So About This Whole Coil Rebuilding Business...

bjorn

bjorn

It's me, Spiderman
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Hi peeps. I'm confused about this whole coil rebuilding business. All I've been able to figure out is that Kanthal wire and silica wick is used.
I see people talking about ohms and number of coils, voltage and different guage wire and thickness of wick etc etc but no actual information on how exactly it works?
I've seen videos of guys rebuilding regular replacement coils and it seems pretty straightforward.
But when it comes to measuring ohms and volts and whatnot, I'm lost. Where does that information come from?
Do you need a special tool to get those readings?
Is it worth bothering rebuilding coils?

I'm a tinkerererer. I like to tinker and I'm still vaping this stupid Twisp that leaks everywhere and spills it's nasty juice in my mouth. So it's like Russian roulette for me on a daily basis, shall I suck a nasty Twisp or a nasty ciggie. One makes me cough, the other is just too bloody bothersome.

My brother got a vision spinner 2 and protank mini or something like that. So I've seen the light. But as I said, I like to tinker... and why buy coils the whole time if you can just build them?
 
Hey @bjorn. I'm still new to this forum but I've been where you are and trust me, It gets better!

To start out, Kanthal wire and Silica wick are the materials used. (You can also use Cotton or Ekowool for wicking). The Kanthal comes in a variety of gauges, which is how thick the wire is. The higher the Gauge, the thinner the wire which effects your ohms. ohms is basically the resistance of your coil, the lower this is the more vapour you will usually produce however going too low on a non MOD battery will either short out your battery or result in it not firing. This is usually anything below 1.2 ohm.
The volts are the power your battery puts out with most standard batteries putting out 3.7v and the next being turbo modes which can do either 3.7v or 4.2v. You can also get variable voltage (VV) which allows you to adjust this more specifically. This is also proportional to how much vapour you create and helps for different juices but can also burn out your coil easily if pushing it too high.

As for reading your ohms and voltage, You can either buy a ohm reader which will give you a very detailed view, usually down to 2 decimals or you could get a battery capable of doing this which is what I have. This battery also has an LCD screen which shows the voltage output. as this is dependant on your battery.

It is definetly worth rebuilding coils in my opinion as it helps to see how the coils in your device work as well as to see if building coils is something you ejoy before committing to a full RBA or RDA device. Afterall, you'd just be rebuilding burnt out coils which costs you only a couple rand for the kanthal and silica or cotton. It could save you money and to top it off, you could build coils to your liking that produce far more vapour and enhance your experience.

I have rebuilt the Twisp coils but find that they arent the greatest to play around with in terms of rebuilding as the device itself is very limiting and being a top coil it doesnt really saturate well. What I would do is try get a protank or even protank mini. If you enjoy tinkering like I do you'll enjoy building coils and fiddling around to get them just right for you.

If you'd like I'd be happy to give you a breakdown on some tips for rebuilding either the Twisp or protank coils as well as some advice on what gauges and wicks to use etc.

Hope this helps :)
 
I have never heard of anyone rebuilding a Twisp clearomiser. But many here rebuild the Protank Minis. You will find many videos on YouTube on how to do it - do a search there. In the videos they normally say which gauge of wire to use, what the ID (inner diameter) of you mandrel (drill bit or whatever you wrap the wire on) should be and how many wraps of wire around your mandrel you should do. Also what resistance (measured in ohms) you should expect your coil to be when finished wrapping. And what to wick with (normally silica or cotton) and how.

Reading this thread will also help you: http://www.ecigssa.co.za/threads/suywwacs-user-made-tank-coils-pt2-pt3-nautilus-etc.1613/. You will probably find links to videos there as well.

It is important to measure the resistance of your coil - (1) To see that it registers something and is not shorting somewhere (you measure the coil after you have installed the coil in the atomizer). (2) To make sure it is not to low or too high for your atomizer and battery. You could get an ohm meter (many of our registered vendors stock them) or you could use a multimeter. The former is way easier to use. For the latter you first have to determine the internal resistance of the multimeter and subtract that from your reading.

Hope this helps. Shout if you have more questions after some video watching and thread reading.
 
