I see posts like this all the time.

[Just Frank]

Somebody inquired about the Wasp Nano RTA. They asked if kanthal wire was good for it. First post-

"Kanthal is a reliable wire. However, the wasp likes a wide coil.

24g 10 wrap at 30-35 watts is what I used to use in my wasp."

I've never used a 10 wrap 24ga coil. But if I wanted to vape at 30-35W I wouldn't do ten wraps of anything. I might use a fused clapton resulting in ten wraps but I wouldn't use dual 24.

Maybe this is one of those things that nobody agrees on but, in that situation do you think 10 wraps of 24ga kanthal is a bit overkill for the power applied? Wouldn't 5 or 6 wraps be more efficient?

I have never tried thick wire with a lot of wraps at such a wattage setting. Maybe I should just try it and see for myself? Am I missing out on something? Tell me what you think please.

So basiclly people use thick wire with a lot of wraps. Then say the power they use for the big coil, which to me looks likes like overkill for the wattage applied.

 

[DaBunny]

Somebody inquired about the Wasp Nano RTA. They asked if kanthal wire was good for it. First post-

"Kanthal is a reliable wire. However, the wasp likes a wide coil.

24g 10 wrap at 30-35 watts is what I used to use in my wasp."

I've never used a 10 wrap 24ga coil. But if I wanted to vape at 30-35W I wouldn't do ten wraps of anything. I might use a fused clapton resulting in ten wraps but I wouldn't use dual 24.

Maybe this is one of those things that nobody agrees on but, in that situation do you think 10 wraps of 24ga kanthal is a bit overkill for the power applied? Wouldn't 5 or 6 wraps be more efficient?

I have never tried thick wire with a lot of wraps at such a wattage setting. Maybe I should just try it and see for myself? Am I missing out on something? Tell me what you think please.

So basiclly people use thick wire with a lot of wraps. Then say the power they use for the big coil, which to me looks likes like overkill for the wattage applied.

am not exactly sure what you are saying...
do you have a tester that can test with??
cuz thats where the bull hits the buckwheat..

 

[The Cromwell]

Somebody inquired about the Wasp Nano RTA. They asked if kanthal wire was good for it. First post-

"Kanthal is a reliable wire. However, the wasp likes a wide coil.

24g 10 wrap at 30-35 watts is what I used to use in my wasp."

I've never used a 10 wrap 24ga coil. But if I wanted to vape at 30-35W I wouldn't do ten wraps of anything. I might use a fused clapton resulting in ten wraps but I wouldn't use dual 24.

Maybe this is one of those things that nobody agrees on but, in that situation do you think 10 wraps of 24ga kanthal is a bit overkill for the power applied? Wouldn't 5 or 6 wraps be more efficient?

I have never tried thick wire with a lot of wraps at such a wattage setting. Maybe I should just try it and see for myself? Am I missing out on something? Tell me what you think please.

So basiclly people use thick wire with a lot of wraps. Then say the power they use for the big coil, which to me looks likes like overkill for the wattage applied.

Wasp Nano RDA... I use a 10 wrap 26 ga SS316l 3mm id parallel coil ~.25 -.3 ohms, in the wasp nano at 34 watts or so. 34 watts on regulated squonker but works well on an unregulated squeeze as well.

also use same coil in the origional Merlin RTA.

 

[Just Frank]

am not exactly sure what you are saying...
do you have a tester that can test with??
cuz thats where the bull hits the buckwheat..

Basically why such a thick wire and so much of it just to use it at 30W or whatever. 10 wraps of 24ga.

It's like people that post about using 12 wraps of 22ga at 40W. I see that as overkill on wire for the power they're using. I guess I should just try it to see why they think it's so great.

 

[nadalama]

There is a world of difference in 10 wraps of parallel SS and 10 wraps of round Kanthal anyway. With that much kanthal at 30W, you could press the fire button on the mod and then walk to the damn bathroom before the thing got hot. @Just Frank I think you're exactly right, that's too much metal for 30W, slow as shit to ramp up, would bug me half to death.

steam-engine.org says that 10 wraps of 3mm 24ga kanthal is 0.9 ohms. I'm telling you it would take forever to get hot. If you must use Kanthal, 5 wraps is plenty. Better yet, use 5 wraps of N80, 26 ga.

 

[MWorthington]

Somebody inquired about the Wasp Nano RTA. They asked if kanthal wire was good for it. First post-

"Kanthal is a reliable wire. However, the wasp likes a wide coil.

24g 10 wrap at 30-35 watts is what I used to use in my wasp."

I've never used a 10 wrap 24ga coil. But if I wanted to vape at 30-35W I wouldn't do ten wraps of anything. I might use a fused clapton resulting in ten wraps but I wouldn't use dual 24.

