I’ve been vaping a few years and have a good understanding of mods, electronics and how coils work, but have never actually built my own coils for an RBA. When I started out, you basically had 2 gauges of Kanthal and a drill bit, and you just rebuilt whatever factory coil you could tear apart and stick a new wrap in if you couldn’t find a new coil. Now there are fancy decks, calculators, and pages of every wire type and configuration imaginable.
I figured I’d start with something simple like the coils that come with the Kanger Pro RBA in the Protank 4. So…
What is the wire type and size used in the supplied pre-made coils?
What is a good starting “style” and wire type, for an open MTL or restricted DL coil? I usually use factory coils between .5 and 1.5 ohms, at around 15 to 20 watts. (I prefer flavor and battery life over big clouds of vapor). In the Protank 4, I really like the supplied 1.5 ohm NiChrome coil at around 20 watts, with a half-open airflow (no drip tip airflow).
Any other pointers or links to start out with on best wire size, etc. would be helpful, keeping in mind that I’ll be working with the Kanger Pro RBA for a while.
FWIW, I have several other tanks that I regularly use; everything from Nautilus X, Melo III’s, and Vapefly Nicolas, up to an Aspire Cleito 120 for DL. I picked up the Protank 4 due to its capacity, range of coils, and specifically the RBA to play around with.
If my memory serves, the coils supplied with the ProTank 4 are nichrome clapton coils, either with a 26 or a 24 gauge core and 38 or possibly 40 gauge wire for the outer wrap. They’re probably going to need to be run at a bit higher wattage than what you’re currently using-say 35 to 50 watts to get a good cloud from them. Due to the added mass, the coils will take a bit longer to heat up than what you’re used to using and will hold the heat longer as well. When I vape coils that are of higher mass, I typically release the fire button 0.5-1 second before I finish my pull, so that I’m cooling the coils and removing the vapor from the chamber and chimney so that it won’t condense inside there and leak out the base.
If you’re wanting to stay within the resistance range of those factory coils, you’re going to want a higher gauge wire. I’ve always been partial to kanthal or stainless, but if you like nichrome, that will be fine as well. I’d suggest getting a roll of 26, 28 and 30 gauge of your preferred wire material, do 8-9 wraps around a 2.5 mm(3/32 SAE) micro-screwdriver or drill bit, then install and wick the coils. If you’re using 28 gauge nichrome dual coils, your resistance should land right around 0.47 to 0.50 ohms. The 28 gauge wire will heat up a little quicker than the clapton coils that are supplied, and should require less watts to get you a pleasing, flavorful yet cool vape. If you use kanthal, the resistance will be a little higher, but you shouldn’t see any appreciable difference in the time it takes to get the coils heated.
I prefer to wrap spaced coils, as I find that they are easier to get glowing evenly, which is fairly important when using a dual coil deck like the ProTank RBA. They are really easy to do-just wrap your wire around your screwdriver/drill bit/mandrel of choice. Don’t try to get the spaces ever, just make sure that you keep count of the wraps and that they are snug to the mandrel/bit/driver shaft. Once you have your coil wrapped with all of its uneven spaces, while keeping the coil on the mandrel, press the two outer ends together(think of it like you’re compressing a spring) and then release. POOF! Instantly evenly wrapped spaced coil! W00T!
For 15-20 watts you will need some relative small coils.
For dual coil something like 26G simple round wire and 2mm ID 3/4 wraps, would be suited. Or you could go single coil with 26G 2.5mm ID 6/7 wraps with the same result (same heat-flux).
Don’t worry about the resistance, as your mod will automatically compensate for that as long as it is within the range your mod can handle.
As for wire type then it is a matter of personal preference, for simple round wire I personally prefer 26G SS316L, but for coils as small as the duals I mentioned above, I would probably use NiChrome instead simply to make sure the resistance doesn’t get too low.
Edit: If you use Steam-Engine to calculate you coils, then it has a great little feature called Heat-Flux. Set the heat-flux value depending on how hot or cool you like your vape - default 200, and it will tell you how many watts is needed to reach the specified heat-flux.
Simply play around with different coil builds in the engine, until you reach your preferred 15-20 watts.
Are there any pre-built coils (packs of 10 I suppose) that would fit that RBA, and fall within my preferred 15-20w range, and be similar to the 1.5ohm factory coil? I’ll be wrapping my own too, but it would be nice to have some cheap pre-wrapped ones that are ready to wick and go as a backup.
it comes with a 0.5ohms ceramic and a 1.5 NC atomiser by default, the wires inside the rba i think it was something like 26/30 clapton as far i can remember… if someone remembers or knows better please correct me…
i would suggest you start with 28ga or 26ga… it’s rba is dual coil… so a thin wire will help you achive
personally i build it with
a) 26/34 kanthal clapton wire (Fumytech)
b) 26/30 SS316L Clapton wire (UD)
though i am more a DL vaper…
the limit this rba has is that you will hardly be able to use very thick coils with higher ID (Inner Diameter) of 2,5mm unfortunately… in case of simple 26ga or 28ga you can have a 3mm ID if this is what you wish for…
i hope i helped you…
if you have any other questions or whatever feel free to ask
oh… i forgot to mention … and came into my mind like a flash right now… lol
the old Single Coil RBA of subtank works wonders in Protank too if you want to use it for MTL… it’s a great choice too, though you have to buy it extra… you can have the 3mm ID inside this… though the thing is that very thick wires can’t fit under the screws easily… even a 26/30 clapton is hard to fit but NOT impossible…
another note for this rba… the v2 of this rba comes with 2 tiny holes in left and right for juice coming to wick… in my case i made them bigger with a drill… 2mm each that’s all…
