Finally scored some building time. And what do I do with it? Build simple shit...
Twin dual 38g kanthal D/28g kanthal A1 builds - 2.5mm for the Lush and 2mm for the Snubnose. The Snubnose loves this build. The Lush is alright... ...I'm still trying to find the right build for a nice balance to the airflow being a bit restricted with the 510 tip. I like the look and pull of it with the 510 and the top row half-closed. It's especially nice-looking on my black Noisy Cricket. Dat baby-blue splatter on black, doe (I call it an evil egg finish.) I just can't seem to get something that's quite balanced to it just the way I like it. It's frustrating when you can't quite find THE build for one of your favorite RDA's.
I've got a real love/hate affair going on with the Lush right now. I love it for standard coils on my SMPL. It has exactly the looks, features, and general quality/buildability that I look for in an RDA. I just can't seem to get it to play nice with series setups. Everything I try is more than adequate, but never quite up to its full potential. It's always too much or not enough.
I prefer the vape I get from the Snubnose, which has become my main RDA. It will take a weaker, smaller build and turn it into a hot, billowing, and power-efficient flavor monster. I tried a Derringer recently and this thing really is the Derringer killer. Maybe I'm just spoiled by how awesome it is. It's limited to smaller builds, but there's something really special about how it handles them.
It's just too good. Completely turned my building game on its side. Now, I don't even know what I want out of large-chamber RDA's. I've come to dislike how I have to build something that has to overcome their massive airflow and fill all of that space. The biggest challenge with the airflow monsters is getting the density and flavor up without too much heat. With the shorties, those aspects are there by default. It just feels like a fuller, more direct vape. Flavor teleported to the tongue and vapor straight to the lungs, man.
I'm leaning more towards small chamber, small bore drip-tip setups for that very reason. I find that I can still have more than enough airflow that way and they fill-out the vape much more effectively. They don't need big coils to match the performance of big atties and the vape is qualitatively superior, imho.
I'm also continuing to experiment with simple helix wire builds. This one's 24g A1 helixed with 28g A1. 1/8" diameter. At .12, she's a mean ole juice sucker. Vapor production is kinda weak considering it only really comes to life at above 100w. The flavor is so, so very on-point for those fruit and candy vapes, though. The density, fullness, and throat hit just aren't there. I think that maybe 28g is too much of a heat-hog for the 24g. Thing takes forever to heat up, but when it does, the vape is just too hot. I think I'll try 34g for the helix wraps next time.
24g helixes may just not be for me. I love how much easier they are to helix compared to 26g, though. This is probably best kept as a single-coil rather than a dual. Unfortunately, that's a no-go for me. I swear, I can feel the offset on the airflow in single-coil mode. Really sets off my OCD.
Maybe some of you helix guys can tell me... ...is it possible for the thinner wire to affect the resistance of the coil? I ask because I want to do some higher resistance ones for series and I'm not going to compromise surface area with those (the core wire is already going to be thinner) if I don't have to.
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