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Nic salts and vaping-with nic salts do you vape less?

expat42451

Member For 4 Years
OK I ve been around here for a while. Rebuild my own atomizers, wind coils, rewick yadayada. Great forum and thanks to all here for the knowledge......

Here is the deal. I am 68, healthy, walk about 5 KM in the mountains daily &c&c as well as exercise. My current vaping is with mostly RDTA's and 6Mg/Ml nicotine. I wind for the most part single wire coils and generally run anywhere between 19 and 25 watts when I vape, no more. I vape sweet tobacco flavored juice- King's Crest & Nasty Juice mainly.

I do some coding and when I work I am at the computer a LOT sometimes 14 hours a day. I vape what I consider a LOT when I work. 3 RDTA's different flavors on 3 different mods. During the heavy times when I am going through a lot of juice and wicking I dont breathe as well on my daily walks - I live at 8000 feet above sea level so its noticeable, and I end up doing the 5KM a little slower and dont have the same energy level.........

Couple of weeks ago I was at my friendly e cig shop talking with a guy who had a nic salts rig, little thing (VooPoo I think) not huge like one of my Drag mods with a WoToFo Faris on top..... I tried it and I get a much better throat/lung hit than I do from my RDTA's- I have a coupe of RDA's and several RTA's as well but RDTA's are the way I roll mostly. Guy owned the salts rig said that he actually vapes less since he switched to salts.....

So I am curious- anyone here gone from normal juice/atomizer to a nic salts rig for the throat hit? If so do you find that you vape less than you did with the normal atomizer/mod? Do you find using the nic salts rig that your breathing improves because you are hitting it less? I know the nicotine is higher - I think my e cig shop has among others Kings Crest nic salts liquid in both 25 and 50 Mg/Ml strengths. I am an ex smoker, who enjoys the throat/lung part of vaping but the nic salts rig really is satisfying and ......I am wondering if I would vape less if I made the switch. Also guy at the vape shop said while you can vape nic salts in a regular atomizer you have to really be careful because of the higher dose and he recommended a rig just for nic salts. Thoughts?

Many thanks
expat
 

Smoky Blue

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The throat hit was probably due to the pg in the ejuice.
Nic Salts are supposed to be more smooth than reg nic.

Nic salts also made me crave more vaping.. over the years off and on taste tester for a few companies.. it also raised my blood pressure.
I went back to free base, my blood pressure has evened back out at normal range.

I am now also nic free for the last 1 and a half months.. I dont miss the nic at all.

I am only one person however..
 

Rooster Cogburn

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I switched from freebase to salts awhile back. Salts are supposed to give less throat hit which allows you to vape higher mg juice. I switched to “HIT” nicotine salts because I wanted to feel the throat. I switched to salts because I read it’s more stable which would make it last longer before it oxidized. With the bans and talk of high taxes on nicotine base I wanted to buy a lot of nicotine to store in case it becomes unavailable or unreasonably taxed. But to get back to your question I haven’t noticed any difference between salts and freebase. I vaped both in the 25-30mg/ml with mesh rda’s and a few subohm tanks that take drop-in coils. They don’t recommend doing this because you do get a blast of nicotine but I don’t vape a ton anyway. I probably go through 5mls per day tops because the high nicotine with a subohm atty floods my system with nicotine which is how I prefer it. I don’t want to be constantly vaping. So my answer to you is I’ve noticed no difference but I’m using HIT nicotine salts so that would be the closest in theory to freebase nicotine.
 

expat42451

Member For 4 Years
Hi Smoky Blue & Rooster Cogburn
Thanks very much both of you for the information, this is the kind of knowledge I was looking for.
Smoky- the blood pressure issue is interesting. I dont know that with a higher nic level I would experience the same, I normally run on the other extreme, pretty low, something like 120/70 after exercising and 110/60 at rest. Congrats on being nic free and thanks very much for sharing your experience.

Rooster- First a question, what is HIT nicotine salts? Never heard that but of course there is a lot I have not heard of. I live in Cotacachi Ecuador and we have very little exposure to the range of products and innovation that the rest of the world does, partly because we pay 160% duty on imported luxury items and this is anything connected with vaping.....however a pack of 20 L&M's here costs $2.50 so go figure. Interesting you used the salts with subohm and mesh . I have never tried a mesh tank, they are almost impossible to find here. My metabolism is pretty high, that may have been why I experienced a pretty heavy rush when I tried the salts.

