This is a very old thread, but don't want anyone that reads it to leave with the impression that it's ok to treat Nickel like Kanthal. It's not! Nickel should never be dry fired to glowing Red The oxides created are not beneficial to the wires performance and worse yet are potentially harmful. Nickel should never be used on a mech mod or even in watt mode.
Nickel wire was not really ever intended to be resistance wire (hence it has no fing resistance). Ni 200 (pure Nickel wire) was just picked by Evolve to be used with there first TC board due to it's easiest to read high TCR value and it's availability.
A1 Kanthal and Nichrome 80 were designed to be resistance wire and by design maintain the flattest possible resistance change over their full working temperature range (negligible TCR). That's why they do not and never will work in TC mode.
Stainless was not intended or designed to be resistance heating wire, It should not be oxidized via dry-fire.
Titanium; well I'll stick to using Ti retainers in my small block Chevy, but I'll never vape it.
NiFe 52 was designed to be used as a resistance heating element with self regulating properties (TCR curve) and it's also used in sensor applications that utilize it's flat by design, TCR.
NiFe 52 is a different animal altogether. Unlike Nichrome 80 the NiFe's Iron component also has a TCR curve that compliments the Nickel's allowing it to work very well in TC applications. Both A1 Kanthal and NiFe 52 are designed to be oxidized prior to being put into service. When dry fired glowing Red Kanthal A1 and NiFe 52 form a protective oxide layer that acts as an insulator preventing one coil loop from shorting to the next. The NiFe 52 oxide layer (made up of primarily iron oxide) also seals in the base metal (Nickel), thus preventing the Nickel from leaching into the juice. I know 2 people highly allergic/sensitive to nickel that could not use Ni 200 or Nichrome 80, but had no issues with the NiFe 52 (Reactor Wire version). The Reactor Wire is 100% manufactured in the USA with the correct trace element components required to ensure the proper formation of the protective oxide layer resultant from dry firing/oxidizing the coils.
The above explains why NiFe 52 can be used in TC or Watt mode, but Reactor Wire has one additional really cool advantage. I use it on mech mods and design the coils based on desired hot resistance. Meaning when fired cold the watts start out considerably higher then I want to vape (yet still within safe battery limits). Then as the coil heats up resistance climbs and watts go down. So my mech mod has preheat boost mode with self regulating watt reduction if the coils start getting to hot! How awesome is that!! I switch my tank from mech mod to DNA to power mode and it works great on all with 1 build. When it gets gunked, just dry fire rinse and re-wick till I get sick of the build and want to try something new.
NiFe 52 is the ideal wire for vaping period! Eventually the science will catch up and this will become more obvious. The catch is that it is not commonly used for anything in gauges that work for vaping so it is hard to get and those who are selling it with the exception of Reactor Wire have gone the cheap route via china.
I cannot speak for or recommend any of the other versions of NiFe 52 available, but I do know that none of them as of 8/17/17 are genuine Kanthal or Sandvik manufactured. I know at least one overseas supplier has a good reputation for delivering NiFe 52, 30 , and 70, however some suppliers attempts have been utter failures. They are most likely all drawn in China with important trace element accuracy unknown? Based on the resistance deviation from specified Kanthal spec sheets I suspect the China NiFe 52 are the equivalent to a batch of chocolate chip cookies that were baked without vanilla extract and had Carob chips substituted for Hershey's. Yeah there chocolate chip cookies, sort of, but yuck.
