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First time dripper, RDA advice

Chris_vapehead Soz for late reply but I had to take some time out, but don't worry I didn't go back to the smokes. Yeah enjoying tinkering around with the coil, but there comes a point where you want something from that. I made the coil level with the airhole, ta for that, it helped somewhat but still lacking flavour.


I think it could be the kanthal I am using. I bought some off an ebay store, but wasn't sure of the quality. Stealthvapes are doing free muji with every order at the mo, so I might order some kanthal from them. I do have some voodoowool from them but I didn't think it was any good (or perhaps that was the kanthals fault), but maybe the kanthal is. I could always try that in the dripper so I can see if the organic cotton is the problem (though I've used that same cotton in my kayfun with better results than in the dripper. And also used that same kanthal in the kayfun with better results (though not exceptional)). *Variables* eh, hope you're keeping up lol.


Yeah the juice could be the issue too. Unfortunately I can't get on with high PG juices, 50/50's my limit but I prefer less PG than that. I've found all the premade VG juices I've tried (from 'premium' 'cheapish') to to be very lacking in flavour, so I've recently been diy'ing and adding as much flavour as needed. I used to think I only like fruit flavours, but I tried some premade Irish Cream flavour (too high PG for me to vape all the time though) and thought "this is it!" it was perfect for me. I've DIY'd some Capella Irish Cream (not the original one I tried) but it's not hit the spot. I understand high VG juices have their own particular flavour difference to high PG, but I think it's more to do with the flavour concentrate I'm using. Oh and btw the original premade Irish Cream flavour was from a local vape store and they won't tell me the flavour concentrate they use and while they sell some of their 'own' flavour concentrates, they won't sell the Irish Cream one.


*Sigh* you can see how the frustration grows sometimes.


Yeah I'm not going to spend any more money (and time!) on buying new things. My MVP 2 is sound and I barely ever go above 8 watts anyway, so it'll do for now. The Veritas is a good piece of kit as you say, so I will master it rather than go buy something else. I agree with you, if there are true innovations, fine, I may purchase something new.


I replaced the wick on my kayfun the other day, and I realised that is has a 3mm coil in it. I forgot I build it 3mm, so I changed the 2mm coil in the dripper for a 3mm to see if that made a difference. It vaped very poorly and I couldn't understand why. Then I figured out that for some reason I had wound the negative tail twice around post before screwing it down. The coil should have read 1.1 but was reading 1.4. I removed the screw and put the tail back in without winding it round the post twice. Now it read 1.1ohms and it fired much better. Anyway I mention this because I'm happy that I'm learning from my own mistakes myself. I suppose it shows I am understanding this stuff more. However the flavour was still the same as it was with the 2mm coil. I will get Kanthal from somewhere else. From all the variables it could simply be because the Kanthal I was using was low quality. My kayfun vapes well but the flavour isn't that much different than the exact same flavour in a T3S clearo. Surely that isn't right.


It could be the Kanthal, it could be the cotton, it might be every juice I've tried is not that great. I'll start with the Kanthal and cotton and see how I go. Ta for reading all that. Don't feel obliged to respond to everything I've said, unless you got all night, lol. One thing I would like a reply to is: do you think I should stick with 28Kanthal? It seems to suit the MVP 2 as it only fires down to 1.1ohm (getting the max out of the MVP anyway). So 28 Kanthal 1.1ohm is about 4/5 wraps on 3mm coil, so is that enough surface area?


Cheers,


lemon.
 
Just a quick update. I installed new coils into my dripper and kayfun using 0.34mm kanthal from a different supplier. I also added muji instead of organic cotton. I didn't really notice that much difference than in my previous setup. I decided that my DIY juices weren't up to scratch, and I put this down to them being high VG. So I went and bought myself some PG and made a juice 40%PG. The difference was very noticeable and the dripper especially wicked much better. I can't put that down to the muji as I tried the muji with my VG heavy juices and it wicked as poorly as the cotton wick with VG heavy juice. Yes I know there are techniques to get VG heavy juices to wick better, but the lack of flavour is also a problem. Adding more flavour concentrate to the VG heavy juices did not work, it was either too concentrated or too weak. This I believe is because the flavour concentrate needs more PG to 'breathe' into rather than the PG it is already held in. If 20% PG is the most PG you want to use, then instead of simply adding 20% PG based flavouring, I have found it is better to add 10% flavouring and 10% straight PG. Because the flavour concentrate finds it harder to breathe into VG, having some straight PG in there helps to bring out the flavour.