A friend got me to consider vaping one day when I was huffing and puffing on a climb we did at some altitude -around 14,000' more or less on a mountain close to Quito (Rucu Pinchincha) and thats been 5 years ago. He vaped, had given up cigarettes, I was at a pack (20) a day then. I switched first to 18 Mg/Ml then to 12. Now I am at 6Mg/Ml. Rarely I will try a cigarette --once a week--and end up putting it out after a couple of hits....I find that I prefer the vape. The rush from the salts was great. I go through probably 15-20 Ml of liquid per day on a heavy day.

I remember that with cigarettes it sometimes was a task to smoke all of one after lighting it and the first couple of puffs. You of course are compelled to since you paid for the damn thing, dont want to waste it, and it is a little nasty to put one out and re light it, funny how that works isnt it.....vaping, a couple hits on a couple of different flavors satisfies me for a while but inactivity at the keyboard while trying to figure something out leads me to reach for the vape.... in observing my own behavior I used to give myself a cigarette as a reward or during a break and I am not sure how much that behavior pattern has changed since vaping. My objective is to try to cut down since I notice a little bit of raw throat at the end of a long day plus a little more problem breathing. As far as satisfaction level goes, in the morning first vape with my Taurus RDTA(for example) with Kings Crest Tobacco 6Mg/Ml the setting from the night before, 24 watts is too much with that first cup of coffee. I cut it back to 17-18 watts. This is with a pair of simple (single wire) 24 Ga 316L SS coils, say 8 turns at around .25 ohms with rayon wicks in power mode. Over the course of the day the wattage goes back up and at the end i will be back to 24 watts. So I wonder if a higher nic level might lead to less vaping or the compulsion for the nic hit would lead to the same behavior with just more nicotine. Sort of what I was trying to determine. One thing I can not do is what most people I know here do, vape at 40-60 watts. This high a setting chokes me immediately.

In any case thanks to both of you for the kindness and for sharing your experience. Ultimately I would like to quit vaping altogether but there is a lot I like about the process, not just the vaping but also building the decks.

Regards
 

Carambrda

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The nic in nic salt can, depending on which type of acid is used, cross the blood brain barrier even faster when compared to the nic in traditional cigarette smoke, which explains the "rush" you'll get from stuff like Juul:
https://www.vapor4life.com/blog/the-truth-and-technology-behind-juul-and-nic-salts-revealed

Back in April 2016, in their famous publication "Nicotine Without Smoke" (specifically, the sentence that starts at the bottom of page 184) the Royal College of Physicians warned that rapid absorption of nic through new tech innovations (which definitely also includes nic salt, according to the article I linked above) is a two-edged sword, making the improved technology more effective as a smoking substitute thus enabling more smokers to use it for help with smoking cessation, but at the same time also increasing the addictiveness.

That said, I don't believe that high wattage vaping 30ml of high VG juice that contains freebase nic at 3mg every day is called an addiction. And as long as I can be pretty sure I am not vaping tainted juice nor am using a poisonous RDA with various metals etc. creeping fast into my juice, all that basically matters is that, in that same famous publication, the Royal College of Physicians also concluded the nic itself is next to harmless in adult humans.
 

expat42451

Member For 4 Years
Carambrda
Thanks for the link to the vaporvapor4life.com article. Also thanks for the mention of the Royal College of Physicians publication. I am going to try to find that online.

You bring up what to me is a very important point in
"And as long as I can be pretty sure I am not vaping tainted juice nor am using a poisonous RDA with various metals etc. creeping fast into my juice"

How does one have any reasonable confidence in the materials source.... One example---We have a number of locally made juices here in Ecuador. Given the gross cultural disregard here for things like sanitation and food safety, I dont use them. Next part of this of course is for those of us who build our decks, what wire and wick material to use. Having had many years ago in the Mississippi river valley in the US, friends who farmed cotton, I remember the plethora of insecticides and chemical fertilizers used to bring the cotton to market. I have also wondered if for example, how one knows if any given supplier is using an inferior grade of wire with trace chemicals that might leach into the atomized juice when heated. Any thoughts on this you might care to share would be deeply appreciated.

Excellent post and many thanks.

Regards
 

Carambrda

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Carambrda
Thanks for the link to the vaporvapor4life.com article. Also thanks for the mention of the Royal College of Physicians publication. I am going to try to find that online.

