g vapor wire 

Could someone please tell me what to do?

Thanks!


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## Riddle (15/11/14)

Bonez007 said:


> hey guys,
> 
> So I have some ekowool which i bought some time back from SOV (I can't remember the diameter). I tried wicking with that by building a micro coil and feeding the eko though the centre. When I finally got it in, there were many burnt tastes. I also tried on a Russian by building a 3mm dia coil and pushing through three strands of eko. It cracked and popped too much, with my tongue getting burnt because of the droplets of juice.
> 
> ...



Did you torch the ekowool first?

Reactions: Like 1


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## Bonez007 (15/11/14)

Yes I have. Boiled it for like half and hour, then torched it


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## Riaz (15/11/14)

Try doing a spaced out coil Instead of a micro coil 


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Reactions: Agree 2 | Thanks 1


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## Bonez007 (15/11/14)

Should I be wrapping the wire around the wick, or on a screwdriver?


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## Riaz (15/11/14)

Take the ekowool, put a needle thru it then wrap around that


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## Bonez007 (15/11/14)

Ahh I got you! But more questions lol... I shouldn't wrap too tight right? Meaning the wick should move as cotton would in a regular micro coil?

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Riaz (15/11/14)

Correct

You don't want to choke the wick

Just lightly around it should be fine


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## Andre (15/11/14)

Yes, as @Riaz said, Ekowool and micro coils not a good combination. Think SOV sold 2 mm Ekowool, quality stuff. I use a 1 to 1.2 mm mandrel inside to make sure I cannot choke the wick. If you wrap too tightly with round wire one tends to break the Ekowool. Ribbon wire works very well in this regard.
Some, like @vaalboy, just double up the Ekowool and wrap around that.

Reactions: Agree 1 | Thanks 1


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## Silver (16/11/14)

Hi @Bonez007 

For what its worth, I have done two Ekowool coils for my RM2
But as Andre said above, I use ribbon wire (also what I got from SOV)
I take a paper clip and straighten it out then put that in the middle of the ekowool for stability
Id estimate the diameter of the paper clip to be only 1mm

Then I wrap the ribbon around - only 4 wraps fairly close to each other because the RM2 doesnt have much space for more. (0.9mm ribbon) then once installed I take out the paper clip and its snug but not tight. Comes out at about 0.67 ohms

@johan and @TylerD have done many of these

My coils performed very well. Slightly crisper than cotton for me and somehow the draw was a bit tighter. Warm vape, given the low resistance.

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## Bonez007 (16/11/14)

Thank you Silver. Do u think that ekowool is a better wick to use for custard based juices? I think I've read that somewhere... I've got some suicide bunny incoming so I thought it may be best to use ekowool.

Better yet, I'll do both rayon and eko, and compare the two


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## Silver (16/11/14)

Bonez007 said:


> Thank you Silver. Do u think that ekowool is a better wick to use for custard based juices? I think I've read that somewhere... I've got some suicide bunny incoming so I thought it may be best to use ekowool.
> 
> Better yet, I'll do both rayon and eko, and compare the two



I am still confused @Bonez007
I have read a lot and have listened to so many others too

But I am now listening to me and my taste buds. Also looking at whats convenient and works for me.

I really dont think there is any better or worse thing. Its up to your preference.

But what I will say is you will probably build a better cotton based coil with 28g round wire than ekowool. And it may take you a while to get the ekowool coil right.

Some say that cotton filters the flavour and ekowool is better to bring out complex flavours. I have not found that. But my Ekowool experimentation is far from complete....

So far, compared to cotton, i find Ekowool to be a bit crisper and it makes the draw a bit tighter. Cotton seems smoother and a bit more airy. For me and the tests i have done, i cannot pick up a major change in the flavour itself on my setups (RM2 at about 20-30 watts).

Ekowool lasts a lot longer but when you chuck it, you need to build a new coil. I know you can dry burn the flavour out of it to change flavours, but for me I prefer the simple act of replacing the cotton. I think Ekowool is great for a device that always vapes the same flavour.

I tested Ekowool on WB Blackbird and on my VM Choc Mint with Coffee concentrate added.

Edit - forgot to mention I am a mouth to lung vaper and using 18mg liquids

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## Bonez007 (16/11/14)

Thank you @Silver, i think i have to try this out for myself. Yes, I also like to change out the rayon and just dry burn the coil, instead of replacing. With juices like Blackbird, Troy, etc, the NET's I think it's important to be able to do so because the coil gets crusty very quick. I can only stretch a coil for about two days max with NETs before dry burning.


