Need alittle Help picking RDA

[snails1023]

Back story: So back in the day when rebuildables first came out ( that far back ) everyone was still trying different things like S.S. mesh as wicking i was building coils. Then I got sick and tired of playing around with more than have of the stuff not working I when to the brand new protank , then the nautilus tank.

Ok, back to what I need help with - with the FDA apocalypse happening I need to get back into rebuildables.
I can't sub-ohm because the vape is too hot for my scarred lungs. I need to stock up on rebuildable tank that can do 1.2-2.1 ohms with an easy coil build. Plus need some education on what kind of coils I can make.
Ideally it would be great to find something that I could either rebuild or just throw a coil head in. A big deck would be nice too
I have been looking around and there is too much too pick from, plus reviews are biased a lot of times and just don't know the market anymore. ie clapton coils, ceramic coils, the list goes on, can't find anything that fits my wishes.
I can't waste good hard earned money by buying and throwing stuff away. So please some suggestions would be great. Can't think of a better place than here to ask my questions.

Look forward to speaking about what's out there for me.

p.s.
RDA, RTA, RBA what is the difference?

 

[Krucid]

You can run high ohm in almost any tank, it's mostly about your builds that you put in them. First use high gauge wire like 28 or higher. It would also help to stick with single coil. Some tanks are designed for dual coil only so keep that in mind.

Check out http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp for your coil builds. It will help you figure out what wire and wraps and many other things you need to hit your desired ohm.

RDA stands for Rebuildable Dripping Atomizer, RTA stands for Rebuildable Tank Atomizer, RBA stands for Rebuildable Atomizer, RDTA stands for Rebuildable Dripping Tank Atomizer.

RDA is a tank that is designed for dripping and you have to juice it manually. RTA is a tank that is designed to hold a certain amount of juice and feeds it to your wick automatically. RBA is just a general term for any atomizer that is rebuildable. RDTA is a newer term for tanks that hold a certain amount of juice and feeds it to your wick automatically but the build deck and wicking is more like a RDA.

If i was you i would hit up some Youtube Videos on builds, tanks and all that. Whatever you do just be safe and learn what you are doing first before you try to build anything.

 

[snails1023]

Thank you for the awesome tutorial, it was much needed after being away from rebuilds for so long. Excellent link.

 

[Neunerball]

The Kanger Subtank Mini, and Kanger Subtank Plus are tanks (if still available), that can be used with either the RBA head (build your own coil in it), or replacement coils. However, the build deck of the RBA is rather small, and the wicking can be tricky.
A good RTA for single coil builds, would be the Merlin RTA, and it does have a larger build deck. Most of the other RTAs I own are dual coil only.

 

[JERUS]

I know you like a lighter vape, but are you MTL or just light DL? I can think of a few good single coil DL style options. For MTL maybe something like the Merlin or Goblin Mini? For lighter DL the top coil tanks are pretty great, the newest single coil one being the Theorem, it can be a little finnicky filling with the hole being so low, and the center post can be a pain with the gap, but overall it's a nice little rig. Likewise the kind of beginner of that stuff the Haze dripper tank is nice and you can find a cheap clone. Speaking of clones though this "clone" for the Theorem has some adjustments that looks very nice: https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10021391/4631000-theorem-v2-styled-rta-rebuildable-tank-atomizer. Anyways those are options, if you wick it right they work great and don't leak, but easy to wick it wrong and have leaking if you leave them on their sides. Lots of options but just depends on what you want.

I would say grab yourself a spool of 26g Kanthal, that should get you started.

 

[snails1023]

I am MTL, i developed COPD when I smoked and lost some of my lung capacity because of it. The doctors all agree that the best thing for me was when I quit and went to vaping. So, I can't have alot of heat like with the sub ohm tanks, i tryed a few and could feel it the next day in my lung. So the most I go is 1.5ohm I prefer 2.0 ohm.

 

[Neunerball]

I am MTL, i developed COPD when I smoked and lost some of my lung capacity because of it. The doctors all agree that the best thing for me was when I quit and went to vaping. So, I can't have alot of heat like with the sub ohm tanks, i tryed a few and could feel it the next day in my lung. So the most I go is 1.5ohm I prefer 2.0 ohm.

What I have heard so far, the Merlin RTA is a good MTL RTA. You can easily build a 2.0 Ohm coil and put it into the Merlin (see http://www.steam-engine.org/coil.asp?r=2&awg=28&id=3).

 

[SHOUTCAST]

You can run high ohm in almost any tank, it's mostly about your builds that you put in them. First use high gauge wire like 28 or higher. It would also help to stick with single coil. Some tanks are designed for dual coil only so keep that in mind.

While this is true using a sub ohm rebuildable is not always a good idea for MTL.. Most of the subOhm rebuildables have to large a opening.. Vaper doesn't get dense enough and gives a crappy vape.. the shaft should be tighter for MTL.. I used to be a MTL and all those tanks like the Atlantis, kanger tank and others never worked and I stopped using them cause the MTL vapes were just never good cause the shafts were so wide.. So I would not recommend just any rebuildable tank for MTL.. I would get tanks designed for MTL.. Pete pbusardo is a big MTL guy so I would watch is stuff.. You should be looking at tanks like the Hurricane RTA.. You can get very good clones of it on fasttech if you don't want to pay the full price.. But that is my Two cents..