You bring up what to me is a very important point in
"And as long as I can be pretty sure I am not vaping tainted juice nor am using a poisonous RDA with various metals etc. creeping fast into my juice"

How does one have any reasonable confidence in the materials source.... One example---We have a number of locally made juices here in Ecuador. Given the gross cultural disregard here for things like sanitation and food safety, I dont use them. Next part of this of course is for those of us who build our decks, what wire and wick material to use. Having had many years ago in the Mississippi river valley in the US, friends who farmed cotton, I remember the plethora of insecticides and chemical fertilizers used to bring the cotton to market. I have also wondered if for example, how one knows if any given supplier is using an inferior grade of wire with trace chemicals that might leach into the atomized juice when heated. Any thoughts on this you might care to share would be deeply appreciated.

Excellent post and many thanks.

Regards
"Nicotine Without Smoke" is here:
https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/sites/default/files/media/Documents/Nicotine without smoke.pdf

I only use Nichrome 80 wire that's smelted by Sandvik in Sweden (same company that also owns the official Kanthal brand). This wire is commercially available from various known brands like Kidney Puncher, Twisted Messes, wireworks.eu, and a few others. As for the cotton that I use to wick, I prefer Cotton Bacon 2.0 for truly warm builds and Cotton Bacon Prime for neutral/warm builds.

The vaping industry has been doing a surprisingly great job at regulating itself both in the US and the EU, but it takes only a few bad apples to spoil the reputation of everything vaping. We need governmental organizations like the CDC and the FDA to keep an eye on our safety, but we certainly don't need their systemic political abuse problem that originates from not just Big Tobacco, but especially from Big Pharma, from fake and corrupt research agencies and so-called "health" organizations that fail to acknowledge our legitimate case of harm reduction and that blow things up in the media 2,000 times each day and every day. We don't want to let the Tobacco Control lobby interfere with vaping in such a disruptive way that will drive the businesses we all trust and support financially into the ground and that will have devastating adverse effects on public health like creating a black market where there currently is none, nor do we want to pay obscenely heavily inflated taxes to be able to still access the lifesaving products we all blatantly depend on.
 

expat42451

Member For 4 Years
Carambrda

Just excellent! Thanks very much for the link to the pdf. Downloaded and reading for later today I am looking forward to it.

Thanks also for the information on what you use. The wire we have here in Ecuador, when we can find it is either Ni200 by who knows who or GeekVape 316SS mostly in 26 ga but occasionally in 24 (what I primarily use). The majority of the coils sold here are pre made complex coils and I dont like any I have tried nor have I had much luck with either flavor or lifespan on any of them. Of course as I said most people here vape at high wattage so.....not condemning that at all but I cant do it. I vape for sensation and flavor. We just do not have access to much of the world market except at very elevated prices... Ecuador not only taxes anything imported but also taxes the shipping so for example, a document sent from the US to Ecuador in a flat document pack costs $100. I am trying rayon. Have been using Cotton Bacon when I can find it and its somewhat rare. the rayon is of unknown origins as well.....and, everything here is double the price (or better) that you find in online shops. A VooPoo Drag 2 is between $100 and $120 depending on where....without the tank or batteries. . Ditto for cotton, wire and juice. A Taurus RDTA is $60. The Faris is about the same price. 120 Ml of Kings Crest Duke is between $40 and $50. So it goes.....think this is bad ought to try to import amateur radio equipment. Jesus.

Regards and many thanks again for the really great information.
 

Carambrda

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Carambrda

Just excellent! Thanks very much for the link to the pdf. Downloaded and reading for later today I am looking forward to it.

Thanks also for the information on what you use. The wire we have here in Ecuador, when we can find it is either Ni200 by who knows who or GeekVape 316SS mostly in 26 ga but occasionally in 24 (what I primarily use). The majority of the coils sold here are pre made complex coils and I dont like any I have tried nor have I had much luck with either flavor or lifespan on any of them. Of course as I said most people here vape at high wattage so.....not condemning that at all but I cant do it. I vape for sensation and flavor. We just do not have access to much of the world market except at very elevated prices... Ecuador not only taxes anything imported but also taxes the shipping so for example, a document sent from the US to Ecuador in a flat document pack costs $100. I am trying rayon. Have been using Cotton Bacon when I can find it and its somewhat rare. the rayon is of unknown origins as well.....and, everything here is double the price (or better) that you find in online shops. A VooPoo Drag 2 is between $100 and $120 depending on where....without the tank or batteries. . Ditto for cotton, wire and juice. A Taurus RDTA is $60. The Faris is about the same price. 120 Ml of Kings Crest Duke is between $40 and $50. So it goes.....think this is bad ought to try to import amateur radio equipment. Jesus.