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## Silver (16/11/14)

Bonez007 said:


> Thank you @Silver, i think i have to try this out for myself. Yes, I also like to change out the rayon and just dry burn the coil, instead of replacing. With juices like Blackbird, Troy, etc, the NET's I think it's important to be able to do so because the coil gets crusty very quick. I can only stretch a coil for about two days max with NETs before dry burning.



Agreed, the wicking choice depends on many things as you point out - convenience and what juice you are vaping - not just the flavour production.

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## Bonez007 (16/11/14)

My worst fear is vaping will become a chore. I cannot allow it to happen, else I'm afraid I may go back to the stinkies. I still get strong cravings, but in those cases i draw on the magma so hard that the wick almost comes off out of the coil lol, then I crave no more

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## Bonez007 (18/11/14)

My first attempt... This coil is ugly!

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## Andre (18/11/14)

As long as it does the job. How is the vape?


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## Bonez007 (18/11/14)

Andre said:


> As long as it does the job. How is the vape?



Terrible lol! Burnt taste galore! I had to take it off and do my regular micro coil and rayon. I think I will have to wait for the next vape meet to have someone actually do this for me


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## RevnLucky7 (18/11/14)

Bonez007 said:


> My first attempt... This coil is ugly!
> 
> View attachment 15653
> View attachment 15654


Judging by that picture you don't have enough wick. The coil is drying it out too fast. Try with three strands.

Reactions: Thanks 1


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## Bonez007 (18/11/14)

Thanks Revn, I will give that a try.


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## baksteen8168 (19/11/14)

@Silver - I was not aware that most guys with ekowool build a new coil each time they replace the ekowool? (or am I reading this wrong?)

I only use ekowool and when I change flavours, I remove the ekowool and torch it. While the coil is empty I dry burn her, and then I put my used and torched ekowool back into the old coil and prime with a bit of juice. Been using the same coil for about 5 weeks now and I have changed flavours in this particular device 7 times now.

@Bonez007 - When I wrap my coils I use a 2mm precision screwdriver. Wrap my coils around this and then put my 2mm ekowool through the coil. Here is one of my builds on my Kayfun. Have not had a dry hit yet. (Ignore the Ohm reading, I am just trying to show how the wick fits inside the coil) Hopefully this helps.

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## Bonez007 (19/11/14)

Thank you @baksteen8168 , I tried on the Russian and I also didn't get dry hits with the ekowool. I have tried it with single strand and three strands. I think it has to do with the way the russian/kayfun is designed, to pull juice into the deck area by vacuum. Maybe im wrong with this? On the magma, the juice relies on gravity and the efficiency of the wick drawing the liquid to the coil. I've yet to try three strands of ekowool on the magma, like @RevnLucky7 suggested, but I'm hopeful that it will work


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## baksteen8168 (19/11/14)

Bonez007 said:


> Thank you @baksteen8168 , I tried on the Russian and I also didn't get dry hits with the ekowool. I have tried it with single strand and three strands. I think it has to do with the way the russian/kayfun is designed, to pull juice into the deck area by vacuum. Maybe im wrong with this? On the magma, the juice relies on gravity and the efficiency of the wick drawing the liquid to the coil. I've yet to try three strands of ekowool on the magma, like @RevnLucky7 suggested, but I'm hopeful that it will work



On my Omega and Nucleus I generally just wet the ekowool and vape until I start getting dry hits. Then wet again. I generally get around 10 to 15 good long pulls doing this, but this is on a 0.3ohm build. Will post pics of my setups in these if you want, but be warned... they are not pretty...

I wonder if the problem might be the higher ohm coils? (just thinking out loud here, although lower ohms get hotter quicker so surely this should produce more dry hits than high ohm coils... I am confusing myself here now...  )


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## Kaizer (19/11/14)

Has anyone tried wicking an Orchid like atty with Ekowool? I cant seem to get that right leading to numerous dry hits


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## baksteen8168 (19/11/14)

Kaizer said:


> Has anyone tried wicking an Orchid like atty with Ekowool? I cant seem to get that right leading to numerous dry hits


I have, but sadly no pics.

What I did was when cutting my wick to just touch the base (like on a kayfun with small juice channels), I left a thin strand of wick that I placed into the juice channel. Wish I had a pic to show what I mean... I seriously suck at explaining things.

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## baksteen8168 (19/11/14)

@Bonez007 - Please excuse the quality of the coils on the Omega... I have not gotten round to re-wicking and dry burning yet. Also, I might not be having the same issue as you as my coils are just above juice level where on yours your wick needs to hang into the juice well. On my Nucleus the coils are horizontally with one wick stuck through from the bottom so that the loop is on the bottom. I then fold the two open ends back into the center. I hope this makes sense.

