Coil Making - Achieving Good Flavour

[Carnival]

Hey guys.

I’ve started my journey with RDAs, and so far I’m loving it. Building is great, but now I’d like to hear from those who can / would like to answer:

1) What should I be aiming for in terms of achieving good flavour, when it comes to making coils?

2) Are there any do’s and don’ts?

3) How many wraps to achieve good flavour? Or does this maybe depend on the type of wire you use?

 

[Raindance]

Hey guys.

I’ve started my journey with RDAs, and so far I’m loving it. Building is great, but now I’d like to hear from those who can / would like to answer:

1) What should I be aiming for in terms of achieving good flavour, when it comes to making coils?

2) Are there any do’s and don’ts?

3) How many wraps to achieve good flavour? Or does this maybe depend on the type of wire you use?

this is going to be interesting.

 

[Paul33]

this is going to be interesting.

I suppose it all depends on you and what kind of vape you enjoy.

Everything depends on what wire you’re going to decide to use but that depends on what vape you’re looking for ()

1) which RDA are you building on?

2) what wire do you have?

 

[Carnival]

I suppose it all depends on you and what kind of vape you enjoy.

Everything depends on what wire you’re going to decide to use but that depends on what vape you’re looking for ()

1) which RDA are you building on?

2) what wire do you have?

Thanks for your reply @Paul33

I’m currently building on my Goon LP.

The wire I’m using is Vandy Vape superfine fused clapton Ni80 wire.

 

[Silver]

Hi @Carnival

This is a GREAT thread

I think that good flavour depends on several factors:

• Getting the right combination of temperature and airflow
• The juice
• The atty
• The power
• And very importantly, YOUR taste and preferences

Getting the right combination of temp and airflow is critical. No use having a monstrous coil with lots of power and only a small bit of airflow. Or vice versa. Generally, the lower the ohms of the coil it means more metal has been used which needs more power to heat it up. (And more airflow to cool it down.)

You dont need huge power to get excellent flavour, so it depends on what type of vape you want.

The old rule of thumb with simple round wire coils was 6 to 8 wraps seems to be the place to be. Thicker wire tends to need more power and leads to a coarser, more "boomy" type of vape. Thinner wire tends to produce a crisper vape with faster ramp up. Small diameters also tends to increase the temperature inside the coil. Not sure how these things work with the exotic coils, claptons etc.

The other thing is that it does depend on the juice. A 50/50 high nic juice will need a totally different type of coil in a smaller airflow atty, eg MTL. So say a 7 wrap 28g small ID of 1.5mm could do. But for a 70/30 3mg juice you may want to vape on the Goon with more airflow - so you likely need thicker wire, bigger ID to hold more juice in the wick and more power and airflow.

And then it boils down to your personal preferences. Take me for example. I much prefer milder lower powered vapes with higher nic juice and thin coils for a crisp vape. Thats my usual style, be it MTL or rstricted lung hit.

But it took me quite a lot of trial and error to discover what I like and get it right. The way I did it was to get different gauge wires and vary the gauge, the ID, the wraps and importantly, the coil placement in relation to the airholes on the devices i was using. For the juice i was vaping. Took me months to get the right coil for my tobacco MTL on my RM2 (29g Kanthal paracoil, 5 double wraps, 1.6mm ID) and that has stayed pretty constant with the same type of juice for years! I have also done that for my Lemo1, Subtank Mini and one or two other workhorse devices. Several others I am still trying to figure out what works best.

Of course, you dont need to dedicate a single juice to a device like I have done with some of my devices. You can discover a coil that works well for you for multiple types of juices in the same atty. but remember that for some juices it will absolutely shine and for others it may not seem to be quite right.

Get a few gauges of wire and experiment with those variables. Start say with 2.5mm ID and 7 wraps on 26g wire. Then spend time trying different IDs all else equal and see what the difference is for YOU. Then you vary coil placement, which is quite easy to adjust when you rewick. It helps to try these things with a single coil device because its easier to make changes. Make notes for each coil you try and keep a leaderboard of the winning coil specs so you remember!

I suppose there are "sweet spots" for each device which you could ask around for before you get started - and then you tweak slightly from there. But dont be afraid to experiment. You will be quite surprised at how much the vape can change when varying just one variable a little bit.

