Okay, so chances are, it’s me, lol… I’m a new vaper, been off the cigarettes for over two months now and thanks to this awesome forum and the friendly knowledgeable people here, I’m
even making my own eliquid now, and for the most part, everything’s goin great… But I’ve got a couple coil questions for you guys;
The past couple times that I’ve changed coils, they’ve started to taste burnt REALLY quickly… Almost instantly… A couple things you’d probably need to know; I started off with a Freemax 80 watt “Twister” which came with the FireLuke 2 Mesh tank, which I love… But since stick mods don’t have much battery life, I also got a VooPoo DragMini… It came with a UFource tank, but when I tried it initially, it had a coil in it that was designed to work at a much lower wattage than what I was used to… I usually ran the “Twister” at about 70 watts and I use the X3 mesh coils,
and this new coil was a single coil that ran at about 40 watts… So it didn’t produce as much vapor… And I didn’t like it as much… I replaced it with “replacement” coil that came with my DragMini which used 70-90 watts and liked it much better… Well, I went back to my beloved FireLuke 2 and I’ve used it ever since… But the past couple times I’ve changed coils, I’ve “primed” them, AND let them sit in a full tank of eliquid for about 6 minutes, or until they’re completely soaked, then started off on a lower wattage (50 watts) for the first couple drags, then moved up to my preferred setting of 70-80 watts… But anytime I go higher than 60 watts, or especially if I hit it for more than 1-2 seconds, it tastes burnt… I’m an ex-HEAVY smoker and I like a lot of vapor… Now I know that commercial juices have a TON of coil-killing sweetner in them, and the time before last I DID use my favorite commercial liquid, Candy King’s “Strawberry Rolls” for the first couple tanks, but the last time, I used my own DIY juice and it still did the same thing…
I don’t know a single soul that vapes besides me, so you guys are my only hope! Lol…
Any advice for helping my coils to not taste burnt, OR any advice on getting more vapor would be REALLY appreciated… I know I could try more VG in my mixes, which would give me more vapor, but less flavor, right? Or if you have a favorite tank/mod that really puts out a lotta vapor?
Thanks, guys!
And again, thanks for making a newb like me feel welcome, and for all the encouragement to stay off the smokes!
Well, I don’t subscribe to the notion that DIY e-juice is a cleaner vaping liquid vs Commercial. Sweetener plays a huge part in it, but flavours contain them by themselves and anyone that’s used flavours like Yellow Cake above 2% knows that it’ll kill your coils. So it maybe the juice, I wouldn’t cancel that out just yet.
The problem I’ve had in the past with buying coils is that sometime the quality isn’t consistent and you will often find one that works good for awhile and another one that’ll be a shitter right out of the gate. It’s why I prefer rebuildables for the most part.
Maybe post your recipe to see if it’s a funky ingredient?
Aside from that I’d just reckon it would be a bum coil.
I would agree you sometimes get either a bad coil or a pack of them.
Although some juice will abuse coil.
Is the wattage you are running at right for the coil. To high and it can burn cotton, to low and you get lots of gunk build up.
Ya know, that very well could be it… I JUST changed coils and this one’s workin great! I’ve actually had 2 or 3 coils that were duds since I started a couple months ago… I’d put 'em in, and be ABSOLUTELY sure everything was back together correctly, go to hit it, and get the “CHECK ATOMIZER” message on the DragMini…
But I’ve gotta ask, and I know we’re goin down the rabbit hole, here, lol… But how hard is it to get into rebuilding your own coils? I’m not SUPER handy, but I’m a musician, and I work on my own guitars… Which includes basic wiring and soldering, so maybe I could handle it? Been wantin to ask someone knowledgeable anyway… But ya gotta remember I’m JUST gettin into it, and I haven’t gotten to try alot of different coils, tanks, mods, etc…
The X3s that I use are rated for 50-90 watts… And I usually like to run 'em between 70-80 watts…
In that case probably just a dodgy pack of coils.
And rebuildables isnt to scary.
Go with something easy to build a basic tool kit and some premade coils. No need to get crazy ones, lots of reasonably priced out there.
That’s a rough gig @Musicmixologist. I don’t use any premade coils, and just use simple kanthal single wire (most times) coils, with KGD cotton. They are so simple, easy, fast, cheap, and just move clouds of flavor in all of my SteamCraves. I’ve not delved into mesh yet, so I can’t speak to that, but have you ever tried making your own coils with cotton as a test > ??
Realizing our setups are very different, and I have never used a Fireluke or Twister, I can’t help but ponder why I’m having such good luck with simple (make’m as you need’m) coils and cotton approach. I can funk them up with sweet commercial junk, or as @anon44012888 said, dose them with yellow cake, but even after a few tanks of sweet junk, if they start tasting burnt, I pull the cotton, dry burn and rinse the coils, and tug in about 0.05 worth of cotton and back to the races.
Using prebuilts are always a gamble, and you ARE at the mercy of those coils.
OMG, fear not. TDE (Too Damned Easy).
Welcome to the fray @Musicmixologist, we’ve ALL been there, and we CAN help. How would you feel about making your OWN coils, loading up on some cheap cotton, and just bypassing all the pre-made bullshit ?