 

[SHOUTCAST]

Also duing my MTL days I found that using 28g wire was kinda hard cause it was very springy and didn't hold it's shape very well.. 26g was too thinck and required to much wattage making the vape too hot.. My happy medium ended up being 27g.. it actually work pretty awesome for me.. I would try Kanthal A1 and SS.. To start I would get a 28g and a 27g both in kanthal and SS.. Below i have listed some things to help you get started.

This is great and will make making the perfect coils so easy.. a must have..
https://www.fasttech.com/p/3721500

The is the hurricane RTA I was talking about.. I had this exact one and I can't imagen the real thing being any better
https://www.fasttech.com/p/3718300

Here is some wire. They are having 20% off right now so you should jump on it

Stainless Steel 316L.. I recommend getting 28 and 27 gauge.
http://www.lightningvapes.com/collections/wire/products/stainless-steel-316l?variant=16575029701

Kanthal A1 I also remmend getting 28 and 27 gauge.
http://www.lightningvapes.com/colle...resistance-wire-odd-gauges?variant=1822885700

You will also need a building kit fi you don't already have the tools. This kit below isn't what i recommend but just to give you an idea what you should be looking for.. I never had a kit before for i bought everything separately.. out of the kit the most important thing is getting ceramic tweezers..

https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10018832/3896500-authentic-pilot-vape-diy-tool-kit-for-e

 

[SHOUTCAST]

Also the kayfun v5 is out.. I have no experience with it but i can bet it is probably a pretty good MTL tank. there are youtube reviews on it so check them out. I also recommend don't buy any tanks that are for prebuilt coils and have RBA's attachments to build your own coils.. they almost always suck.. just buy a dedicated rebuildable.

 

[snails1023]

Shoutcast! You are the bomb! Thank you for all the information to start with. It making the whole "building coils" not so scary! I will try to post back once I have everything in just to give an update on how everything is working. Again, thanks for taking the time to help.

 

[Synphul]

I think it depends on the setup as well. Both the coil along with the settings on the device you're using. I've seen sub ohm mentioned as 'hot' and that's not always the case. I've had hotter vapes off my pen style with an ego battery, narrow chimney with 2.2 - 2.4ohm coils mtl than I have off my current setup which is a single coil stainless steel 28ga at .81 ohm (technically sub ohm).

I'm only vaping the .81 coil at 24w and it's mostly a cool vape (unless I take a long pull off it). With temp control I can keep it a cool vape at around 30w and 300F (the particular flavor/juice thickness seems to have an effect on this for me).

The kayfun's seem to be pretty popular for mtl and easy enough to rebuild. From what I can tell there's going to be a tradeoff. There are some tanks that feature the choice between prebuilt coils and a diy rebuildable rba deck. Those 'in betweeners' usually have drawbacks, either they're not quite tight enough for mtl and a bit too tight/restrictive for direct lung or the rba decks are tiny and a real pia to work with. I'm with shoutcast, get a decent rebuildable. If you want the option to buy premade coils consider a decent mtl tank that's set up for replacement coils. One of each will most likely work better than an all in one that falls short across multiple fronts.

Aka try a kayfun for the rebuildable option alongside something like a kanger protank or something similar. What sort of device are you using? Does it use temp control or are you looking to do temp control? Stainless steel seems like a nice option because it can do both regular variable wattage/variable voltage as well as tc (on a mod that supports ss temp control). However ss itself has a lower resistance than say kanthal wire so you might find yourself having to build larger diameter coils, more wraps etc even using 28ga ss.

You may have to go with 30-32ga stainless especially if looking to do twisted wire coils. I had a 1.22 ohm coil at 4mm diameter using 28ga ss using around 8-9 wraps. I figured the 28ga was fairly thin by comparison so tried a twisted wire coil and using the same diameter coil build with 8 wraps of twisted that's how I ended up in the .75 to .8 subohm territory. Claptons and other coil builds that use more wire will most likely drop resistance even lower the more wire you add. Ceramics far as I know are only available in premade coils since it uses ceramic in the coil. I'm not sure about any clapton or more complex builds that would land you in the 1.2 to 2 ohm resistance range, maybe using kanthal since it has higher resistance to begin with.

Using steam engine's calculator (http://www.steam-engine.org/) even a simple twisted wire coil using 316L stainless, to get to 1.5 ohm you'd have to use 32ga wire with an inner diameter of 2.5 to 3mm and 9-10 wraps. To get to that same 1.5ohm resistance using 316L for a twisted wire using 27 or 28ga would require 20-23 wraps which is pretty insane. Not even sure that would fit most build decks without getting creative.