I know the above is a little off topic for this thread, but this thread did discuss my issues with lack of flavour and so I thought I would post the solution. I hope it helps at least one other person and is just my way of giving something back for all the great help I have received in this thread and on this forum.


One other thing. The Veritas Ephro clone I bought is good, but it did have one particular frustrating issue. The top cap did not come easily off and on, even after much use, and so it almost felt like using a tank at times as I couldn't be bothered tinkering with it. I solved this by removing the bottom o-ring. Now I can take the top cap off much more easily. The top cap fits snuggly over the remaining o-ring and it hasn't leaked.


Cheers.


lemon.
 
Should be able to post here now lemon so as I mentioned in the message here is a pic. 25.5g kanthal, wrapped 10 times round a 2.5mm drill bit, two pieces parallel to one another but in a single coil.
Runs at 0.5 ohms but would be much higher using a higher gauge wore which I'm sure you will have.
ImageUploadedByPlanet of the Vapes1413879058.174354.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cool, ta for the pic. I might give this a go. So it equals more flavour and vapour then?
 
It did lemon but have just rebuilt and wow, I now am running a dual 28g coil, 16 wraps on. 2.5 mm drill but and it works out to 1.7 ohms of resistance, easily the best vape and flavour I have found so far, it's a warm vape though but my doge deals with it very well, would just recommend keeping that airflow open lol. Will post a pic in one sec haha, for now here's a cloud ImageUploadedByPlanet of the Vapes1414020838.589585.jpg


 
@skc1989 I built a parallel coil and have been using it for a couple of days now, 1.1ohms 28gauge wire, 3mm. It was interesting, kinda a deeper flavour. It ran my MVP 2 battery down very quickly though. I don't think the MVP 2 could really handle this setup, 11 watts didn't seem enough, hence the clouds weren't really that much bigger than with the single coil. It was fun to give it a go though, cheers.


As for your dual coil, that's a lot of wraps, 16! You need to wrap them real tight I bet. Looking at the pic of your coil build, seems you can get 16 wraps into a small area. I'll have to work on my coil wrapping skills to get them more neater if I were to try 16 wraps. Looks like nice clouds you got from it.


Speaking of clouds, after the parallel 9 wrap! coil that drained my MVP 2 battery quickly, I decided to go back to simple setup. I've been building 1.1 - 1.2 ohms coils since getting into RBA's and RDA's. Thinking about it though, on an MVP 2 I decided higher ohms would be better, so I've gone and built a 1.8ohms coil, 28 gauge, 8 wraps on 3mm for the Veritas. This is because the MVP 2 lasts longer this way and the flavour is 'ok'. The vapour is 'there' but nothing special. I've not bothered with a dual coil for the Veritas RDA yet. Interesting though how you've made a dual coil at 1.7ohms as that ties in with me wanting to go to higher ohms now. Maybe that's the way to go, higher ohms but dual coil. Cheers for the suggestion. I've only not tried dual coils because I read with the Veritas that many people said the single coil setup works best. Plus the dual coil will probably drain my battery quicker?


Anyway thanks again. I've never thought about building a dual coil at that high ohms, 1.7ohms.
 
Dual coil should not drain battery any quicker really. It's still putting the same power through from the battery but I'm guessing you're gonna have to go to quite high resistance. I dropped my Rda onto my mvp2 last night and it bArely even fired man honestly. Guessing you will need to go up to at least 2.5 ohms honestly for it to be decent on the mvp2.
I will say though, since starting vaping, the best purchase I have made has easily been my ipv2 man. It's brilliant lol
 
Have also found though that since using the parallel coil and changing to the dual cool higher resistance setup that my battery has been lasting much much longer.
 
skc1989 I read dual coil does drain battery more, but I agree with you that if it's 1.7 ohms then it'd be the same drain as 1.7ohms on single coil. Maybe we're wrong.


Yeah I got fed up of the battery draining so fast on the parallel and low ohms coils. I've been looking at the ipv2 for ages, but I take so long to decide what/if to buy, I can't decide whether to get a better battery or not. I would love to try higher watts than 11 lol.
 
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