Maybe this is one of those things that nobody agrees on but, in that situation do you think 10 wraps of 24ga kanthal is a bit overkill for the power applied? Wouldn't 5 or 6 wraps be more efficient?

I have never tried thick wire with a lot of wraps at such a wattage setting. Maybe I should just try it and see for myself? Am I missing out on something? Tell me what you think please.

So basiclly people use thick wire with a lot of wraps. Then say the power they use for the big coil, which to me looks likes like overkill for the wattage applied.

When I got my first rda, I couldn’t take a lot of heat because was used to a little 20 watt tank. Since the only wire I had was a little spool of 24 ga Kanthal that came with my toolkit, that’s what I used. Acting on advice from Anthony Vapes, I wound a pair of 3mm-10 wrap coils and at 40 watts, the vape was perfect. Even now, using mainly rdas and rtas for 3 years, I still only vape at 55-65 watts most of the time on quad core fused claptons and staggered fused claptons. That may possibly be why somebody would make that suggestion. It took me a few months to get used to the heat. I get the flavor I like so why push my batteries any harder, right?

 

[Synphul]

I could be missing something too. Idk, people seemed to like the bulkier kanthal so that's what I tried. Can't recall off the top of my head, 22 or 24ga kanthal. Eh. To me it's just a power suck. And the flavor is lacking for me compared to stainless, though I realize it's all personal subjective preference on flavor. I prefer thinner wire and if bigger coils are needed, adding multiple thinner cores like 28ga. They seem to respond a lot better and still provide the heat and flavor. Only trouble if using single round wire a lot of post screws don't play well with thinner gauges. 28 and even 26 sometimes is borderline if it's one of those posts with a centered screw. As it spins down and tightens up there's usually a small gap and it tries to spit the wire out the side.

Not sure I really understand the original question but where I see the disconnect everyone gets hung up on resistance. At least with regulated mods. And while typically higher resistance would indicate a smaller/thinner coil (and need less power) that's not always true. Especially when talking thicker gauges of wire and adding wraps. You drop from 26ga to 22ga and the meatier wire drops resistance. So you add wraps, well maybe you bring the resistance back up. But as you do you add a shit ton of wire mass which in spite of the higher resistance requires more power to get it heating. Ramp up suffers and so does the cooling. Get a beefy ass coil like that hot, take a puff and let off the fire button and it acts like a heatsink.. just keeps cooking the juice and wicks.

Same thing with mechs though, balancing the resistance with the wire mass. While considering the power draw coupled with the batteries being used for safety, resistance still isn't all that matters. If it's thick wire with a shit ton of wraps drawing a safe amount of amps the resulting power is going to become diluted across the mass of the coil and still may not give a desirable vape. Like trying to boil a pan of water with a bic lighter. Adding wire mass to a coil that's heating too fast even if the amps are safe by either adding wraps to raise the resistance and reduce power draw while increasing wire mass, or dropping to a thinner gauge wire that draws less power.

 

[nadalama]

Some of this has to go back to just personal preference of a specific vaping style. Setting up for flavor is totally different than setting up for vapor/clouds, and all the variations that exist in between require additional adaptations.

I wouldn't have come to the solutions I have if I wasn't trying to be moderate with juice and battery life by keeping my wattage down some. What I eventually discovered, mostly by reading here at VU, is a way to get what I consider a really good vape without having to bump the wattage up to somewhere between 80 and 100. I realize a lot of people vape "up there" and love it; I just don't see that it's necessary, but it's only not-necessary to me because I was able to figure out how to get a vape I like at lower wattage.

You can get a beefy-ass coil hot quickly if you bump the wattage enough. Of course, you can't get it to cool off quickly, as @Synphul states. So it's still going to do that radiant-heat thing and, it sure seems to me, coils and cotton are gonna get gunky mighty quick with all that heat just frying the sugars/solids for that much longer.

I just think lower wattage works better overall, for me. And how I moved from the spot where I started building was probably influenced by the fact that I was a long-term MTL vaper. If someone starts there, the whole experience is different than if someone comes from Smok sub-ohm coils at 100 watts.

All probably totally obvious to everyone here, just wanted to put it out there as one more set of factors in the process.

 

[MyMagicMist]

I use a 10 wrap 26 ga SS316l 3mm id parallel coil ~.25 -.3 ohms

I can do that in about 8 wraps, I believe. Same gauge and material, same style of build, parallel. Then too, sometimes I aim at .35 and end up at .40. *chuckles* But yes, think I do the same in about 8 wraps and yes 3 mm ID too. Not sure what either one of us does differently, tension maybe? I don't know. *shugs*

I know I'm spec-ial and such but that kind of seems a little strange. *grins and chuckles* Go on, call me a weirdo, ha!

