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Starter RDA gubbins

MrLizard

Postman
Joined
Jul 23, 2019
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118
hello you crazy apes, hope you’re doing well.

Anyone got any advice for someone looking to try the delights & pitfalls of RDA, with a view to moving to (or maybe starting with?) a regulated squonk mod?
At the moment I’m mostly dtl, 0.15 - 0.4 ohm on single/double mesh freemax coils, and enjoying it, but an rda seems a good next step. Current mods are only good to 100w, i’ve not built a coil before but happy to give it a good bash.
Yeah so any tips on good starter RDAs (or a squonk mod perhaps) & coil wire & required gear would be awesome-balls, thanks.
 
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You tube is probably the easiest way to learn how to wind a coil, and personally I only really use stainless steel 316 as it's easy to work with and gives imho the cleanest flavour
How i started with rdas was to get a couple of clones from Fast tech or knucklehead vapes to see what suited me and what i liked
Goon 1.5 on knucklehead was only about £10, but cant remember if it came with a squonk pin
Have a look at a few rdas, get yourself a shortlist and post it here and apes will soon let you know the pros and cons of each

And coils are easy after a few attempts, getting the wicking right is a little harder but if I can do it anyone can [emoji6]

Sorry not knucklehead anymore, same people different name

https://www.ralfysemporium.com/collections/rda-drippers?page=1
 
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Thank you @cliveh2 good advice.
I’ve checked some utube guides, read as much advice here that I could find, and I ordered a cheap Drop Solo clone off fasttech as it sounds like a good single coil starter rda.

I like the idea of 316 builds as I want to try TC out for the rda. What coil wire would you recommend to start out on for a good subohm hit with simple coil assembly?

Ta,
MrLizard.
 
I started the rda journey a while back and got a wasp nano, cheap and damn good. The funny thing is that eve though I got a small easy to build rda to get the ropes and then get a proper rda ... This is the only one I have :) never felt the need to get another one. I use rda only at home as I enjoy few great puffs once in a while. As for TC , a lot of people tried tc , me included but all that I know reverted back to w or v . It is nice but nothing special. Also the TC experience will depend a lot on the mod used. A cheap mod will not work properly in tc. As for coils, I would get one of those cheap packs of 80 different coils and go through all to see which one you like. Aliens are always good. I use ss316 also but i am unable to find any major diff from K or ni80.
 
A well set voltage or watts curve will beat TC.. my experience and apparently many others ...
 
Thank you @KytanDale thats damn useful info.
I’ve seen the 80 piece premade coil sets with 8 variety’s, & I wondered if they were worth a punt, I might pick one up.

Looking forward to the drop solo clone hitting town.
What gauge, size, ohm, & dimension ss316 wire would you recommend for trying out my early coil building & how many turns for roughly what ohms please?

I need to pick up an ohm meter and some ceramic tweezers by the looks of it, hope the online shops are open late :hmm:

Cheers
 
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A well set voltage or watts curve will beat TC.. my experience and apparently many others ...
Thank you, I’ll take on board your advice & experience with TC ...I think I got slightly obsessed with the idea of it for avoiding dry hits, but I’m sure that’s just something I’ll figure out how to avoid through sheer bloodymindedness.
 
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Thank you, I’ll take on board your advice & experience with TC ...I think I got slightly obsessed with the idea of it for avoiding dry hits, but I’m sure that’s just something I’ll figure out how to avoid through sheer bloodymindedness.
If you get prebuilt coils you will not need to worry about wraps and ohm reader. They will be approximately as stated value. The mod will read the ohms. Ceramic tweezers are also not a must, been vaping for years and never had them. A good pair of tweezers is enough just don't touch the fire button while using them. As a word of advice . Do not let the excitement push you over the limits. Get some cotton bacon a set of coils, screwdrivers and a wire cutter, don't go cheap on tools as they will break easily especially the cutter. A coil master set is pricey but good. With time at the beginning I got a lot of crap and realised I only used max half of that. Post here and we will advise if it is worth getting. As for coils, it will depend on the rda, i only use single coil devices, i have a zeus dual rta but sits in a drawer. With dual coils you can get more cloud and more flavour but a good tank will get you all you need without the need for dual coils. Start with high ohm coils first.
 
Update: after realising my FastTech Drop Solo RDA order was still many days/weeks away from being delivered i picked up a cheap Goon clone from Ralfys Emporium (thanks for the link @cliveh2).
Early impressions are good, seems easy to coil & wick (just using pre-built coils with Firebolt cotton to start with), and getting a good amount of flavour & clouds.

I picked up a well priced pre-built coil variety box so i could try out some different wire without my noob coil-building skills skewing the results, but eventually i hope to settle on a couple of preferred wire types and start making my own.
All my pre-built coils are Kanthal, but i then heard SS316 was a good starter choice for ease of build and flavour (i'm not too fussed about moving straight to TC now after the good advice given above, but if i do go SS316 then the TC door is still open in the future).
- what's the general consensus here: any significant advantage of SS316 over Kanthal for an RDA noob? ...or a better alternate choice of wire you'd recommend?
 
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The real advantage of ss wire is temp control as you have already noted. Otherwise the most popular choice apart from ss and kanthal would probably be Ni80 but I have used all of theses and more and the differences are minor.

As for TC I don't use it on my squonking RDA's as they are all mechanical mods but I do use it with tanks quite often, I guess the one advantage you might get on an RDA is that instead of a dry hit you should get less and less vapour as the TC limits the power. Make sure if you try it the coils are a room temp and well saturated before you set the temperature.
 
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