preferred wire?

[tomdon]

What is everyone's preferred wire guage? 22g,24g,26g etc? Is it kanthal or nichrome or one of the tc wires such as ss or nickel? Or do you prefer wire combos like claptons, fused clapons, twisted, parallel etc? I preferred 22g for quite awhile until i started playing with parallel 24g with an 1/8" id. I prefer claptons for flavor though.

 

[Markw4mms]

My current favorite is 24ga SS316L SS just provides such a clean taste, and works well in TC or power mode.

 

[robot zombie]

How many times can we have this conversation? Heh, I guess answers change every time...

...lately I've been liking 23g kanthal for my standard duals. I like standard duals for my mechs and I just find that 23 gives me that bump up in heat and surface area over 24 without really heating up much slower or requiring that I build to ridiculous power levels like I do with 22. 22 also puts me past what the airflow on all but two of my favorite atties can handle, so all in all, it's a nice compromise between power, ramp-up, and surface-area for those low sub-ohm builds. It just works well in everything I drop it into.

For series mod builds, I like standard claptons with either 38g kanthal D over 28g A1 or 40g D over 24g A1. I've played around with every combination of gauges and types a bunch and that's the balance I like. Which one simply depends on the airflow of the atty. I just find that those particular wires give me really nice, responsive claptons, what with the thin wire and high voltage. The 38/28 lets me build as high as .8, so I get a great, high-power style vape for less, while the 40/24 just lets me vape at the somewhat absurd .45 without turning juice over. At 7 odd volts, they leave you with something that you can take very short drags on and get these huge, warm, dense, textured, and FLAVORFUL clouds. I'm in love with the vape those wires give me.

The kanthal D outer wire is merely a matter of price, btw. A few thousand feet of kanthal D costs way less, but it's essentially the same as A1. Other than having a slightly lower RPF and max temperature, it performs the same, especially for claptons. If I could find it in lower gauges, I'd use it exclusively.

For my high-powered regulated mods, I like to make full use of that power with fused clapton wire. No real preference there, though I tend to stick with 24g or 26g kanthal for the core and 36 or 38 for the outer wire. Sometimes I like to stage them with 28g or 26g kanthal. Nothing too fancy.

So the wires I always keep on-hand are 23g, 24g, 26g, 28g, 36g, 38g (kD,) and 40g (kD.) All kanthal. The sad part is that this is a only a quarter of the variety of wire I have. The majority of it just sits stuffed in drawers unless I'm doing a trick build for somebody. I have the essential even gauges of nichrome, a full assortment of kanthal (even AND odd from 20g to 46g,) some SS, a couple of spools of nickel... ...I dunno, I just always tack on something different when I re-up on the stuff I burn through.

 

[raymo2u]

The kanthal D outer wire is merely a matter of price, btw. A few thousand feet of kanthal D costs way less, but it's essentially the same as A1. Other than having a slightly lower RPF and max temperature, it performs the same, especially for claptons. If I could find it in lower gauges, I'd use it exclusively.

I wonder where he got the idea for Kanthal D
My favorite Core wires are 22g and 24g Kanthal D (Im sure 23g would fit the bill) and I love using Higher gauges of N60 or N80 for Fusing/Claptoning wires, 40g and up. Im a big fan of Kanthal D as it has the same specs/materials used in A1/A, has less Aluminum in it, and it is crazy cheap....I pay $8-$12 for 1000ft of any guage. You wont find much anywhere since Ive shared the word and people are taking hold but if you do buy it!

 

[robot zombie]

I wonder where he got the idea for Kanthal D
My favorite Core wires are 22g and 24g Kanthal D (Im sure 23g would fit the bill) and I love using Higher gauges of N60 or N80 for Fusing/Claptoning wires, 40g and up. Im a big fan of Kanthal D as it has the same specs/materials used in A1/A, has less Aluminum in it, and it is crazy cheap....I pay $8-$12 for 1000ft of any guage. You wont find much anywhere since Ive shared the word and people are taking hold but if you do buy it!

Lol, yeah, I was trying to remember who put that out there first. I know that by the time I caught on, a few of you peeps over in the build pics thread were already using it. That being said, I'm pretty sure it was you that got me on that shit. Pursheatecha for that one.

It really is the best if you do a lot of claptons or really any of those drill-borne builds that can have you ripping through 15-20 feet per 6 inches of finished wire. Can't recommend it enough if you go through a lot of wire and like to experiment with kanthal often.

Oddly enough, I tried using 23g as a core for all sorts of things and it never quite worked out for me. I don't know what it was about it. It was always a little more or less than a wrap away from where I wanted it to be.

 

[raymo2u]

Lol, yeah, I was trying to remember who put that out there first. I know that by the time I caught on, a few of you peeps over in the build pics thread were already using it. That being said, I'm pretty sure it was you that got me on that shit. Pursheatecha for that one.

It really is the best if you do a lot of claptons or really any of those drill-borne builds that can have you ripping through 15-20 feet per 6 inches of finished wire. Can't recommend it enough if you go through a lot of wire and like to experiment with kanthal often.