Another option that may make rebuildables easier if you don't want to fiddle with wrapping your own coils is to buy premade coils. I think fasttech has big bags of them for pretty cheap. Instead of a metal housing of some sort with the coil built into it they're bare coils like you'd wrap at home. As an example here's a bag of 100 prewrapped coils that 'should' (still may want to test to be sure) be around 1.5ohm for under $5. These happen to be nichrome for temp control. Trim the excess wire off the legs of the coils to suit your build, wick with some cotton. https://www.fasttech.com/products/3...re-coiled-wires-for-rebuildable-atomizers-100 . Just check the specs to make sure it's what you need, they have them in kanthal a1, nichrome and others. Also different ranges of resistance, 1.5, 1.8 etc.

Almost as easy as a proprietary coil like a kanger ssocc that screws in but instead of $5-10 for 5 coils you get 100 of them. If you're even somewhat thrifty with them, ie don't change the coil every day and get 3-4 days out of it that $4-5 worth of premade coils could be a year's supply. Factor in the cotton which is also pretty cheap, I got a years worth of organic japanese cotton off amazon for like $7 or 8.

 

[SHOUTCAST]

I think it depends on the setup as well. Both the coil along with the settings on the device you're using. I've seen sub ohm mentioned as 'hot' and that's not always the case. I've had hotter vapes off my pen style with an ego battery, narrow chimney with 2.2 - 2.4ohm coils mtl than I have off my current setup which is a single coil stainless steel 28ga at .81 ohm (technically sub ohm).

I'm only vaping the .81 coil at 24w and it's mostly a cool vape (unless I take a long pull off it). With temp control I can keep it a cool vape at around 30w and 300F (the particular flavor/juice thickness seems to have an effect on this for me).

The kayfun's seem to be pretty popular for mtl and easy enough to rebuild. From what I can tell there's going to be a tradeoff. There are some tanks that feature the choice between prebuilt coils and a diy rebuildable rba deck. Those 'in betweeners' usually have drawbacks, either they're not quite tight enough for mtl and a bit too tight/restrictive for direct lung or the rba decks are tiny and a real pia to work with. I'm with shoutcast, get a decent rebuildable. If you want the option to buy premade coils consider a decent mtl tank that's set up for replacement coils. One of each will most likely work better than an all in one that falls short across multiple fronts.

Aka try a kayfun for the rebuildable option alongside something like a kanger protank or something similar. What sort of device are you using? Does it use temp control or are you looking to do temp control? Stainless steel seems like a nice option because it can do both regular variable wattage/variable voltage as well as tc (on a mod that supports ss temp control). However ss itself has a lower resistance than say kanthal wire so you might find yourself having to build larger diameter coils, more wraps etc even using 28ga ss.

You may have to go with 30-32ga stainless especially if looking to do twisted wire coils. I had a 1.22 ohm coil at 4mm diameter using 28ga ss using around 8-9 wraps. I figured the 28ga was fairly thin by comparison so tried a twisted wire coil and using the same diameter coil build with 8 wraps of twisted that's how I ended up in the .75 to .8 subohm territory. Claptons and other coil builds that use more wire will most likely drop resistance even lower the more wire you add. Ceramics far as I know are only available in premade coils since it uses ceramic in the coil. I'm not sure about any clapton or more complex builds that would land you in the 1.2 to 2 ohm resistance range, maybe using kanthal since it has higher resistance to begin with.

Using steam engine's calculator (http://www.steam-engine.org/) even a simple twisted wire coil using 316L stainless, to get to 1.5 ohm you'd have to use 32ga wire with an inner diameter of 2.5 to 3mm and 9-10 wraps. To get to that same 1.5ohm resistance using 316L for a twisted wire using 27 or 28ga would require 20-23 wraps which is pretty insane. Not even sure that would fit most build decks without getting creative.

Another option that may make rebuildables easier if you don't want to fiddle with wrapping your own coils is to buy premade coils. I think fasttech has big bags of them for pretty cheap. Instead of a metal housing of some sort with the coil built into it they're bare coils like you'd wrap at home. As an example here's a bag of 100 prewrapped coils that 'should' (still may want to test to be sure) be around 1.5ohm for under $5. These happen to be nichrome for temp control. Trim the excess wire off the legs of the coils to suit your build, wick with some cotton. https://www.fasttech.com/products/3...re-coiled-wires-for-rebuildable-atomizers-100 . Just check the specs to make sure it's what you need, they have them in kanthal a1, nichrome and others. Also different ranges of resistance, 1.5, 1.8 etc.

Almost as easy as a proprietary coil like a kanger ssocc that screws in but instead of $5-10 for 5 coils you get 100 of them. If you're even somewhat thrifty with them, ie don't change the coil every day and get 3-4 days out of it that $4-5 worth of premade coils could be a year's supply. Factor in the cotton which is also pretty cheap, I got a years worth of organic japanese cotton off amazon for like $7 or 8.

good info Synphul. You brought up alot of points I didn't think to say. I wasn't thinking when i recommended SS at that guage. for i use 24 and 22 in SS these days.. but very good valid points..

 

[snails1023]

Just want to say thank you for your imput Synhul and Shoutcast. I am starting my journey to rebuildables with some solid advice.