Regards and many thanks again for the really great information.
Ni200 used to be a little bit of a thing some time in the past, for vaping in Temperature Control mode. Whereas these days SS316L appears to be the most popular choice for that. I personally don't like simple round wire or parallell round wire builds, and, I want my own handbuilt complex coils to be durable so I don't have to constantly build and rebuild. To me, this means that using SS316L is always fully out of the question. In addition to this, I decided I want my coils to ramp up really fast, and also to cool down relatively fast. So that's why I prefer to use Ni80 to build my own complex coils. Also it is one of the main reasons why I decided to only use mech mods and, very rarely, a true PWM mod (Surric X-Vault).

I also vape for sensation and flavor, but I can only do it at high wattages, ranging anywhere between ~88 watts and ~500 watts, despite some people keep insisting that it is impossible to do this for flavor (it most definitely is not), and also despite the fact I don't like a hot vape in any way at all. The "trick" is always to make the airflow slam right into the coils in a thoroughly optimized fashion to get exactly that which squidoode ("The Art of Vaping" on YouTube) accurately described as a warm, wet, dense, saturated, flavorful vape.

Around where I live (Belgium), the Voopoo Drag 2 without the tank or batteries typically retails for 80 Euros ($87.20) or more. The Vaporesso GEN mod without the tank or batteries is 60 Euros ($65.40). 120ml bottles containing only 100ml of premium juice made in the US usually are 35 Euros each, but the TPD law that applies to all EU member states forbids bottles bigger than 10ml if they contain nicotine so throw in another 5 Euros for two nic boosters to turn that into 120ml of 3mg juice (or $43.60). Also, sales of vaping products to Belgian consumers via the internet have all been banned.
 

expat42451

Member For 4 Years
Carambrda
Really interesting· --I wish I could get some Ni80 to try. A few people I know here (who dont know ohm's law) use mech mods with occasionally some interesting (borderline catastrophic) results. I tried one once and it pretty much was a choking experience..... I agree with a warm wet flavorful vape, what I try to achieve to greater or lesser extents with what I have. I have TC mods but 90% of the time they run in direct power mode. I would love to see some of your complex coils if you wouldnt mind posting a photo. My most complex build to date has been 26 Ga 316 SS twisted either 2 or 3 wire builds. Also agree with SS not being a durable build of course I am vaping at a lot less wattage than you are. Additionally I have also observed the ramp up problem with round wire 316SS. Part is probably my mods, a little better in TC mode but I dont think I get the flavor in TC. With the wattage you are running what atomizers are you using or are you custom building those?

I am surprised and disappointed in hearing the prices and government restrictions you have to suffer through with buying vape stuff. It sux here definitely and I again am surprised. Creeping authoritarianism. Here there isnt any restriction on the amount of liquid or the nicotine except for selling to "underage" clients.

This is an excellent opportunity to share ideas and for me to learn another approach to vaping and I am most definitely appreciative of your sharing what you do.
Regards & Thanks !
 

Rooster Cogburn

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Rooster- First a question, what is HIT nicotine salts?

There are 2 varieties of nicotine salt sold most places. The first is regular old nicotine salt making it by adding an acid to freebase and changing its PH to make for a smoother hit. The other is HIT. This is just the same as regular but they add an acid to change it’s PH just not as much as the first kind so they leave some of that throat hit in this base. Now that I thought about it I should’ve just linked it being explained by someone much better then me, if I can find it.
 

Carambrda

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Carambrda
Really interesting· --I wish I could get some Ni80 to try. A few people I know here (who dont know ohm's law) use mech mods with occasionally some interesting (borderline catastrophic) results. I tried one once and it pretty much was a choking experience..... I agree with a warm wet flavorful vape, what I try to achieve to greater or lesser extents with what I have. I have TC mods but 90% of the time they run in direct power mode. I would love to see some of your complex coils if you wouldnt mind posting a photo. My most complex build to date has been 26 Ga 316 SS twisted either 2 or 3 wire builds. Also agree with SS not being a durable build of course I am vaping at a lot less wattage than you are. Additionally I have also observed the ramp up problem with round wire 316SS. Part is probably my mods, a little better in TC mode but I dont think I get the flavor in TC. With the wattage you are running what atomizers are you using or are you custom building those?