@Musicmixologist I suck at building coils, and they CAN be super easy. Sure, sure, you can labor for hours over some complex Mickey Mouse, quadruple, backflip loop mega coils, but should you ? LOL …
It’s no secret that I love my SteamCrave RDTA’s INCLUDING the Oldy McOld version 1. I still use that same unit for ALL of my SF testing because of how accurate the flavors are (and they are great). I do most of my vaping with single wire, kanthal, 5-7 wrap coils and KGD cotton. Extremely cheap, easy, consistent, and after you’ve made a few, just too damn easy. Single wire simple coils may not be super sexy, but I have GREAT luck with them.
This is a carry over post I made way back when on ECF…
I think coil building can be as hard, as you MAKE it. The more complex the coil, the bigger the hassle. The simpler coils, OMG. Soo much money to be saved, and great taste to be had.
It is possible that you got a bad pack of coils however it could also be that your tank isn’t wicking fast enough. What ratio pg/vg are you using and what is the ambient temperature where you are (are you northern hemisphere or southern?)
I’m going to second @SessionDrummer here and toot the “build your own coils” horn. When I first started in the sub-ohm realm, I would always seem to get at least one bad coil in a sleeve. I’m a cheap bastard and the idea of tossing $3 to $15 into the trash from a bad coil or five just got my inner miser’s panties wadded up tighter than a bee’s pucker. I discovered that my beloved SubTank came with a rebuildable coil (aka RBA) and never bought another machine made coil head again. The flavor was MILES better, for the price of a sleeve of coils I could buy enough wire and cotton to last for a year or more and if something wasn’t working I didn’t have anyone else to blame except me.
If you want and can afford it, the Coil Master V3 kit is a pretty decent buy. It’s got just about everything a new builder needs and even comes with a small amount of cotton and wire to get you started. I would highly recommend getting a better pair of scissors though, as the ones that are included in the kit just suck. So. Bad. A decent set of small fabric scissors can be purchased at your local Wally World or other big box discount emporium for under $10.
If the rebuild kit is a bit out of your price range, a small set of micro screwdrivers can function as both screwdrivers(duh, paingawd! Whooda thunkit?) AND as mandrels for wrapping coils up. You can use your mod in a pinch in place of a dedicated resistance reader (I’m probably gonna get flack for that but meh) until you have the funds to buy a decent resistance reader. They are handy to have so that you can tweak your coils while still being able to vape on your mod(because let’s be honest- no one has just ONE RTA or RDA going, right?) About the only other thing you’d need is some micro shears to cut wire and trim the coil leads. Since you’ve stated that you can tweak your guitars I’m going to guess that you’ve already got a set or two of those, but if not then fingernail clippers work in a pinch as well (just wash them first because no ONE needs to be vaping toe jam!)
If you would like, I can slap up some Amazon links for piecing together a build kit. Just let me know and I’ll throw it up.
Yes, yes, YES @paingawd
And THAT is how the cookie crumbles !!!
And the ICING on the cake !!!
Good stuff @paingawd
@Musicmixologist You don’t even have to buy the NAME brand ones if you don’t want, but like @paingawd said, just for an idea of how cheap, and easy this is…
Sorry, didn’t see that before I dropped…
If I can wrap and wick a coil literally anyone can. Much easier to start off with single coil rta and an rda. Might want a top af rta for your first one. The coil wrapping is easy, wicking has a bit of a learning curve but doesn’t take long to figure out.
I have to 2nd @woftam … PG/VG ratio is important to get right with commercial coils (and can differ greatly from coil to coil). If your liquid is too thick, your wick is going to dry out when vaping, your coil won’t get the cooling from vaporizing liquid and it’ll burn your wick.
When the PG content is too high, your tank will start leaking. Vaping on the same type of coils, you may also need to change the ratio going from winter to summer or from cold to warm environments.
I’ve tried several types of commercial coils and found that a 70VG/30PG ratio is sometimes too thick for commercial coils. You may need a 60/40 or even 50/50, especially if you’re chain vaping or pumping up the wattage. Once you burn your wick, your coil is pretty much done for, even if you just replaced it.
No worries, my man! Thanks for the assist!
I doubt this is your issue but have you tried rinsing out the bottom section of the tank with hot water? I have noticed on a few tanks in the past this would happen if the coil connection to the base of the tank had liquid of any kind built up.
Just to toss this in because no one else had. I had the same thing before on a brand new RDA, I have tonnes and tonnes of new coils and I had the issue with alot of them. so I thought somehow this must be crappy new RDA, it wasnt. I dont know WHY but I had a tiny piece of wire stuck between the two posts and when I found it and got it out the coils stopped doing that. Just putting it out there 
If you can string a standard (traditional) Fender or Gibson tuning peg correctly (no overlap, no gaps between the wraps), then your more than competent enough to wrap your own coils! 
Personally, the bigger obstacle (learning curve) will be learning what I.D. is appropriate for what build deck, as well as how much cotton you need for a particular build/deck.
It’s really not that bad… You can do it!
I’d strongly suggest getting a roll of claptoned SS to start with (regardless of whether you currently do TC or not). I’ll bet you also notice an improvement in the taste of your eliquid for starters (no metallic taste that kanthal has)… And as an added benefit, if you decide you want to tinker with TC (and have a capable mod), you can!