I keep trying but have never reached the same amount of flavor from my builds as my tanks w pre-made coils...how about you?

E-liquids Flavors
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Hello all and thanks in advance for taking the time to read and/ or respond and also just let me ad how much of plus it is in this diy ejuice/ ecig journey to be a part of such a great community!
Back to my question: do you get as satisfying a flavor from your rebuilable units as your units w pre-made coils? I do not, yet haaaaa, but I’m not giving up. I think it’s quite possibly because I don’t build beefy enough coils, yet he he, or I haven’t found the unit that is built superior enough to give me good flavor w my simple double coils. ( using 28g kanthal wrapping 5-6 times so coil isn’t too big and will fit w/o touching the sides u know. My tank is a beast LOOL, a Mobula Smoant and I think it holds, oh my probably more than 7ml of juice…but the flavor sux! For example, I have a kanger top box mini and my coffee I make tastes sooo good in it but has almost no taste in the Smoant. I have an alien w a baby beast that isn’t my favorite but the difference in taste is undeniable. I test on derringer clones, I’ve got several drippers that I get about the same results. I like the idea of a tank w rebuilable coils. Got a kayfun5 and a Hadalay because I hear sooo much about both but gave them away. I have a Mage Mech tricker kit I’ve yet to unbox but I don’t have high hopes of amazing flavor I just thought it was a cool piece.

What rebuilables give you the best flavor? I’ve not learned to build aliens yet but I think if I get one of those kits that come w a drill I’m sure I could if that’s what it takes to get the flavor I’m looking for. They’re about $50 and I’m pretty new to this madness,( under a year) and I’ve already acquired over 450 concentrates and so much hardware and bottles up the wazoo, :weary::joy::joy: … but I’ve not bought a pack of cigarettes since February and that’s saved my life I hope and I’ve learned so much and have so much more to learn still. Lmao, I regress, pfft who cares about a few more $, I’m committed now might as well get what I need, haaa.

Oh, I also think it might be a factor that I don’t vape a very high wattage or hot temp. Question: when you vape over 100 watts or temp over 400 does it burn your mouth a little or isn’t it very hot? Is the appeal of hotter vapes the flavor or is it machismo? :grimacing:. Be honest please boys ( and gals that prefer a hotter vape but I suspect it’s pretty much a Man thing LOOL)…bigger, better, hotter! Is that what a ? sorry for the misspelling, delrin drip tips are for, so you don’t burn your mouth? And why are they so expensive? Cost more than a whole mod or atty sometimes, lol…

I have other wire, I use cotton bacon and Texas Tuff to wick, I usually make a 70/30 blend. I don’t put a whole lot of weight in those things but if they’re a factor in your opinion I’m all ears! I’m such a noob really! I think I’ve climbed the first few hills successfully for the most part thanks to y’all and utube vids and Reddit.

I know this isn’t a new topic but our hobby is relatively new and advancing so rapidly the answers are most definitely going to be different today then they were back in January when I saw a similar question asked…:)) God speed

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Woah! Slow down! :smile:

I was once where you are now, I used to run Kangertech Pro Tanks and always had great flavour from them, 20-30w and always got a decent hit but at £16 for 5 coils it was getting too expensive so I ventured into rebuildables.

My first attempt was with the RBA unit you get with the Pro Tanks, awful, I could never get a decent vape from them, I thought I was just doing it wrong but it turns out, it is a whole different vape.

After going back and forth with the RBA and Pro Tank I took the plunge and purchased a Griffin 25 RTA, after some time reading and watching tutorials, I threw in a simple single coil kanthal round wire build and wicked it up, 25-30w and wow, I was blown away by it.

Its not all good from there though, I’ve had and still have times when things just don’t work for me, this type of vaping is a huge learning curve, not every build is going to be the same but you will learn to identify problems and rectify them quite quickly.

I now use an iJoy EXO RTA and have done for a while, its my go to tank, I use the single coil deck, I find it super easy to build on and the flavour is fantastic, lots of airflow and an extendable tank.

High Power

I’ve never been above 70w on a build and even then I just got lots of vapour, if you want huge clouds then ramp that power up on a low build but otherwise 20-40w should be fine for your vaping needs.

Coils

I used all sorts of coils but I’ve found that I can get decent flavour from a simple round wire coil at .4-.5, Claptons, Aliens, Crack, Fortress, Violin coils etc look amazing and in a way they can enhance flavour because they have a bigger surface area and hold the e-liquid differently (lots more factors to this, im sure there is a thread somewhere with a better explanation).

My advice is simple, don’t overthink it, ask yourself, what kind of vape do I want? How can I achieve this the simplest way possible? and Read, read everything, ask questions, here and if you want to, PM people, I’m sure most here would be happy to answer any simple questions you have.