Oddly enough, I tried using 23g as a core for all sorts of things and it never quite worked out for me. I don't know what it was about it. It was always a little more or less than a wrap away from where I wanted it to be.

When they make a oddball gauge wire it is usually a wire that is the next gauge higher and then grind/sand it down or stretch it until it is the odd gauge, it may have imperfections of size throughout the spool but if its a good roll it shouldnt be noticeable. If your wrapping aliens or something similar then you may need to first wrap them on the next odd gauge up to get it right instead of using a even gauge...I just wish both odd and even gauges were stocked in more places along with Kanthal D so everything could be a bit cheaper...

 

[robot zombie]

When they make a oddball gauge wire it is usually a wire that is the next gauge higher and then grind/sand it down or stretch it until it is the odd gauge, it may have imperfections of size throughout the spool but if its a good roll it shouldnt be noticeable. If your wrapping aliens or something similar then you may need to first wrap them on the next odd gauge up to get it right instead of using a even gauge...I just wish both odd and even gauges were stocked in more places along with Kanthal D so everything could be a bit cheaper...

That's good to know, as I never realized how it was made, but I'm not talking about having difficulty actually getting the wire to come out or fire right. Never noticed any imperfections in either the wire off of the spool or the finished product. I just couldn't get quite the vape I wanted out of it. It was always too much mass or not enough. It wasn't bad or unusable, I'm just very picky. I have a wide range of wire because I like to make minute adjustments. I will spend a week doing 3-4 slightly different builds a day to find the best combo.

I'm sort of glad that not too many people use kanthal d. I feel like we'd see an increase in price if it was as popular as A1. I can only assume that with them being so similar, the price is simply a product of demand. Strange, but probably true.

I sometimes wonder why kanthal A1 has always been the default vaping wire. I can only imagine that it had to do with the availability. It's still weird to me that the D's not as widespread. I mean, it must cost less to make in order to be both cheaper AND less common, but it's also not a specialty wire compared to A1. With them being so interchangeable, I'd figure that the cheaper version would be the most common. *shrugs*

Is A1 like the kanthal equivalent to diamonds or something? Some deep-seated, half-century-old marketing bullshit that has become inseparable from the industry culture, perhaps?

 

[raymo2u]

That's good to know, as I never realized how it was made, but I'm not talking about having difficulty actually getting the wire to come out or fire right. Never noticed any imperfections in either the wire off of the spool or the finished product. I just couldn't get quite the vape I wanted out of it. It was always too much mass or not enough. It wasn't bad or unusable, I'm just very picky. I have a wide range of wire because I like to make minute adjustments. I will spend a week doing 3-4 slightly different builds a day to find the best combo.

I'm sort of glad that not too many people use kanthal d. I feel like we'd see an increase in price if it was as popular as A1. I can only assume that with them being so similar, the price is simply a product of demand. Strange, but probably true.

I sometimes wonder why kanthal A1 has always been the default vaping wire. I can only imagine that it had to do with the availability. It's still weird to me that it's not as widespread. I mean, it must cost less to make in order to be both cheaper AND less common, but it's also not a specialty wire compared to A1. With them being so interchangeable, I'd figure that the cheaper version would be the most common. *shrugs*

Is A1 like the kanthal equivalent to diamonds or something? Some deep-seated, half-century-old marketing bullshit that has become inseparable from the industry culture, perhaps?

When you get the time and the supplies try this build, its all Kanthal D and the ram up time isnt bad (Its a wattage eater though) and its a pretty amazing vape....I have it in my Griffin and my Velocity right now and I love it. Single Coil is good if you want slow pulls around 60W and Dual Coil (100-150) is great for flavor intensity and cloud density.
2 x 22g/ .5 Ribbon Fused Clapton(All Kanthal D)



At Just 80W Dual Coil:

 

[robot zombie]

When you get the time and the supplies try this build, its all Kanthal D and the ram up time isnt bad (Its a wattage eater though) and its a pretty amazing vape....I have it in my Griffin and my Velocity right now and I love it. Single Coil is good if you want slow pulls around 60W and Dual Coil (100-150) is great for flavor intensity and cloud density.
2 x 22g/ .5 Ribbon Fused Clapton(All Kanthal D)
View attachment 38374View attachment 38375
View attachment 38377 View attachment 38376

At Just 80W Dual Coil:
View attachment 38378

Those coils are real pretty-lookin. I can almost just look at it and know that it vapes. I'll give it a shot. I remember we were talking about ribbon wire just the other day. I really do want to make a serious attempt at fusing with ribbon. I've always wanted to make ribbon work out. I've just always assumed that there has to be something to that balance of heat to mass. Just never could get anything special out of the performance...

I already have .5 ribbon and 22 gauge A1, so I may just try that first and see how it goes. I'm thinking the A1 may have a measurable difference in resistance at that point, but it shouldn't matter to my Sig 150.

 

[martnargh]

24g nichrome80

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk