Coil Upgrade Suggestions

Hey everyone,

New to the site, pretty new to vaping in general, and very new to coil building and drip tanks (built my first coils yesterday). So right now I'm working on upgrading from what I have set up. Though I am very satisfied with the amount of clouds I am getting and how good the flavor is, I believe there is a lot of room for improvement on my rig.

Currently I am running on a SMOK X Pro M80 Plus box (max 80 watts) with a mutation x v3 drip tank. I have japanese cotton with coils that are 8 wraps deep with kanthal wire at .4mm (not sure how that transfers to gauge or if it is really related to be honest). I am running off two coils and I currently don't have my own Ohms reader (one on the way from amazon) but I took it to my local vape shop and he said it was reading ~.59 Ohms. To my understanding, that's pretty weak. Also, my coils don't seem like that can handle anything past 40 watts, as they would break off from the heat with anything higher.

So what I'm wondering is if there are any suggestions that this form can give me to make my rig better. I know braiding the wire is an option, but honestly I am very new to electric stuff, so in turn I'm new to wire and I don't think me trying to braid two pieces would come out pretty at all.

Should I try doing more wraps? Would going to 10-12 decrease the resistance? To my understanding that is what Ohms means and more metal would infact reduce it, but I'm not sure if more wraps would create any problems. I have seen some spools of clapton wire online, should I go for that? If yes, until then should I try going for a four coil build?

Though I said I have little experience, being innovative and trying new things is very exciting to me, I love the feeling of being, excuse my fictitious language here, engineery. I am very into guitars and music and I was always putting mods into my guitar to make it different and learned how to change pickups and do electrical repairs with soldering and such.

That's enough talk, a lot to read I know, but I am very thorough when I am starting a new hobby and want to be an expert at everything I dive into, so any help or knowledge is very much appreciated, just be careful with your vocabulary because I am VERY new at most of this, seeing I don't know what an Ohm truly is and what it measures, but I'm pretty sure the less the better!

This online calculator should help http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp , click the How it works link near the bottom of the page to learn more about coil building. I'd suggest before you start building coils in the super sub ohm level that you read and understand ohms law. Safety should always be a priority.

UncleMike said:

This online calculator should help http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp , click the How it works link near the bottom of the page to learn more about coil building. I'd suggest before you start building coils in the super sub ohm level that you read and understand ohms law. Safety should always be a priority.

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I am confused by the calculator to be honest...

I put in my diameter, .4 mm, the option for dual coil, my target resistance (.25 ohms), the inner diameter of my coils (wrapping it around a 2mm screwdriver), and it is telling me that in order to achieve this I should use ~4 wraps. That is half of what I am using now? So what gives? I'm obviously missing something here.

RACGuitar said:

I am confused by the calculator to be honest...

I put in my diameter, .4 mm, the option for dual coil, my target resistance (.25 ohms), the inner diameter of my coils (wrapping it around a 2mm screwdriver), and it is telling me that in order to achieve this I should use ~4 wraps. That is half of what I am using now? So what gives? I'm obviously missing something here.

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I think they have figured in that each coil is .5 and when 2 are in parallel it divides the resistance in half , giving you .25.

arrowcrest said:

I think they have figured in that each coil is .5 and when 2 are in parallel it divides the resistance in half , giving you .25.

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Correct, however I am still confused because I am doing all these things with even more wraps (8 per coil) and my ohms is double that also. Which doesn't make sense to me because isn't more wraps supposed to reduce the resistance/ohms?

RACGuitar said:

Correct, however I am still confused because I am doing all these things with even more wraps (8 per coil) and my ohms is double that also. Which doesn't make sense to me because isn't more wraps supposed to reduce the resistance/ohms?

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WRONG.

I thought more wraps = less resistance = more vapor. Not true I guess and it makes since if I really put my mind to work. Now, new question. Once I reduce the Ohms, should I increase or decrease the watts?

RACGuitar said:

Correct, however I am still confused because I am doing all these things with even more wraps (8 per coil) and my ohms is double that also. Which doesn't make sense to me because isn't more wraps supposed to reduce the resistance/ohms?

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No-- more wraps makes more resistance. Wire works like this--longer wire equals more resistance , but larger diameter wire ( that is the wire its self , not the wrap diameter ) has less resistance.

arrowcrest said:

No-- more wraps makes more resistance. Wire works like this--longer wire equals more resistance , but larger diameter wire ( that is the wire its self , not the wrap diameter ) has less resistance.

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Awesome, that is what clicked in my head a second ago, but thank you for confirming!

Now all I have to understand is watts and how they work with ohms and different wires

Ok final question,

If I do this build to bring my Ohms to .25, but change my watts to 30 to fix the Heat Flux, will it produce more vapor than my ~.5 ohm at 40 watts?

RACGuitar said:

Awesome, that is what clicked in my head a second ago, but thank you for confirming!

Now all I have to understand is watts and how they work with ohms and different wires

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The best way is probably to Google Ohm's Law and there will be plenty of places to explain all that you want to know.

RACGuitar said:

Ok final question,

If I do this build to bring my Ohms to .25, but change my watts to 30 to fix the Heat Flux, will it produce more vapor than my ~.5 ohm at 40 watts?

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Bump

RACGuitar said:

Ok final question,

If I do this build to bring my Ohms to .25, but change my watts to 30 to fix the Heat Flux, will it produce more vapor than my ~.5 ohm at 40 watts?

