I got got some 316 SS and am wondering if it ohms out like kanthal or if know what's a good build?
You can calculate the ohms for a ss coil using Steam Engine
here. I ordered SS wire from a couple different places (still not here), but from what I've read, it's about half the resistance of kanthal at the same gauge.
On the calculator (using all 26 gauge wire), to get a .5Ω SS-316 coil on a 2.5mm rod you would need 7.5 wraps (see
here). If you keep everything the same in the calculator but change the wire to kanthal, it would take 3.8 wraps (see
here). Basically, if you want to build coils similar to kanthal with SS, you could simply use higher gauge SS wire. 28 gauge SS wire seems like a good option if you like 26 gauge kanthal. They won't be identical, but they will be close.
Basically, if you prefer to build around 1Ω coils you should get 30 gauge Stainless Steel wire. If you build around .5Ω coils get 28 gauge SS. If you like even lower ohm coils get 22-24 gauge. I'm only talking about normal single coil builds here. If you build dual coils, parallel coils or twisted, that's a different discussion. I hope this helps.