Thanks @VapeTownZA that is already helping me a lot. I'll be really helpful nterested to hear what you used to rebuild twisp coils. I tried it without knowing about all this other finicky stuff and managed to get the battery to stop working. After some tinkering I figured out one of the solderings inside the battery came lose (burnt?) and managed to save it by doing some very fine soldering.
However, overall a coil rebuilding fail. After that I bought 32 gauge Kanthal and 2mm wick but then realised there's more to it.
So 32 gauge then is thinner with more resistance as opposed to 28 gauge?
I've got a multimeter somewhere in a box. Will it work? And how do I use it?

@ Andre, I've been on that thread, but it seems that is geared towards people who already know what they are doing. I don't know what the guys are talking about... :/
 
bjorn said:
Thanks @VapeTownZA that is already helping me a lot. I'll be really helpful nterested to hear what you used to rebuild twisp coils. I tried it without knowing about all this other finicky stuff and managed to get the battery to stop working. After some tinkering I figured out one of the solderings inside the battery came lose (burnt?) and managed to save it by doing some very fine soldering.
However, overall a coil rebuilding fail. After that I bought 32 gauge Kanthal and 2mm wick but then realised there's more to it.
So 32 gauge then is thinner with more resistance as opposed to 28 gauge?
I've got a multimeter somewhere in a box. Will it work? And how do I use it?

@ Andre, I've been on that thread, but it seems that is geared towards people who already know what they are doing. I don't know what the guys are talking about... :/
Click to expand...
http://www.yourepeat.com/watch/?v=tml7MpMX7RE


 
Schweet. Thanks @Andre. I'm going to watch these first thing in the morning while I wait for my coffee to kick in!
 
Another quick question while I'm at it. If I had to buy a mod, can those batteries easily be removed? In other words, I can have one mod and two batteries, one in use while the other one charges? With the Twisp and the Vision Spinner I've seen, once the battery dies, you basically have to discard the entire unit, you can't just replace the battery...
 
@bjorn No problem. Well at least you managed to fix the battery. Keep an eye on that though as you dont want your battery to burn out or worse while vaping. What I did was used 28 guage kanthal and did about 10 wraps around a 1mm jewellers screw driver. I'm not entirely sure of the measurement of it right now but will get back to you on that. What you need to do is get a good tight first wrap and then take your time to wrap each layer as tightly and consitently as the next. wrap around about 10 times, compressing the wire after every few wraps. make sure both of your legs are aiming in the same direction when finished and try keep them as straight as possible and also leave them with a fair bit of play especially on the twisp coil. Once you've done that, If you have a pair of tweezers and a mini blow torch, squeeze the coil tightly between the tweezers (make sure your wraps don't overlap though) and while squeezing, heat the coil with the blowtorch. It will begin to glow a bit as you do it which is fine. What you are doing is setting the wire in that squeezed position for better consistency. Once you've done that you're ready to tackle the coil. Remove the toprubber grommet as well as the bottom pin and rubber cup. you'll be able to remove the old coil now. Dispose of this properly especially if it has juice on it as the juice can be hazardous to small children and animals and you never know where it may end up. Now what you want to do is re-insert your screw driver into the coil carefuly without pushing it apart and insert it into the metal coil base and carefully guide the two legs through the bottom. Ensure they dont cross over anywhere or touch. Slide the rubber cup/seal over one leg, which will push one against the side and seperate the two (male sure the wire doesnt pierce through the rubber as it will then make contact with the pin and short out). you can now slide the pin in which will lock your coil in place (make sure the coil isnt touching any of the sides of the base). What I did now was pull the screw driver up ever so slightly so that the coil is a little raised. You can now use nail clipper to trim the excess wire at the bottom. Trim as close as possible so that you can barely see the wire to avoid it catching on any threads or shorting out. Once done, screw this into your twisp stem and test the ohms. I'm not entirely sure of how to do it with a multi meter perhaps Andre can assist. Otherwise screw that onto your ohms reader or battery able to read ohms and test your resistance. I think mine was around a 1.5 or so. If you're happy with the reading, you are ready to wick. If using silica, I'd suggest using 2mm for the screw driver i use but this is dependant on what you wrap around. An easy way I find to thread is to make a clean cut off the wick and slightly wet the end with juice. Twist the wick so that it ravels tighter and then begin to slide the twisted end into the coil (twist it as you slide it in in this same direction to keep it tight while going through). Now what I did to try stop the burning taste from the twisp is copied what other top coil tanks have and made the wick a lot longer so it would reach fown lower into the tank and draw juice up rather than only getting juice when tipped. You can try this out and see if it helps. I then also added a second wick above my coil with the same longer wicks. I can't say how well this worked as I didnt smoke this setup very much but it was defintely better than the standard Twisp coil. Once you are done with that, apply some juice to your wicks near the coil and let them satturate and give it a few pulses to test that it fires. If all is good you should see some vapour coming off the coils and you can re-attached the top grommet, fill up with juice and give it a go. I hope this helps out and let me know if anything doesnt make sense and I can try explain some more. I'm doing this all by memory so I'm hoping thats everything.
:)
 