Hope my ramblings helped or at least gave you ideas :v:

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When I first built coils a couple of days ago I was blown away by the improvement in flavor compared to my pre-built coil tank. Perhaps my pre-built tank was crap, I simply got lucky, or I don’t know what good flavor is due to lack of comparison :grinning: My win was in a merlin mini with dual high ohm canthal coils. 32 guage, 13 wrapps @ approx 2mm (4.4 ohms per coil, mod reads 2.2 ohms total). I’m vaping at about 25w and really enjoying it. I wish I knew someone with heaps of experience so that I could try their gear. No one vapes where I live :disappointed:

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I had this problem initially, my whole goal was to equal the flavor in my crown 3 tank. It seems to me that coil positioning and how much wick you stuff in it affect flavor just as much if not more than anything else. Also with the higher wattage thing, I like the 70-100 watt range, but it’s also dependent on my build…I only use stainless wire, mostly use a long strand of 28g folded in half, then I clamp the side with two ends into a vice grip, hold it between my knees while I use a screwdriver through the looped end to twist it up. Duel 6 wraps of this I run at 105w preheat and 85w constant in temp control. My buddy runs aliens that would take several seconds to heat up enough to start making vapor with the same settings, and I don’t think they taste significantly better than twisted coils.
I compare coils to cooking equipment a lot, a bigger thicker pan needs a hotter flame to reach cooking temp as fast as a thinner smaller pan, but 400* is 400* no matter how you get there, and a bigger pan holds more food/more metal makes more vapor lol

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Everything is really covered in the previous posts but I guess I’m drawn to post to emphasize. For me the devil was in the details. How much cotton is that reviewer really pulling through that coil? How compressed is the cotton? How much is the reviewer thinning the ends of the wick when he or she combs that wick? How tight is the cotton in the wicking channels? These are the questions that are hard to pick up from watching a video or reading a tutorial yet these were the keys to getting flavor popping in atties. The whole idea is to get as much liquid in those cotton wads as you can without flooding or leaking. I just had to make a bunch of mistakes and get dry hits and liquid pouring out of atties to learn. Next thing was coil placement. There’s an interesting series of videos going on in the ECF forum that show what to me were some surprising tests and results about how air flows inside an atty. Even with that I found for me trial and error was the order of the day. For the purpose of giving you hope, I’ve become what I would call intuitive after countless builds. I can look at a new atty and just know what it needs. You’ll get there as long as you don’t allow yourself to become discouraged.

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High wattages are definitely not about being Macho man.I like a hot vape, not because clouds bro clouds but because I like the feeling in my lungs. Anything under 70w and to me it’s like vaping air. Sure I could up my PG but that really only hits my throat.

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Oh I get much much much … much much much … better flavour from my rebuildables than I have ever gotten from a stock coil tank. In fact the very first time I tasted my first drip in my first dripper with my first build, it was like a flavour orgy took place in my mouth :heart_eyes: And my first thought was … well my very first thought was probably just “Wow!”, but my second thought was “Why hasn’t anyone told me vape can taste this good” and “Why the f… did I wait for so long before trying rebuildables” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

It is of course entirely possible that my tanks was just pure shite, and that I could have gotten the same or even better flavour from a better stock coil tank, but I don’t think so, and I have never looked back since.

You don’t need big beefy coils that require a direct line to the power plant to run them, in order to get great flavour, in fact you can get great flavour from some simple round wire at a modest wattage, but it also depends on the atty. If you have a big atty with enough empty space to house a family of six, then you will also need some gigantical coils to fill up all that dead space, however small single coil attys like the Wasp or the Serpent SMM, doesn’t really require much in order to deliver.

As for coils, then my current favourite is some simple ribbon wire claptons, 0.8x0.3mm + 40g wrap wire 6-7 wrap ID 3mm single coil, and I run with temp control at 220 to 250 Celsius with an average power consumption at about 35-45 watts. The holy grail in coil building imo is to get as large a surface area as possible with as little mass as possible, and using flattened or ribbon wire with as thin wrap wire as possible achieves that, at least to some degree.

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You gave away a Kayfun and Hadaly, both are two very good flavor atomizers. What do you know about Ohms law? What wire are you building with? Do you have an Ohm reader? I see nothing in your post that leads me to believe you are taking the build into consideration. What nic level are you vaping? All of this comes into play when picking the right setup.

Low wattage vapes are fine if you have the right build, a 0.3 to 0.6 builds. If your builds are 0.1 to 0.2 then more power is called for, will be hotter vape but flavor also goes along. I personally not a fan of the premade coils that you find in sub ohm tanks. I do have a MiOne but that is about it for units that take premade coils, high ohm and low watt vape where I can get a nic fix quickly.

Cotton does play a role in wicking and flavor, the vg/pg blend plays a role in wicking, to get you the most help give us more information and a plan can be put together.

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Try this

And this.

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You have been bad again! Thou shalt wick with hemp! It is written!

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Yes I have it sitting here! I need to do it!

