Gp Spheroid with microcoil and silica/cotton hybrid guide Tools required:• Pair of Tweezers (
Ceramic points are easiest as you can use whilst firing coil ) If not, flat tipped, for compressing a microcoil easily
• Nail clippers (safer for trimming wire and can be used one-handed.)
• Scissors for cutting the Jewel Filter to size.
Thrum scissors are preferable for ease of use
• Philips screwdriver or needle nose pliers, depending on whether you have V2 base with nuts or v2.5 kit with screws
• Blowtorch or Lighter (you can also use your gas hob)
• 3mm Allen key (for undoing top bell on v1 & v2) Version 3 is unthreaded and can be manually pulled apart
• Mandrel (or a 3mm drill bit or alternatively a 3m screw)
• 0.25 Kanthal wire
• 2mm Silica wick
• Organic cotton wool or Japanese Cotton or Rayon
• Juwel Filter or
Sera Wool (GP spheroid ‘fluff’ can be bought direct from GP)
Before starting make sure your hands are clean and dry and you have all equipment to hand, also make sure you can work undisturbed and safely.
1) Cut out a piece of Juwel filter polypad, about 2.5cm x 4.5cm or similar amount of sera wool/GP fluff. Cut off about a 14cm length of 0.25 Kanthal as it’s easier to have plenty to work with and it’s not a costly item.
Then wrap your 2mm silica around base until it meets, this is about the amount you will need to build your loop so cut and lay aside.
2) Torch your 0.25 Kanthal with blowtorch or lighter until it glows orange, as this will take the springiness from your wire and make it easier to manage. You can also flame it on gas cooker hob if held firmly with your tweezers.
3) Wrap wire around the 3mm part of the mandrel, holding wire firmly (around 5 turns should give about 1.5 ohms resistance) and then push coils very close together with your fingernail so they are compressed.
There are online applications available for you to work out the required resistance of your coil, for example you can use
Steam Engine to work out how many wraps you will need for your wire and mandrel diameter.
4) Slide coil off your mandrel whilst holding both legs of the wire together and clamp compressed coil with tip of your tweezers (this is far easier with flat tipped tweezers).
Once your coil is held in place, by the tweezers, flame the coil until red hot and hold tweezers firmly until cool, repeat step a few times until coil retains its compressed shape and is firm and rigid.
5) Place a small screwdriver or drill-bit into the centre of the coil and adjust the legs of the wire so that they are facing opposing directions and then place the coil between the posts on your base. Now wrap the legs around the nuts/screws in an 'S' shape configuration and tighten up carefully.
Once in situ make sure the coil is in the centre between posts and lined up above the air hole, you can position it with your tweezers tips. The higher the coil sits above air-hole the more throat hit, the lower, less throat hit (only a marginal difference)
6) Check resistance of your newly built microcoil on either an ohms meter or a variable voltage/wattage battery to confirm your build is as you wanted.
If all is as expected then snip off excess tails of wire with nail clippers or clasp each wire firmly and rotate in small circles until wire snaps cleanly.
7) Take your pre-cut piece of silica and an offcut of wire, make a loop in wire and thread through your coil, hooking centre of your silica.
Carefully pull your doubled over silica through coil using wire as a guide. If there is resistance use thumbnail to steady coil as you tease through.
8) Once your silica is partially through coil twist faceward , separate silica legs and insert a slither of your additional wicking cotton/rayon. Now you can squeeze sandwich of wicking material together and pull through coil gently and firmly.
You want to have cotton wool/rayon sat evenly on base of coil and can now tease your silica through until it is mostly on one side in a loop.
9) Trim the silica ends, and tidy up additional cotton wick. Your base is now complete. Do not dry burn or test fire as you have cotton in your wick and it will burn without being saturated in e-liquid.
Alternate microcoil cotton build: AReplace steps 7-9 with cotton wool/rayon/Japanese cotton ‘moustache’ For this type of build a 2mm microcoil will suffice
Dampen wick edge and roll into a point, cut if need be to get a firm fine end to feed through coil as if threading a needle. You can ease through, and pull at other side with tweezers until both sides of wick are of even density and trim to edge of base.
When loaded with e-liquid lift both sides up so to make contact with bell filler when assembled.
Alternate silica build: BReplace steps 3-10 with a 2mm silica loop with about 5 wraps of 0.25 kanthal A1 wire
Place a straightened out paper clip up against your looped silica and wrap around doubled over silica and paperclip. This keeps your coil slightly slack against silica wick as if the coil is too tight then only the outer edges of the coil will actually vape properly and all you'll get from the middle is dry burn.
Slide out paperclip and tidy coil wraps evenly spacing along shank of silica.
Position your silica wrapped coil diagonally between posts and tighten thumbnuts/screws, lifting silica coil wrap off base and then check ohms on a variable voltage battery or ohms reader.
Then trim end of silica strands. You can dry burn silica and check to see that your wrapped coil fires up evenly along all wraps of coil, if not re-adjust with a toothpick until there are no hotspots.
Priming and preparing Spheroid bell (all build styles) 10) Using Allen key, insert into drip-tip hole and unscrew to take apart tube and bell top. Then wrap the 2.5cm x 4.5cm Juwel filter polypad (or sera wool/GP fluff) around it firmly, overlapping padding and making sure that fibres do not impede exposed threads.
Slide the spheroid tube up and over the filler and then screw tubing into bell. Use a small screwdriver to push all filler down into place and away from threads.
On the underside, again use a small screwdriver or blunt needle to push any filler away from air tube and make adjustments of the filler so that it is positioned evenly all the way around inner bell.
11) Fill spheroid filler with your chosen e-liquid, a needle nosed bottle is useful for filling from base upwards. You want to top up until fully soaked and slushy looking (2.5 - 3ml juice capacity)
It is generally recommended that you lower your nicotine level when using a spheroid. You want to position your loop of silica so that it runs along the inner rim of your filler in a lasso that will keep in full contact with filler and this way it will wick consistently.
12) All completed and ready to experience an excellent vape.
The GP spheroid is one of the easiest and most versatile rba’s to date and is still one of the most flavoursome of atomisers on the market today. The Gus Ailos, Odysseus, Phoenix, A7 plus the Spheroids bigger brother – The GP Heron (a.k.a. Spheroid on steroids) are built in this style so this tutorial can be used to build coils in all these models.
Additional Info for maintenance of GP SpheroidUse a Spheroid fork or the end of the needle nose pliers tips to remove base by turning clockwise (it has reverse threading) Regularly clean the underside/inside. Check that insulator on its 510 connector is in place and central.
To re-assemble the lower base back onto the main base screw anti-clockwise (it has reverse threading) A set of
‘vape grips’ purchased from forum member
chainmaker are a worthwhile investment, at the cost of around £5
The basis for this tutorial comes from a culmination of many online tutorials and primarily AndyW m3 Silica/Cotton Hybrid YouTube video which I recommend watching.