 

[Sash]

Great thread @Carnival ! Will be following this

 

[Sash]

Hi @Carnival

This is a GREAT thread

I think that good flavour depends on several factors:

• Getting the right combination of temperature and airflow
• The juice
• The atty
• The power
• And very importantly, YOUR taste and preferences

Getting the right combination of temp and airflow is critical. No use having a monstrous coil with lots of power and only a small bit of airflow. Or vice versa. Generally, the lower the ohms of the coil it means more metal has been used which needs more power to heat it up.

You dont need huge power to get excellent flavour, so it depends on what type of vape you want.

The old rule of thumb with simple round wire coils was 6 to 8 wraps seems to be the place to be. Thicker wire tends to need more power and leads to a coarser, more "boomy" type of vape. Thinner wire tends to produce a crisper vape with faster ramp up. Small diameters also tends to increase the temperature inside the coil. Not sure how these things work with the exotic coils, claptons etc.

The other thing is that it does depend on the juice. A 50/50 high nic juice will need a totally different type of coil in a smaller airflow atty, eg MTL. So say a 7 wrap 28g small ID of 1.5mm could do. But for a 70/30 3mg juice you may want to vape on the Goon with more airflow - so you likely need thicker wire, bigger ID to hold more juice in the wick and more power and airflow.

And then it boils down to your personal preferences. Take me for example. I much prefer milder lower powered vapes with higher nic juice and thin coils for a crisp vape. Thats my usual style, be it MTL or rstricted lung hit.

But it took me quite a lot of trial and error to discover what I like and get it right. The way I did it was to get different gauge wires and vary the gauge, the ID, the wraps and importantly, the coil placement in relation to the airholes on the devices i was using. For the juice i was vaping. Took me months to get the right coil for my tobacco MTL on my RM2 (29g Kanthal paracoil, 5 double wraps, 1.6mm ID) and that has stayed pretty constant with the same type of juice for years! I have also done that for my Lemo1, Subtank Mini and one or two other workhorse devices. Several others I am still trying to figure out what works best.

Of course, you dont need to dedicate a single juice to a device like I have done with some of my devices. You can discover a coil that works well for you for multiple types of juices in the same atty. but remember that for some juices it will absolutely shine and for others it may not seem to be quite right.

Get a few gauges of wire and experiment with those variables. Start say with 2.5mm ID and 7 wraps on 26g wire. Then spend time trying different IDs all else equal and see what the difference is for YOU. Then you vary coil placement, which is quite easy to adjust when you rewick. It helps to try these things with a single coil device because its easier to make changes. Make notes for each coil you try and keep a leaderboard of the winning coil specs so you remember!

I suppose there are "sweet spots" for each device which you could ask around for before you get started - and then you tweak slightly from there. But dont be afraid to experiment. You will be quite surprised at how much the vape can change when varying just one variable a little bit.

Theres nothing quite like wisdom. Thanks @Silver very very good read

 

[Carnival]

@Silver what a wonderfully written and informative post, thank you very much for taking the time to type that out. It really helps!

 

[Silver]

@Silver what a wonderfully written and informative post, thank you very much for taking the time to type that out. It really helps!

Pleasure @Carnival
Glad it helps

Just comtinue as you are going and you will discover what works for you!!

 

[Smoke_A_Llama]

From my short time building I've found a few things people tend to overlook ( by people I mean me) :

Wick with clean hands (cotton is absorbent after all)

If new coils ( bought or handmade) give them a good clean before installing (oil tends to not taste lekker)

Clean your atty regularly (flavours tend to hang around... I'm looking at you cotton candy)

For some people cotton tends to take a few mls to "break in" (again me) so what I do is use a pg/vg mix and before wasting some good ol juice, I saturate the cotton with my "cotton conditioner" mix and pulse a few times, resaturate and while pulsing I ah use a lighter and set the cotton alight for 1-2 seconds for about 3 times , seems to cut the break in time quite noticeably but like i previously said, my taste buds seem to be finely tuned for cotton taste so if your tongue is normal and you arent affected by this just consider it hog wash and carry on as your were

 

[Carnival]

Thanks a mil for the tips @Smoke_A_Llama! I appreciate the info.

 

[Paul33]

Thanks for your reply @Paul33

I’m currently building on my Goon LP.

The wire I’m using is Vandy Vape superfine fused clapton Ni80 wire.

I use the same wire in my OG Goon.



9 wraps 2.5mm came out to 0.52ohm and it fires beautifully at 30w. Flavour is spot on with the airflow closed just over half.

 

[Carnival]

Awesome coils there @Paul33! Thanks for sharing the pic.