...
All probably totally obvious to everyone here, just wanted to put it out there as one more set of factors in the process.

A lot of what you point out applies for someone doing restricted direct lung vaping on RDAs too. I cannot enjoy higher heat and so on average run around a guesstimated 25 watts using mechs and about 19.5 watts using a regulated. I don't build big fancy coil builds. A lot of times I'm just simple single strands of 26 gauge round wire, parallels, twisted wire builds. Doing the big honking builds to me saps batteries for no real improvement on vapor production. I don't chase clouds or flavor but find a happy modest middle meeting point. And my vape is cool, like I enjoy.

 

[The Cromwell]

I can do that in about 8 wraps, I believe. Same gauge and material, same style of build, parallel. Then too, sometimes I aim at .35 and end up at .40. *chuckles* But yes, think I do the same in about 8 wraps and yes 3 mm ID too. Not sure what either one of us does differently, tension maybe? I don't know. *shugs*

I know I'm spec-ial and such but that kind of seems a little strange. *grins and chuckles* Go on, call me a weirdo, ha!

hello fellow weirdo
My resistance measurement may well be off since I have used the same Kbox mini to pulse and check my coils on for years. Mine are 9 or 10 depending which side you look at.

 

[MyMagicMist]

hello fellow weirdo
My resistance measurement may well be off since I have used the same Kbox mini to pulse and check my coils on for years. Mine are 9 or 10 depending which side you look at.

Yeah, mine can be a bit hit and miss too. I keep needing to buy ohm meters every so often. I follow

Spoiler: Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots'

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

Theory regarding buying the affordable ones instead of a good one costing more.

 

[gsmit1]

I could be missing something too. Idk, people seemed to like the bulkier kanthal so that's what I tried. Can't recall off the top of my head, 22 or 24ga kanthal. Eh. To me it's just a power suck. And the flavor is lacking for me compared to stainless, though I realize it's all personal subjective preference on flavor. I prefer thinner wire and if bigger coils are needed, adding multiple thinner cores like 28ga. They seem to respond a lot better and still provide the heat and flavor. Only trouble if using single round wire a lot of post screws don't play well with thinner gauges. 28 and even 26 sometimes is borderline if it's one of those posts with a centered screw. As it spins down and tightens up there's usually a small gap and it tries to spit the wire out the side.

Not sure I really understand the original question but where I see the disconnect everyone gets hung up on resistance. At least with regulated mods. And while typically higher resistance would indicate a smaller/thinner coil (and need less power) that's not always true. Especially when talking thicker gauges of wire and adding wraps. You drop from 26ga to 22ga and the meatier wire drops resistance. So you add wraps, well maybe you bring the resistance back up. But as you do you add a shit ton of wire mass which in spite of the higher resistance requires more power to get it heating. Ramp up suffers and so does the cooling. Get a beefy ass coil like that hot, take a puff and let off the fire button and it acts like a heatsink.. just keeps cooking the juice and wicks.

Same thing with mechs though, balancing the resistance with the wire mass. While considering the power draw coupled with the batteries being used for safety, resistance still isn't all that matters. If it's thick wire with a shit ton of wraps drawing a safe amount of amps the resulting power is going to become diluted across the mass of the coil and still may not give a desirable vape. Like trying to boil a pan of water with a bic lighter. Adding wire mass to a coil that's heating too fast even if the amps are safe by either adding wraps to raise the resistance and reduce power draw while increasing wire mass, or dropping to a thinner gauge wire that draws less power.

Great post.

 

[Just Frank]

I seen another post today that made me think of this thread.

Someone wanted to know which round wire to run in a dual coil atomizer. Here was a suggestion-

"24g round kanthal, 10 wraps around a 3mm. Dual coils usually come out to .42

This has been my go-to build for years now. Always keep my wattage between 40-45."

My thinking is still- that's a lot of metal to use for only 40W power. Those coils could probably handle 120W no problem. Like I said before maybe I shouldn't knock it until I try it I guess...

 

[f1r3b1rd]

Haven’t used the wasp in a good while, but when I did I stuck with Cromwells build.
have to keep in mind, when that atty first came out, we were still on dna40 technology, and claptons were just starting to become a thing. That said, I don’t recall ever trying a Clapton or fused anything in there other than the parallel round wire. To be honest, if the coil stays damp, I don’t really notice much flavor difference or otherwise between claptons and parallel round wire.You can say this about the wasp, it has some staying power along with the likes of
Kayfuns and goons.