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1st of all your post is messy and you’re throwing questions all around the valley m8…

a) when it comes to rebuildable tanks or rdas most comes by your build… for not taken misunderstood, most tanks now give at least a decent flavor if not good… so the build matters a little more

b) 28ga is a good choice in general for MTL tanks, but imho not working so great for DL tanks/RDAS specially when they have too much airflow (you can close it, but still the vapor production isn’t so great with it)

c) i would suggest you try start building with 24ga kanthal a1 or at least 26ga kanthal a1 wire, better vapor production and a little better flavor… when you feel more comfortable try using claptons or more complex wires :slight_smile:
http://www.steam-engine.org is your friend for builds :slight_smile:

d) when vaping over 100watts or so… no i don’t vape my mouth… and i wouldn’t vape at these watts with a thin wire like 28ga… i would go there with thicker wires or complex wires like 24ga or thicker, claptons, fused claptons, aliens etc… they need a lot of watts to get hot so they vaporize the juice… so again no… i don’t burn my mouth…

e) Cotton Bacon is fine, i don’t know Texas Tuff at all… 70/30 juice blends should provide more vapor and less throat kick…

feel free to ask anything but try to stay focused on what you’re asking for please… you will get much better answers on what you want to learn and remember that noone of us learnt everything at once… one step every time :slight_smile:

please community, english is not my mother language, if i have said something wrong to the OP correct me. thank you :slight_smile:

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I thank you for your response because the actual wicking has always been less focused on in most vids I’ve seen and learned from. I’m very interested in these tutorial vids you speak of. I’ve watched countless hours to learn all I can and read many posts but wicking and the science behind the coil placement and such are exactly what I’d love to watch! I think I’ve finally got my mobula wicked properly, haaa, first time of ever, but probably just luck seems like I didn’t try different. I am the type of person that needs to know why but I don’t quite have all those questions answered yet when it comes to my wicking and coils so I sincerely thank you for pointing me in the right direction…:slight_smile:

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I’ve bookmarked this thread. As I come across videos that show detail which I think may help, I will post them. Unfortunately trying to go back and find the ones that showed detail would be futile, lol. I can’t even imagine how many I have watched.

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Ok, Here’s one to start you off. Start watching about 11:15. Note the width of cotton he cuts. I checked this against my “about this much” measurement I use and it is dead on. Notice that when he rolls the cotton he does not roll it tight. He just rolls it enough to get it rounded instead of flat. You can tell this by looking closely at the cotton once it is in the coil. You can still see the pad edge even in the coil. You don’t want to compress the cotton too much. You want juice to flow freely through it. Next he “combs the hell” out of the coil. This is a part I can’t even put into words. You want the wicking channels full but not packed. Again we want the juice to flow freely. Next, he puts the ends of the cotton in first. Important! Ends first. I saw one English gentleman who would grab the back of the wick end by the end and put it in first and let the rest of the wick end kinda follow in an effort to get the cotton ends in first and keep the ends “open” for wicking. The wick does not need to even touch the bottom of the wicking channel. If it does, it should only touch and not bunch up at the bottom. Here’s the link:

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The problem is, that’s going to vary with each and every atomiser made. Literally.
Some by smaller amounts, others largely so.

I’d guess that I had wicked and coiled the Theorem for about a month before I latched on to the “perfect build”.

What that entailed for me at that point was the combination of how much cotton I’d used, in conjunction with the placement of the coil.
The coil position was the harder of the two for me, since I’d already learned that I preferred a variation of “the Scottish roll” wicking (the key to that for me was getting the same amount of cotton each time).
But back to the coil. Everything about the coil is important (when you are trying to maximize your experience). From the length of the legs (which determines how far in, or out from the center airflow channel that you’re trying to create/facilitate, laterally speaking), to the height of the coil with respect to the dome (if there is one) or the flat top (horizontally speaking), meanwhile having to keep your source of airflow in mind (Side holes in the lid? Bottom-fed air from the base? Side chambers which feed from top or bottom?)

So as you can see… there’s really no one size fits all answer, but more important to just grasp the concept of how to best “channel your air”. Cotton, IMO, simply enhances the situation, though they still work hand in hand obviously.

YouTube Scottish wick or Scottish roll. (or ELR it… I know I’ve posted the link to the video before) that’ll at least help with one part. :wink:

Good luck with your learning process, and just pay detailed attention when you get it right. From there, it’s only learning to replicate the build (for that atty).
I’ve got faith… You’ll get it! :thumbsup:

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Simpler to dig it up. (too many idiots copying and burying cheesebanana’s original video)

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Imnacho…alot of really great responses here, no real need for me to put my two cents in. But I have that mobula tank, and I did try 26g kanthal coils in it, and yeah, the flavor was pretty underwhelming. Tip #1, get yourself a coilmaster coiling tool, it’ll make your coiling life so much easier after a little practice…just watch a few tutorial vids on the tube. Tip #2 Get yourself some basic kanthal clapton wire, say the 26/32 size. Small diameter and easy to work with. Make a couple 2.5mm diameter coils, 5 wraps each. This will place you around 0.3 ohms total, the smaller diameter coil will fit very nicely in the mobula, and the flavor increase you get will be well worth it. The smaller coils are fiesty, and only seem to need 60-65 watts to make nice cloud. This is probably my favorite build for these kind of tanks. (That Mobula is a pretty cool, oddball looking tank, reminds me of an old radio tube/valve…I’ve got it right here on the desk)

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