@bjorn Unfortunately I dont have a MOD battery yet, Next on my list. But from what I understand you can replace the batteries and keep the "Tube" as well as keep 2 or 3 sets of batteries to alternate between while they are chargning. The MOD basically works as a casing much like the casing used for maglite torches and such if that makes sense?
 
@Andre has posted some great videos there. I got to know most of my stuff from rip trippers and just got the basics down and then pretty much took as many different kinds of coils as I could find and rebuilt them to see what worked. I'll be making some videos soon and I will try do a Twisp rebuild for you. :)
 
Hi @bjorn ......

The twisp coils were the first ones I rebuilt before buying a Protank 2 mini. For months after that I still used the Twisp clearomiser until the draw became too tight for me. At first I loved the tight draw of the twisp and hated the Protank variety because the draw was so loose. It was only really once I started using drippers that it changed permanently. Once you get used to a looser draw it takes time to re-adjust to anything tighter. Once you use drippers even a Protank and Aerotank feels a bit tight.

Back to the topic. I found the sweet spot for Twisp coils is 2.0-2.3 Ohms because it tends to give a burnt taste when going lower due to it being top coil and cannot supply the coil with liquid fast enough with a faster burning coil with the wicks being on top.

For me 30 gauge Kanthal works best for it as well as all other clearos where you do not want to go lower than 1.6 Ohms. 10-13 wraps on a 1.7mm ID will be in the correct range. You can use 32 gauge but then you can only do 6 wraps on a 1.7mm ID otherwise the ohms will be too high and the vapour production drops. I favour 1.7mm ID because 2mm silica fits nicely in there without being too tight or too loose.

If I get a chance this weekend I will post a pic of a rebuilt Twisp coil using 30 gauge Kanthal.

Don't worry ....if you like to tinker you will catch on quickly. Once you have mastered it standard coild will always be below par for you.
 
@bjorn Welcome to your new addiction :)

Coiling is the beez knee's! I also started out by rebuilding my twisp heads as i am not paying R40 per head. i started this to save money, and i was determined to keep it that way.

In the beggining you will notice its a little difficult, but once you taste you own first coil you will be building like the rest of us chasing that flavour and the clouds :D

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maxresdefault.jpg
 
@bjorn first coils i learnt to rebuild was the protanks, like many have told me, if you can build in that small space then everything else is easy peasy, and it's true.

If you have an android phone download an app called vapors toolbox, you punch in what wire you going to use, the internal diameter of the coil and what ohms you want the coil to be eg. 1.5 ohm etc and the app will tell you how many wraps you need to get it.

In the protanks 1.5ohm is my favourite, i get the most flavour and cloud coverage with that, 28g kanthal with 10/11 wraps and some organic cotton to wick instead of silica (I'm not a fan of silica).

With time and practice you'll be a pro soon enough.

Sent from my S4 LTE using my finger
 
Some good info in this thread. Thanks @VapeTownZA @Andre

I need to bookmark this for when i start building coils. At least now i can justify to the wife why i need a blowtorch...it's gonna save me money :devil:
 
bones said:
Some good info in this thread. Thanks @VapeTownZA @Andre

I need to bookmark this for when i start building coils. At least now i can justify to the wife why i need a blowtorch...it's gonna save me money :devil:
Click to expand...
I'm gonna throw a spanner in the works..... A torch is great if you have one but a lighter works just fine :D
 
Lighters also leave black carbon residue on everything :sick::sick::sick:
 
demmit.... I've been married for so long I have forgotten what side I'm on :rolleyes:

ok, you need a "torch" because coils are really small and need to be built in a really tiny and very dark place, the "torch" is the best way to focus light into that tiny space :D
 
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