I've been using a dripper for a little while now and I have always had this problem but I have always just kinda sucked it up but now it's becoming unbearable. I always seem to have a burnt taste while vaping on my RDA. Not a dry hit but a chemicaly burnt undertone to all the juices I vape. Most off the time I get a day or so good use outta of most of my setups before this happens and I'm pretty sure it's my wicking. I like to use big watts like 100+ and every hit seems worse than the last and I think it's my wicking. I am using a dual 22gauge twisted 7 wrap build and I don't know why it's like this. Any hints?
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What's wrong with this wicking?
- Thread starter manfishmitch6
- Start date
SirRichardRear
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I can't see anything wrong personally, but maybe you have too much cotton and it's choking it. Try wicking again with a little less cotton and before doing so, after you remove the cotton, dry burn the coils and rinse them off. Let me know how that works
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are the coils gunking up on you fast?
SirRichardRear
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Whats your definition of fast? My coils so far have lasted me 24 hours and they aren't gunked and I'm a heavy vapor. Also my wick is still clean, no burn spots. I'd usually rewick every 24-48 personally but sometimes I'll let it go longer, depends on how clean they are.
Also depends on your juice, colored and really sweet juices tend to gunk up coils quicker.
Try a larger coil ID or a spaced coil. If you are burning, then that means the coil is cooking off the available juice. Bigger id means more available juice at the coil. Spacing spreads the concentration of heat over a larger area of wick.
AndriaD
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Or just use less wick! Those already look pretty fat! Learning the exactly correct amount of wick for a given inner diameter is the art, and actual "hard part" of making your own coils -- once you find a size you can do perfectly everytime, good idea to stay with it.
Reducing the wattage a bit might not be a bad idea either; RDAs do tend to provide a more intense vape than any tank.
Andria
Looks to me like a bit too much wick, overall. The way it fills the deck gives it away. Use less cotton and try to keep it fluffier. Cut them way shorter. I swear, the curled C-shape adds drag to the juice flow... ...somehow the added length to the channels slows it all down. My theory is that when you have saturated wicks sitting on the bottom, you get surface tension all across the bottom and the suction stops-up the flow all the way up the wicks.
All I really know is that I tend to get the best wicking when I clip the ends so short that they just barely hover over the bottom of the deck. That gap leaves more open channels on the ends, whereas any part of the wicks' surfaces that are pressed-up against the deck are essentially blocked-off. It's a must with some builds. U-shape, forever and always.
The other benefit to shorter wicks is more airflow on the bottom. Keeps the coil temperature lower/more even, which brings the juice demand closer to a level that the wicking can keep up with.
Have you used this build before? I ask because some builds just will not wick.
If they're too wide from end to end, the juice simply can't travel fast enough to get to the center of the coil before the wick in the middle dries up. Too much surface area and distance to travel - juice isn't making it to the middle. It literally vaporizes juice faster than it can traverse the wicks. You can easily determine if this is happening. If your wicks slide freely between the coils, but the middle is dry while the ends are soaked when you pull it out after a dry hit, then you know the the coil has too much width for its surface area.
Other times, its simply the mass and heat. A really beefy coil that needs a lot of power gets really hot and retains so much heat that the cooling effect normally provided by the juice flowing through it is overtaken. In that event, nothing will fix it. The coil will always torch juice in its operational power range because the temperature is spiking up to levels that burn the juice and prevent it from doing its job.
In both cases, you either under-power it to slow it down (often too slow to be worth it, and heat retention will still put it over the edge eventually) or you take a wrap out to lower the heat capacity and vaporization rate.
All I really know is that I tend to get the best wicking when I clip the ends so short that they just barely hover over the bottom of the deck. That gap leaves more open channels on the ends, whereas any part of the wicks' surfaces that are pressed-up against the deck are essentially blocked-off. It's a must with some builds. U-shape, forever and always.
The other benefit to shorter wicks is more airflow on the bottom. Keeps the coil temperature lower/more even, which brings the juice demand closer to a level that the wicking can keep up with.
Have you used this build before? I ask because some builds just will not wick.
If they're too wide from end to end, the juice simply can't travel fast enough to get to the center of the coil before the wick in the middle dries up. Too much surface area and distance to travel - juice isn't making it to the middle. It literally vaporizes juice faster than it can traverse the wicks. You can easily determine if this is happening. If your wicks slide freely between the coils, but the middle is dry while the ends are soaked when you pull it out after a dry hit, then you know the the coil has too much width for its surface area.
Other times, its simply the mass and heat. A really beefy coil that needs a lot of power gets really hot and retains so much heat that the cooling effect normally provided by the juice flowing through it is overtaken. In that event, nothing will fix it. The coil will always torch juice in its operational power range because the temperature is spiking up to levels that burn the juice and prevent it from doing its job.
In both cases, you either under-power it to slow it down (often too slow to be worth it, and heat retention will still put it over the edge eventually) or you take a wrap out to lower the heat capacity and vaporization rate.
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