I am surprised and disappointed in hearing the prices and government restrictions you have to suffer through with buying vape stuff. It sux here definitely and I again am surprised. Creeping authoritarianism. Here there isnt any restriction on the amount of liquid or the nicotine except for selling to "underage" clients.

This is an excellent opportunity to share ideas and for me to learn another approach to vaping and I am most definitely appreciative of your sharing what you do.
Regards & Thanks !
None of the atomizers I have are clones. All of them are RDAs excepting only the Reload RTA by Reload Vapor USA and the Isolation RTA by Deathwish Modz. The one with the smallest diameter (measured on the outside of the actual build deck itself) is just 19.5mm, it is the Head Shot RDA by Purge Mods. I have multiple different variations of this RDA, using various different caps. But all of these are fixed airflow so getting the performance takes a little bit of tried experience. Next in line is the 22mm Battle Deck by Comp Lyfe, multiple ones and assorted caps, all fixed airflow also. I'd say these two different build decks are geared specifically towards mech users who just want to do their advanced like stuff, but not strictly limited to the mech. But these two are in what I like to call the upper echalon in terms of their expensiveness. Even though I personally think they are worth it, should you be looking for a slightly more affordable 22mm dual coil RDA, then look no further than the 22mm Twisted Messes RDA, which I don't own, but I have tried from a friend.

The vast majority of my RDAs are 24mm and 25mm, though, despite I have several many bigger ones (also including a few very big ones). There are tons of options to choose between in the 24mm-25mm category so I won't go through all of them... among the best performing ones are the 2-post Kennedy 24 and 25 (each with their, entirely optional, separately sold ultem caps, albeit if using their standard metal caps their Stub Dogg drip tip is still a compulsory upgrade), the (now hard to find) CSMNT with the separately sold Shawty cap (compulsory upgrade) on it, various different variations of the Carnage and the Carnage 1.5 with their various different options (of caps), the Asgard Mini with the (optional) separately sold gold plated build deck and the separately sold ultem set, the Terk V2 RDA, and a few others so the list goes on, but I'll stop here for now. It goes without saying that every option comes with its own unique set of both pros and cons. A lot depends on what your expectations are, and what build you put inside. Also, to be able to do a fair comparison in terms of the performance level, the amount of tweaking that's usually required tends to be a little overwhelming IMO, even, if that's all part of what makes this a fun hobby so in fact there's always a bit of a challenge involved with this.

Asgard Mini RDA.jpg isolation.jpg SSFCs.jpg fraliens.jpg stapled helix.jpg waviness.jpg aliens.jpg sfc 52.jpg 29g aliens.jpg 7-core.jpg
 

expat42451

Member For 4 Years
Rooster Cogburn- Thanks very much for the information. I will Google HIT to try to find out more...

Carambrda
Beautiful builds. I cant imagine whats involved in making a complex coil like that. Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to post the photos. There obviously is a completely different world from what I do with my builds. The second to last photo in your second post is different from anything I have seen before. I am assuming that all of the builds here are with NI 80. Beautiful work!

Thanks for sharing what you do. I am going to look at the different builds for a bit and I will have questions.
Regards
 

Carambrda

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Rooster Cogburn- Thanks very much for the information. I will Google HIT to try to find out more...

Carambrda
Beautiful builds. I cant imagine whats involved in making a complex coil like that. Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to post the photos. There obviously is a completely different world from what I do with my builds. The second to last photo in your second post is different from anything I have seen before. I am assuming that all of the builds here are with NI 80. Beautiful work!

