Well, I just got back from town and to my surprise, there are no vape shops in town that carry SS. Therefore, I just picked up more Kanthal. It looks like I will have to order online.
I havenāt had issues with TC on an iStick Pico nor on a Cuboid. Both flashed with ArcticFox for that sweet, sweet programming GUI and live debugging graphs.
Possibly my SS twisted Clapton is to baked in when I come around to clean it. Still, I havenāt had any issues with Kanthal and the lower temp capacity is nice.
If so itās becauseā¦
The taste may seem more pronounced but in reality you get a cleaner, and truer taste. No Metal Taste. This is why SS is used with many cookware itemsā¦
I use stainless to have the option to use TC which is crazy because I very, very rarely use TC. I have become accustomed to power mode and that has just become part of how I vape. I like to use between .2 and .3 ohms because that offers a great latitude of working power with my mods and I vape at different powers at different times. Simply what Iām enjoying most at the moment. I do keep kanthal around for those decks that I just canāt get enough resistance in with SS. I guess Iām also just fond of stainless. I have quite a bit of cookware as well as work tables, appliances, etc. in stainless. Thatās crazy I know. But it is what it is.
After dry burning what do you do? run under tap water? I had super hard water and doing this a couple times would put a hard non-removable crust on the wire. Try cooling/rinsing after that dry burn with some Distilled water. I can taste Kanthal ā¦like sucking on a nail. I use SS in TC no worrries. Properly setup it can prevent burning your wick.
I bought some SS pre-wrapped Clapton wire which surely was wrapped with Kanthal ā¦maybe the cores were SS but it wouldnāt run in TC and it had the ātasteā ā¦last purchase from that Vendor (donāt ask). When buying wire make sure it specifies that it is designed for vaping ā¦especially if you plan to make Claptons yourself. Cheaper wire is often springy and stiff ā¦the hassle is not worth saving the $2
1 Like
That photo above is for Geek Vape SS Twisted Clapton (SS316L, 28ga * 2 + 30ga).
At least one coil ran only on TC (w/o dry hits, though it could get like that due to heat capacity).
I havenāt ran them over water, will try that with distilled as I too have rather hard water.
SS overall is quite springy. I heard that itās best to adjust SS coils while theyāre hot because the plasticity is increased then.
Not exactly true. SS 304 is used for cooking. SS 316L is designed for oxidation resistance and working in high-acidity environments (more info under links).
SS 304 would actually be worse as coil material.
On the other hand Kanthal is designed for heating elements and at regular coil temps it seems pretty safe.
IMHO itās due to other factors. This reddit thread seems to back it up. In a nutshell:
- Is everything clean (atty, coil, cotton, drip tip, casing, hands, mouth)?
- Is the airflow good?
- Is the initial burn solid enough?
- Does it taste like that on other attys with the same coil?
In the thread they eventually troubleshot it to the atty of all things.
There was also mention of cheaper Kanthal coils that were to blame, though given the sheer number of factors Iām not convinced everyone did due diligence and ruled out everything on the list.
True, but I was not specifying between blend. Just meant SS. The whole point was the bleeding of metal from other types of wires we are using in our vapes. You can indeed taste metal with pretty much all the wires we use except SSā¦
Iām not gonna go here other than to say I have built coils on the same atty using all the same cotton, etc. One 316l and the other kanthal wire. The SS was noticeably cleaner tasting There is a big difference in taste and a lot of people around here will agreeā¦
Donāt take my word for it, do the same comparison I Didā¦
4 Likes
Did a build on a different atty but with SS after using Kanthal for about 2 months. The difference is there. The same juice seems more salty and lingering with Kanthal. Iāll run it in TC mode only and see when it gets burnt. Possibly the coils I posted earlier were like that due to side airflow, where with the new atty itās bottom.
Either ways I give you (and the rest) my sincirest apologies for doubting that thereās a difference in taste to such an extent.
Any recommendations as for what SS should I get next? Iāve got a roll of this Geek Vape Twisted Clapton and the heat capacity seems to be a bit too for my vaping habits.
Yet another sees the lightā¦lol. As far as type coils and best wire distributors, Iāll leave that to others. I got out of building coils a while ago. Lungs wonāt handle the big vapor so whatās the sense. Good luckā¦
For me the fun is trying different wires and then trying the find the wire and build that works best with each atty.
Going to look into getting one of these 30mm attyās just for some of the crazy stuff. I know that the flavor will probably suck, but I love the idea of throwing a giant stitched mohawk alien into one lol
No worries, seems counterintuitive that there be that much of a difference just in the metal for the wire, but hey, learn something everyday! If you are into building your own, and are here in the states, you can buy direct from Temco. Good wire for pretty cheap. Best part, made in the usa!
I donā have any myself but Iāve been told they can produce some pretty good flavor as well as a lot of fog. The dump tank thing is like a kegger.
I can tell you now the whole big tank no flavour thing doesnāt always hold true - the mason dump tank i have has amazing flavour as is the aromamizer plus even with the 20ml extension it is great (not quite as intense as with the 10ml). I havenāt tried the 5ml (too lazy to fill up all the time) but @TheTinMan1 was saying only this morning (night/midday depending where you are) that the flavour was great.
2 Likes
Thank you for that, Iāll have to check that one out!
1 Like
Poland here, so Iām constricted to imports.
i enjoy both SS and Kanthal wireā¦ though you donāt give much infoā¦ are you planning to use it on TC or Wattage mode?
keep in mind that SS makes a little less than half resistance in terms of Ohms than kanthalā¦ so if you plan on .25Ohms on kanthal with 24ga wire, the 24ga SS wire on same wraps will give you like .12 so you have to make sure that your mod can handle so low resistances, or if supports SS in TC mode, while you can use it on same wattage settings 
for this reason i would suggest you starting with an 26ga SS Wire instead of 24 to go a little higher on Ohms if your mod canāt fire itā¦ (some mods can fire .1 resistances, some others start at 1.5, while some others canāt fire resistances lower than 0.2)
if you plan to use it on TC mode. make sure to ālockā your resistnace in mod settings while coil is in room temperature ā¦ SS like TI and Ni when heated is changing ohms and going higherā¦ you can easily get some really nasty dry hits like this 
donāt dryburn it in many wattsā¦ start in low watts (like 10-15watts), notice the colors it gets and get rid of hotspotsā¦ some videos in youtube wil help you a lot with this i have noticed that if you dry burn in many watts or for very long SS it gets too oxidized, it doesnāt produce after that the best taste you could experience, while coil doesnāt really āliveā for very longā¦
in general i enjoy SS, provides a cleaner taste for me than kanthal, though i canāt always find it always in vape stores around so i use kanthal too
hope i helped you
1 Like
Good beginner tips, would love to get this when I started ;).
Iām on a Cuboid (150W) with ArcticFox. It easily chooches on .15 so there shouldnāt be a problem.
The tip about heating on low W is good if you tend to burn through the whole 10-15s. I usually burn around 30W after building and stop when it gets dark red, then I bump it up and do a follow-up burn until itās orange/white. As for hot spots I still havenāt seen any, mainly because these days I tend to do fewer wraps (so it matches the air holes) and that makes it nicely spaced. My main problem with SS is itās elasticity. I donāt have a torch to pre-burn it so I wrap (on a rod, by hand), clamp in the atty (after cutting the legs to proper length), and adjust it with ceramic tweezers and the rod. Once Iām satisfied with the spacing and position I burn-in and optionally tweak it if it was particularly stubborn after clamping.
I prefer claptons, probably because I watched too much coil porn.
1 Like