First attempt at microcoil successful-ish

[lairey]

Ok, so I've just made my first micro coil using Super-Shiny's guide (thank you )

Anyway, I'd say it was a partial success... did 8 wraps with .25 kanthal and it came out at 2.8ohms, rather than the 1.6 the guide suggests, would that be because my coils aren't quite as tight together as they need to be?  Assuming that's the case, would heating the coil whilst squeezed between tweezers a couple more times help?

Also, it's gurgling a bit too much, is that likely to be because the resistance is too high or could I have not used enough cotton wool? Was very concious of not using too much and strangling the wick.

Anyway, any suggestions for improvement gratefully received

[Carpe Vapor]

I usually do 7 wraps of .25 kanthal around a 2mm drill bit

This comes out for me at 1.8 ohms

Certainly a loose coil will increase the ohms, so giving it a burn and squeeze will help bring those ohms down for you.

Gurgling is usually due to flooding. If the cotton you have in already is fairly snug, try just placing another piece of cotton on top of the coil (called a flavour wick) which should help soak up some of that extra juice.

You may also now have some juice in the vent which you should blow out/remove 

[Greg]

Yes heat and squeeze. If your using a blowtorch hest whilst squeezed in tweezers. If its on a battery heat to red hot and squeeze with tweezers AFTER you stop firing the battery.
Do all the coils look tight with no gaps ?

Are you sure your wire is 0.25, I ask as the first wire I bought was .25 and was marked 0.25 but was supplied incorrectly and was actually 0.3 ! I was getting a similar unexpected reading as you, swines. 

[Greg]

Do you have a multimeter, if you measure 10cm of your wire and check its resistance you should get about 2.9ohms for 0.25 kanthal.

[ionian]

It sounds like there are gaps - what are you recoiling? Is it a protank or a rba? It's really easy to give the coils a squeeze on a kayfun deck. As explained above, just heat until glowing, release power and squeeze the coil immediately with tweezers. Hold it squeezed for a few seconds and it should be nice and tight when you let go.

You can do the same on a protank, but obviously there's a lot less room to work with, and you'll probably need needle nose tweezers.

Alternatively it could be .2 Kathnal - I would think 8 turns would come out around the high 2 ohm mark.

[lairey]

Thanks guys.

As a regular Protank user, I'm well versed with having to blow through the tank to get the central tube clear, doesn't happen in the minis though.

Greg how can you tell if the .25 labelled kanthal is or isn't? I'm assuming it's as ordered and labelled but wouldnt have the foggiest if it wasn't!

[lairey]

Trying to master the miniprotanks ionian before I move on to the RBAs and RDAs - got a box of premades for those until I do

[Greg]

lairey see my post above. You need to measure a straight 10cm length. I can now pretty tell what size wire is by sight but when I got my first and only wire I had no comprehension of size by sight. Once I'd measured and found it was incorrectly labelled I emailed the supplier and they sent me 0.25 free of charge.

If you don't have a multimeter wrap another 8 turn coil but not microcoil, measure resistance. Then pull the coil apart and measure the stretched out wires length. From this you can work out what wire you have, or we can help you

[Greg]

Ohyoudont have to do 8 coils you can do less, say 5. But it needs to be a standard wrap coil not microcoil. You won't use the coil but this method will determine the resistance of a given length of your wire. From this we can work out the resistance of your wire per metre. All kanthal ohms per meter are available on supplier websites for each size wire.

[poochops]

Have you watched griegsters coil buddy tutorial lairey? Worth a watch as well as shinys guide. If it's gurgling it could be because the resistance is too high for the voltage you're using, or it could be too little cotton in the juice slots resulting in flooding.

On our Protanks I thread the cotton through as normal, then double it back on itself but over the top of the coil, I use a pin to hold the loop outside the slot, double it back to the other slot then put the chimney on trapping the cotton, then both ends of the cotton sticking out the same slot are trimmed up. Rarely ever get a gurgles this way!

You will probably find with cotton that you have to change the wick more frequently but of course you don't need to make a new coil just remove the cotton, dry burn the coil then rewick

[lairey]

Thanks Greg but I'm far too jetlagged to faff around like that right now... I'll have another bash tomorrow

poochops no idea why the resistance is so high, but rewicked with a tad more cotton wool this time and thats sorted the gurgling... I'm using it on my MVP2 in VW mode, so power shouldn't be the problem. Anyway, I have my lovely new coil buddy (thank you again ) waiting for me at the sorting office but can't get to it until Monday now... at least I assume its that as all my other vapemail was delivered to work whilst I was away...