I’ve got a lot of experimenting to do with this. I’ll start with some 26g wire as @Silver suggested (need to get some) and play around with the variables mentioned. I’m going to sum up as much patience as possible and keep at it!

 

[Paul33]

Awesome coils there @Paul33! Thanks for sharing the pic.

I’ve got a lot of experimenting to do with this. I’ll start with some 26g wire as @Silver suggested (need to get some) and play around with the variables mentioned. I’m going to sum up as much patience as possible and keep at it!

I used to use a lot of 26g but I found the coils a bit too small for rda’s but again that’s just me.

22g kanthal is a real winner for me in the goon as well. A straight up 9 wrap 3mm if I remember correctly was about 0.26 or 0.3ohms ish and kicked like a mule and flavour was really good!

But taste and preference is so super subjective. What tastes good to me you might despise. It’s a lot of trial and error but so rewarding when you find your happy place.

Airflow and coil placement are also huge factors besides the coils themselves. I’ve had dramatic results moving coils up or down a few mm’s!

 

[Carnival]

I used to use a lot of 26g but I found the coils a bit too small for rda’s but again that’s just me.

22g kanthal is a real winner for me in the goon as well. A straight up 9 wrap 3mm if I remember correctly was about 0.26 or 0.3ohms ish and kicked like a mule and flavour was really good!

But taste and preference is so super subjective. What tastes good to me you might despise. It’s a lot of trial and error but so rewarding when you find your happy place.

Airflow and coil placement are also huge factors besides the coils themselves. I’ve had dramatic results moving coils up or down a few mm’s!

Thanks for this! @Paul33

I’ll make a note to get some 22g kanthal as well, and see how that goes.

 

[Silver]

Thanks for this! @Paul33

I’ll make a note to get some 22g kanthal as well, and see how that goes.

A good idea @Carnival would be to get 22g, 24g and 26g if you can
Then try the different wire thicknesses and see how it changes the vape

 

[kev mac]

Hey guys.

I’ve started my journey with RDAs, and so far I’m loving it. Building is great, but now I’d like to hear from those who can / would like to answer:

1) What should I be aiming for in terms of achieving good flavour, when it comes to making coils?

2) Are there any do’s and don’ts?

3) How many wraps to achieve good flavour? Or does this maybe depend on the type of wire you use?

My go to is Claptons, fused usually using 26 or 27g as a core and 38g to 41g for wrapping. It is said that the thinner wrapping gauge promotes superior flavor,and most of the pros suggest 10 gauges thinner than the core for wrapping. Who am I to argue? It's been working for me and I'm all about the flavor.

 

[Carnival]

I put a simple SS 26g (8 or 9 wraps) coil in my Hadaly, 0.7ohms and I’m vaping at 28 watts with good flavour!! So at this point, for me @KZOR is right, SS is the way to go for flavour. I’m really pleased, since I usually vape at 35 watts to get flavour like this. (@Silver I think we spoke a bit about this in another thread, higher watts obviously put more strain on the coil and batts. I said I’d work on vaping at lower watts, and I finally got there lol).

So I’m going to stick to SS and at month end I’ll get some 24g wire to compare. I did a quick google search for SS 22g wire, couldn’t find a local shop that stocks it? (I found one that stocks Kidney Puncher SS 22g wire, 100ft for R499.. eish).

 

[Smoke_A_Llama]

I put a simple SS 26g (8 or 9 wraps) coil in my Hadaly, 0.7ohms and I’m vaping at 28 watts with good flavour!! So at this point, for me @KZOR is right, SS is the way to go for flavour. I’m really pleased, since I usually vape at 35 watts to get flavour like this. (@Silver I think we spoke a bit about this in another thread, higher watts obviously put more strain on the coil and batts. I said I’d work on vaping at lower watts, and I finally got there lol).

So I’m going to stick to SS and at month end I’ll get some 24g wire to compare. I did a quick google search for SS 22g wire, couldn’t find a local shop that stocks it? (I found one that stocks Kidney Puncher SS 22g wire, 100ft for R499.. eish).

If you haven't already, maybe post in the who has stock subform... I'll have a look around for you in the mean time

 

[Carnival]

Thank you very much @Smoke_A_Llama

I’ll go post in the who has stock sub forum.

 

[veecee]

Great thread, ive also started delving into the realm of coil wrapping, using rta's though.

So this is exactly the kind of pearls of wisdom I was looking for. Thx @Carnival.

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