Thanks for sharing what you do. I am going to look at the different builds for a bit and I will have questions.
Regards
Only the 3rd one in my 1st post is Kanthal A1 with Ni80 wrapped just around the outside. That actually was my 1st successful attempt at coil building, now 3 years ago, and, I built it for a regulated mod because I had no experience with mech mods back then, as in fact I hadn't even been vaping for a whole month yet. All of the other ones are fully Ni80. I built them for my mech mods excepting only the 5th one in my 1st post, which I built for my Surric X-Vault. Some of the ones I built for a mech are only usable on mechs that have multiple batteries in series. The second to last one in my 2nd post that you pointed to is my own variation of the so-called tiger coil build. A normal tiger coil build is just a strand of round wire and a strand of ribbon wire laid in parallell and then simply twisted together. Whereas my variation uses two strands of (.1×.3) ribbon wire twisted together and then clapton'd around that (using 40g), then finally laid that in parallell with another strand of ribbon wire and twisted those two together. This is a 1.33 ohms build. I built it for a stacked tube mech that uses 4 batteries in series. The idea was to just explore some of the possibilities, to see how it vapes. It turned out that it did pretty well if the total voltage of all 4 of the batteries (Sony VTC5A) summed together was only about 14 volts so, that's about 145 watts for this build.
 
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expat42451

Member For 4 Years
What you are doing with the coils I consider art. What thinking do you use (weird question probably) when you are preparing to build a new coil. I know that your past experience (results of past builds and possibly looking at what others have done and their results) possibly shines a very bright light into what form a new coil might take....and that you want a warm, moist, flavorful build..... aside from a handle on the resistance of the final product what else causes the end result on your coils to end up looking like they do? Beautiful work. From an engineering background I can see where the clamps and wire size on some of the builds are for a lot more current and wattage than anything I have experience with from vaping. In my past as a radio engineer and amateur radio operator i would a lot of coils for tuned circuits so winding my own instead of paying for pre mades came almost as second nature --but I havent done anything like you are doing.
Edit...another question ..... what is accomplished by a strand of ribbon wire and a strand of round wire laid together as in the Tiger coil? Durability? Flavor?? Thanks..


Regards
 

Carambrda

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What you are doing with the coils I consider art. What thinking do you use (weird question probably) when you are preparing to build a new coil. I know that your past experience (results of past builds and possibly looking at what others have done and their results) possibly shines a very bright light into what form a new coil might take....and that you want a warm, moist, flavorful build..... aside from a handle on the resistance of the final product what else causes the end result on your coils to end up looking like they do? Beautiful work. From an engineering background I can see where the clamps and wire size on some of the builds are for a lot more current and wattage than anything I have experience with from vaping. In my past as a radio engineer and amateur radio operator i would a lot of coils for tuned circuits so winding my own instead of paying for pre mades came almost as second nature --but I havent done anything like you are doing.
Edit...another question ..... what is accomplished by a strand of ribbon wire and a strand of round wire laid together as in the Tiger coil? Durability? Flavor?? Thanks..


Regards
Thanks for calling them art, I really appreciate that. Thing is, all the credit should go to those people who thought up the original designs, and who also spent a lot of their personal effort and countless hours of their own time on trying to educate others.

Complex coil building took off with the invention of the tiger coil, at the end of 2013, when a guy named Leo S invented it and posted this video tutorial:


Kent Hill of Twisted Messes came along and started posting his own video tutorials because he felt inspired by that idea. By early 2014 there were others who had started to share their own unique building techniques and ideas online, with pictures getting posted and discussions about what might be the next thing they could try to build on others' ideas to create something new that might be an improvement or different. As more and more people started interacting, trying to learn from each other's shared experiences and ideas, and trying to educate newcomers, a new community was born within the vaping community. That's the whole mindset.

But how beautiful it looks is really just a bonus to me. That is, when I look at my own coil builds or try to envision what they will be like after I finish them. If I wanted to, I could spend days upon days trying to focus on the visual appearance above anything else making it look like art the best I can, complete with rainbow colored SS316L and using the thinnest of the thin wire strands everywhere around and a zillion times between, but in the end I just want it to be a highly satisfying, great tasting, vape. Preferrably, one that I can keep enjoying by vaping it for many weeks, or maybe even a few months, if possible. So how I decide to build has got nothing to do with cloud chasing or with just trying to be a very cool guy to gain fandom and then rake in sponsorship. I'm only using a bit of my creativity and my intuition in cohort with some knowledge and logical interpretations that I borrowed from others who went before me, to develop and further enhance some of my skills. The rest is just basically trial and error with trying to stay focused, always gentle, and relaxed. You know. If you love the wire, the wire loves you back... patience.