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## JW Flynn (19/11/14)

I see the driper you have on the left here is a pretty cool one, being able to remove the coils and build it outside, then inset the whole coil build already assembled, not bad... I would however do one thing different... all the builds I see on these are built vertically, but why not instead of vertically build it parallel, but at an angle.. if you remove that center building section, and hold it in front of you, insert the one coil's wires on the top right hole, and the other end of the coil in the left bottom hole, and the same on the other side, then you have it more horizontal.... what do you think?


excuse the crude drawing, but I think you will get the idea, HEHE.....

This will help in the sense that your intake holes are horizontal, so the more horizontal you can get the coil, the better the airflow over it...

Once you have it installed, you can also get it even more horizontal with a screwdriver, just make your leads a bit longer to allow for adjusting


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## baksteen8168 (19/11/14)

JW Flynn said:


> I see the driper you have on the left here is a pretty cool one, being able to remove the coils and build it outside, then inset the whole coil build already assembled, not bad... I would however do one thing different... all the builds I see on these are built vertically, but why not instead of vertically build it parallel, but at an angle.. if you remove that center building section, and hold it in front of you, insert the one coil's wires on the top right hole, and the other end of the coil in the left bottom hole, and the same on the other side, then you have it more horizontal.... what do you think?
> View attachment 15735
> 
> excuse the crude drawing, but I think you will get the idea, HEHE.....
> ...


I did that with the first build and all was good. For my second I wanted to see what quad coils tasted like so I built 2 on each side, hence the configuration you see now. Flavour on quads are nice.

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## JW Flynn (19/11/14)

baksteen8168 said:


> I did that with the first build and all was good. For my second I wanted to see what quad coils tasted like so I built 2 on each side, hence the configuration you see now. Flavour on quads are nice.


cool cool, glad to see you tried it, hehe, what gauge do you have on there


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## Silver (19/11/14)

baksteen8168 said:


> @Silver - I was not aware that most guys with ekowool build a new coil each time they replace the ekowool? (or am I reading this wrong?)



Hi @baksteen8168 - I am a relative Ekowool noob.
I have only tried it using ribbon kanthal on my RM2 - 4 wraps - around 0.65 ohms.
I know I can dry burn it to remove the old flavour - but for a while thereafter I get a strange burnt taste - and also a bit of flavour interference. 

With regard to taking out the Ekowool and putting it back in again - I tried it once but found it quite difficult to get it out and back in.

Maybe my ribbon kanthal was wrapped a bit too tight on the Ekowool (I use a paper clip inside the Ekowool to give it stability) and just wrap the ribbon Kanthal around it by hand. When I take out the paper clip, it loosens a little bit - but maybe not enough to get the ekowool comfortably in and out.


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## Bonez007 (19/11/14)

baksteen8168 said:


> @Bonez007 - Please excuse the quality of the coils on the Omega... I have not gotten round to re-wicking and dry burning yet. Also, I might not be having the same issue as you as my coils are just above juice level where on yours your wick needs to hang into the juice well. On my Nucleus the coils are horizontally with one wick stuck through from the bottom so that the loop is on the bottom. I then fold the two open ends back into the center. I hope this makes sense.



Thank you for the pics man. Maybe the design on the magma is not good for ekowool because of its deep well. I still gotta try the triple strand wick, I will revert with my findings once I get around to it. I will also try single strand on my plume veil 1.5, since the well is similar to your omega. It could be that I am getting one small detail wrong which is blowing up the whole thing. I remember when I first started with RDA's I was using cotton and I could not stop the dry hits, even on the first hit, until I met with a member here who showed me the ropes.


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## baksteen8168 (20/11/14)

JW Flynn said:


> cool cool, glad to see you tried it, hehe, what gauge do you have on there


Running 28g.


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## baksteen8168 (20/11/14)

Silver said:


> Hi @baksteen8168 - I am a relative Ekowool noob.
> I have only tried it using ribbon kanthal on my RM2 - 4 wraps - around 0.65 ohms.
> I know I can dry burn it to remove the old flavour - but for a while thereafter I get a strange burnt taste - and also a bit of flavour interference.
> 
> ...


I think it might have been a tad bit tight, but then again I am a noob when it comes to ribbon builds. 

Funny that you are getting a burnt taste after flaming the ekowool. Are you flaming it until it turns white hot? When I am done flaming mine, it looks brand new again. I also struggled in the beginning to put the used ekowool back, but it is much easier now. Guess it is something that you just get used to. 