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No. With Lower Ohm loads you will need more wattage to heat the coils. Try 50-60 watts with a .25 build and go up from there.

Zamazam said:

No. With Lower Ohm loads you will need more wattage to heat the coils. Try 50-60 watts with a .25 build and go up from there.

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Hmm.. I believe you but that doesn't make sense to me? Why would I need more wattage to heat the coils if the coils are smaller? (now 4 wraps compared to 8). The calculator is telling me that the heat flux would be way too high.

As you go up in resistance, the energy needed to heat the resistor (coil) decreases because the resistor (coil) is more efficient at resisting the current and thus producing thermal energy (heat). Conversely, when resistance goes down, more energy is needed to achieve the same amount of thermal energy since the resistor (coil) is less efficient in resisting current and producing thermal energy, make sense?

Zamazam said:

As you go up in resistance, the energy needed to heat the resistor (coil) decreases because the resistor (coil) is more efficient at resisting the current and thus producing thermal energy (heat). Conversely, when resistance goes down, more energy is needed to achieve the same amount of thermal energy since the resistor (coil) is less efficient in resisting current and producing thermal energy, make sense?

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Ok I guess that makes since.

And not to keep referring to it, but why does the calculator (http://www.steam-engine.org) say its more safe to be at 50 watts when at .5 ohms than .25 ohms? Isn't that the opposite of what you're saying?

50 watts @ .5 Ohms = 10 amp draw, 50 watts @ .25 Ohms = 14.14 amp draw on your battery.

No it is not the opposite of what I am saying at all. Higher Ohm loads use less energy and place less ampere demand on the battery. Lower Ohm coils need more energy and amps to heat up, that's all.

Zamazam said:

50 watts @ .5 Ohms = 10 amp draw, 50 watts @ .25 Ohms = 14.14 amp draw on your battery.

No it is not the opposite of what I am saying at all. Higher Ohm loads use less energy and place less ampere demand on the battery. Lower Ohm coils need more energy and amps to heat up, that's all.

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Ok yeah, so using the ohms law when you know the watts and resistance the square root of 50 divided by .5 is 10. I understand the math now.

Basically what I'm trying to ask, just to be on the safe side, is that when I build two coils with wire that is .4mm in diameter at a 2mm coil diameter, and wrap it 4-5 times to get to .25 ohms, and then set it to 40-50 watts, will I be ok? I know that's what you're telling me to do its just not clicking in my head because the whole red marker next to the heat flux on the calculator is haunting me.

Thank you so much by the way for being so patient and explaining this in different ways so I can understand!

if you posted the correct size of wire ?? that translates to either 25 or 26 ga wire
i do know that 7 wraps around a 2mm dowel in dual coil comes in at around approx .35 .slight variable in leg length.thats my favorite build for a plume veil

The .25 Ohms is both coils combined, correct? By themselves that should be .5 Ohms each, since you half resistance when using coils in parallel, (like in a dripper).

at .25 Ohms, you will be quite safe at 40-50 watts and above. Since you are using a regulated device, the battery safety is built in to the mod.

Zamazam said:

The .25 Ohms is both coils combined, correct? By themselves that should be .5 Ohms each, since you half resistance when using coils in parallel, (like in a dripper).

at .25 Ohms, you will be quite safe at 40-50 watts and above. Since you are using a regulated device, the battery safety is built in to the mod.

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Awesome!

I'll let you know how the build goes when I do it in a couple hours!

Again, thank you so much for the clarification and all the help, I like to understand what is going on and not just accepting an answer without knowing the "whys" and "hows".

Zamazam said:

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That's exactly the chart I used!

Tried the 4 wound that brought me to a reading of .35 ohms. Kicked it up to 50 watts and everything was safe, however it burned the hell out of my throat, didn't like it. I went back to the 30 watt. I will wait till I get some clapton coil to kick up the watts so that way the burn will be less intense, according to the calculator.

Why don't you try some single coils to get the hang of it. If you have 26g kanthal try 10 wraps at 2.4 ID. That is 1.2 ohms. Vape at 23 watts in your mutation. I have the same mutation and am very familiar with it. Then try 7 wraps of 24g kanthal on 3 ID. That us 0.7 ohms. Vape it at 28 watts to see the difference. Turn the watts up to learn.

Build single coils. Close one side and open 1.5 rows of holes on the coil side to breath, no more.



Try it.

RACGuitar said:

That's exactly the chart I used!

Tried the 4 wound that brought me to a reading of .35 ohms. Kicked it up to 50 watts and everything was safe, however it burned the hell out of my throat, didn't like it. I went back to the 30 watt. I will wait till I get some clapton coil to kick up the watts so that way the burn will be less intense, according to the calculator.

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So it took me about 5 minutes to figure out the calculator when I started but here I go.

I have some kanthal a1 in a parallel dual build at 1.2.

So I set the calculator to parallel kanthal a1 at .12 ohms (since that's what's I currently have). I wrapped it on average at 2mm and set leg length to 5 even though they might be shorter.

The calculator says that I'll do 4 wraps each coil, I actually have 5. The resistance reading of each coil should be .24 and at 80 wats it goes red on heat flux.

However my coils are not burning my wick or throat at 200 watts.

It says they should be way hot but I find the vape just warm. So keep that in mind when you look at your results on there.

Does that make sense?