I don't use simple tiger coils, but I don't think they offer better flavor when compared to a simple twisted coil build. More like an increase in vapor production and an alternative means to avoid getting the violent spitback often associated with simple twisted coil builds. In a way, the tiger coil was superseded by the clapton coil, which, in turn, was superseded by the fused clapton. Inspired by the fused clapton coil, squidoode invented the staple coil. In his video titled "Back To Basics", squidoode also explained how the simple twisted coil was being used by many to create endless new variations also.
 

expat42451

Member For 4 Years
OK so you are building a complex coil that you will use for weeks or months. I know with the wattage I run I occasionally have to pull the wick out....because some of my juice is sweet and it gums up the coil and makes a mess... so I have to pull the wick out and run the wattage up from where I normally vape at say 20 watts.... up to 50 watts and burn the garbage off the coil and then use a small wire brush on it. then re wick and good to go for a while longer. On a complex coil do you do something like this and how well does it clean the coil? Of course, at the wattage you run the coil may not foul as badly.

Thanks for the video. I will definitely watch that later. Your coils are beautiful and if they produce as good a vape as the way they look, then thats really impressive!
Regards
 

Carambrda

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OK so you are building a complex coil that you will use for weeks or months. I know with the wattage I run I occasionally have to pull the wick out....because some of my juice is sweet and it gums up the coil and makes a mess... so I have to pull the wick out and run the wattage up from where I normally vape at say 20 watts.... up to 50 watts and burn the garbage off the coil and then use a small wire brush on it. then re wick and good to go for a while longer. On a complex coil do you do something like this and how well does it clean the coil? Of course, at the wattage you run the coil may not foul as badly.

Thanks for the video. I will definitely watch that later. Your coils are beautiful and if they produce as good a vape as the way they look, then thats really impressive!
Regards
To remove the gunking by dry burning the coils, I use a much lower wattage, not higher. After I pull the wick out I rinse the remaining juice out of the build deck and out of the coils with running tap water. Next, I swing the build deck (while carefully holding on to it so I don't accidentally drop it) to get most of the water out, and then I blow vigorously using my mouth to get more water out (i.e. out of the coils and the post holes). What little water still remains inside the coils is going to evaporate by gently pulsing them at low wattage, taking care to not let them start to glow before I can hear that they no longer are wet. After they are dry, I continue pulsing letting them ramp up slowly in about 3 seconds time, from dark to glowing red-orange, not bright orange at their center. As the soot continues to burn up right at their center, wait a second or 2 (or 3) before pulsing them again. Repeat once or twice if necessary, until the glow is spreading out nicely from the center area of each coil, but never let any part of it turn bright orange. Always keep checking for spots that light up abnormally faster, these are called hot spots. They need to be removed by gently strumming across them with the tip of your ceramic tipped tweezers and without damaging the coils, same as when you are tweaking a freshly built complex coil build that's never been fired before.

Now, depending on coil type, some of the ashes that result from this dry burning of the coils may have gotten stuck deep inside the tiny crevasses (and/or inside the tiny cavities, if any). So if you decide to just use a small wire brush, typically what will happen is that the brush can't reach in there deep enough. (That plus the fact you don't want to cause any unnecessary marring on the Ni80.) By far the easiest way to deal with that problem is to pour on a little bit of sparkling water (just a small sip) and gently start pulsing again, just like you did before, when they were soaked with tap water. As the sparkling water gets boiled out by pulsing, it fizzes much more vigorously than boiling tap water does. I found that this is all it really takes to create enough steam pressure inside those crevasses to detach the ashes completely everywhere. I usually repeat this step once or twice, just to be sure. The final step is to just rinse again with tap water and then dry again like before, and, pulse till dark red a couple times (just to get a clean taste with Ni80).
 
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expat42451

Member For 4 Years
Carambrda
Thanks for the cleaning tips. I generally just burn a simple coil off and wire brush it and depending on how it looks will either wind and drop in another one or re wick and goo on. I have been trying Rayon but have switched back to Cotton Bacon on the last couple of builds. Still have unfortunately not had time to watch the video but am going to get to that tomorrow.

Regards
 

Carambrda

Platinum Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
Carambrda
Thanks for the cleaning tips. I generally just burn a simple coil off and wire brush it and depending on how it looks will either wind and drop in another one or re wick and goo on. I have been trying Rayon but have switched back to Cotton Bacon on the last couple of builds. Still have unfortunately not had time to watch the video but am going to get to that tomorrow.

Regards
If you are interested in trying to make your own tiger coil build, then you should watch this one:

 

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