Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Building your own coils

Personal Vaporizers have suddenly become popular, so popular in fact that in my last trip to Europe and America I noticed that 50% of smokers were vaping. When you first start getting into vaping you will probably start off with a standard kit, as your curioisity grows you'll slowly move up and up in to more technical areas.


The minimum equipment you will need will be :
  1. Rebuildable Atmoizer 
  2. A small screwdriver or drill bit or anything that you can wrap a coil around
  3. Wicking Material
  4. Wire
  5. A blow torch (Butane)
  6. Tweezers 
  7. A cutting tool

This is assuming that you have a battery unit. 

Rebuildable Atomizer

A Rebuildable Atomizer is an Atomizer where you can build and install your own coils. In normal Kanger or Aspire tanks you would normally buy a units with built in coils installed and wicks installed - this is quite handy for most people since it is easy to replace the coils by unscrewing the old unit and replacing it with a new unit. 

Some people prefer to build the coils to their own specification, or you may want to build your own coil to dramatically decrease the costs of vaping. 

A Rebuildable Atomizer can be as cheap as $10USD right through to several hundred USD. If you are just getting into it, you may want to get something cheap to get you started and to make sure you are comfortable with all the fiddling around - please note that this is not for everyone. 

To get cheap "knock-off" rebuildables, head over to www.fasttech.com where you will find duplicates of some of the higher end brands. There is a tonne to choose from, and the duplicates vary in prices as well and they also vary in quality. 

Small Screwdriver

You will also need something that you can wrap the wire around to make the coil. Alot of people use small screw drivers or drill bits, but you can use just about anything you only need someone small enough for your preferred coil size that you can wrap the wire around 

You can also buy equipment that will also help you twist the wire around to make a coil.

You will also need a small screwdriver, usually a phillips head screwdriver, to attach the coil to the atomizer. 

Wicking Material

As I mentioned earlier, when you buy coils from Kanger and Aspire you will have a unit with wicking material. The wicking material is what sucks the juice and passes through the coil, the coil heats up and vaporises the juice in the wicking material. 

There is a lot of material that can be used as wicking material, for example you can use:
  • Silica Material
  • Cotton Balls
  • Cellucotton Rayon Fibers
  • Japanese Organic Cotton (Ken Doh Gen)
  • Ekowool
  • Stainless Steel Mesh
  • Ceramic Wick
Silica is what is commonly used by Kanger and Aspire, but a lot of people who build their own will tend to use Japanese Organic Cotton or Stainless Steel Mesh. It is generally by personal preference. You can purchase these at vape sites or on www.ebay.com.au.

Wire

The wire that you would generally be Kanthal A1 200 wire. There are different wires and different quality of wires. Some wires are advertised with a certain gauge but due to their quality they wont always produce the right ohm level that you would expect. 

Kanthal wires come in 22Gauge right through to 32 Gauge (commonly). Depending on the Gauge and the number of coils (Dual or single Coils) and the size of the coil will determine Ohm. 

For example 32 Gauge with 4 wraps to make the coil would generally give you about 2.2ohms. 
A 30 Gauge wire with 4 wraps will give you about 1.4 Ohm. If you have an electrical battery you probably want to get 30 Gauge wire, if you have a mechanical device you can go lower if you want it to. 

A Blow Torch

A blow torch or an open flame is required to prepare the wire. You generally need to run the blow torch up and down the wire to make it easier to work with (i.e it is more pliable).

Again you can get a butane device from www.fasttech.com or at a hardware store. 

Tweezers

You will need a pair of tweezers to hold the wire while you torch it, or squeezing down the coil to compress it or to space it while it is still hot. 

A Cutting Tool

You are going to cut the wire to the preferred size, and also trim excess wire after you attach the coil to the atomizer. A small scissors, a wire cutter, or even Nail Clippers will do the job. 

Personally I use nail clippers to trim the wick and the wires. 

I'll post pictures of my equipment soon. 


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