(Just reread your post. When you clean the wick, do you use a blowtorch to burn the olr flavour off, or are you simply firing the coil untill the wick is dry?)


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## baksteen8168 (20/11/14)

Bonez007 said:


> Thank you for the pics man. Maybe the design on the magma is not good for ekowool because of its deep well. I still gotta try the triple strand wick, I will revert with my findings once I get around to it. I will also try single strand on my plume veil 1.5, since the well is similar to your omega. It could be that I am getting one small detail wrong which is blowing up the whole thing. I remember when I first started with RDA's I was using cotton and I could not stop the dry hits, even on the first hit, until I met with a member here who showed me the ropes.


It is most probably a small thing that needs changing. I remember getting constant dry hits on my Kayfun, untill I figured out that wicks need to touch decks... not inside the juice channels.


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## Silver (20/11/14)

baksteen8168 said:


> I think it might have been a tad bit tight, but then again I am a noob when it comes to ribbon builds.
> 
> Funny that you are getting a burnt taste after flaming the ekowool. Are you flaming it until it turns white hot? When I am done flaming mine, it looks brand new again. I also struggled in the beginning to put the used ekowool back, but it is much easier now. Guess it is something that you just get used to.
> 
> (Just reread your post. When you clean the wick, do you use a blowtorch to burn the olr flavour off, or are you simply firing the coil untill the wick is dry?)



Hi @baksteen8168 
For me, the attraction of using Ekowool is to be able to just fire the coil as is - when I want to burn off the flavour and change to a new flavour - without fiddling and taking out the wick and putting it in again. So to answer your question, no, I do not take it out and use a blowtorch. (I do that initially before installing the coil and wick)

It does work but I still get a bit of a strange taste for a while and some flavour interference. This does go away after a ml or two.


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## baksteen8168 (20/11/14)

Silver said:


> Hi @baksteen8168
> For me, the attraction of using Ekowool is to be able to just fire the coil as is - when I want to burn off the flavour and change to a new flavour - without fiddling and taking out the wick and putting it in again. So to answer your question, no, I do not take it out and use a blowtorch. (I do that initially before installing the coil and wick)
> 
> It does work but I still get a bit of a strange taste for a while and some flavour interference. This does go away after a ml or two.


@Silver - Ah, I get it. I usually completely remove my ekowool and blowtorch it, then thread it back. (admittedly, when I am lazy I pull it untill it is just about out, torch the one side, thread it back, torch the other side, and then put new juice on.)

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## Andre (20/11/14)

Silver said:


> Hi @baksteen8168
> For me, the attraction of using Ekowool is to be able to just fire the coil as is - when I want to burn off the flavour and change to a new flavour - without fiddling and taking out the wick and putting it in again. So to answer your question, no, I do not take it out and use a blowtorch. (I do that initially before installing the coil and wick)
> 
> It does work but I still get a bit of a strange taste for a while and some flavour interference. This does go away after a ml or two.


Some do this: After dry burning hold the atty with wick intact under a not stream of water. Then dry burn again to get rid of excess water. @Genosmate takes off the atty, soak it for a few minutes in just boiled water, take the atty out with prongs and rinse with just boiled water.

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## baksteen8168 (20/11/14)

Andre said:


> Some do this: After dry burning hold the atty under a not stream of water. Then dry burn again to get rid of excess water. @Genosmate takes off the atty, soak it for a few minutes in just boiled water, take the atty out with prongs and rinse with just boiled water.



Will try this as well. Thanks @Andre


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## Andre (20/11/14)

baksteen8168 said:


> Will try this as well. Thanks @Andre


This is done with the wick intact.


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## johan (20/11/14)

This works for me, and serves me well:


Cut a piece of 2mm Ekowool
Place 1.5mm drill bit through the center of Ekowool
Heat up Ekowool beyond red hot over gas stove with drill bit in place
Cut a piece of 0.9 x 0.1 ribbon Kanthal A1 (28G also works, but not as good as ribbon)

Anneal over gas stove (to remove excess springiness)

Coil 4 wraps tightly over Ekowool with drill bit in place (+/-0.7 Ohm)

Place in RDA and prime with e-juice

On e-juice flavor change, I just press the fire button with Ekowool in coil until it ignites and Ekowool is "white" again plus Kanthal is de-gunked.

Prime with e-juice

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## baksteen8168 (20/11/14)

G


Andre said:


> This is done with the wick intact.


Got it.


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