BASIC COIL BUILD

VAPING THE BASICS
Feb 12, 2015
6 min read

Building your first Coil

Before anything else, we must take safety into consideration. I will not discuss in detail the mechanical basis of battery safety, but we must at least go over the basics in order to ensure a safe vaping experience. The discussion on this segment assumes that you are using unprotected batteries on an unregulated mechanical mod.

Basic Battery Safety

Most advanced vapers use unprotected batteries in their APVs. This is due to the fact that the protection circuits pose a limit on how much power you can draw on your battery. Go past this limit and the battery no longer works. Unprotected batteries on the other hand do not have such limiters, and there is a very real danger of thermal runaway (a nicer way of saying explosion).

However you are able to draw more power from your battery resulting in a better performance from your atomizer. So how are people using unprotected batteries without drastically rearranging their facial features? Here are a few pointers to keep in mind:

Use batteries designed for high-drain applications. IMR batteries are recommended – they are said to be “safe chemistry”. Recommended brands are AW, SONY, EFEST and MNKE.
Know your battery amp rating. More often than not, manufacturers of high-drain batteries will advertise how many amps the battery can safely pull. For example, Sony VTC5 is rated at 30A.
If you don’t own a multimeter, buy one and learn how to use it before even thinking of touching your atomizer!
Invest in a good charger. Cheap chargers can overcharge batteries – an accident waiting to happen. A good charger will also increase your batteries’ lifespan. Nitecore and Xstar are reliable companies that make quality chargers that are affordable as well.

After investing in a good pair of batteries, a multimeter and a decent charger, we now have to figure out how to stay within the batteries’ amp rating. You can calculate it by dividing the voltage by the resistance of your coil. Your battery will have 4.2 volts when fully charged, and the resistance is dependent on your coil – you measure this using your multimeter.

For example, if you build a 0.5ohm coil, simply divide 4.2 by 0.5. This gives you 8.4A.

MAKE SURE YOU STAY WITHIN YOUR BATTERY’S AMP RATING.

Resistance wire and wicking medium

Resistance wire used for vaping is usually either Kanthal or Nichrome. Though there is much debate about which one is superior, I personally find the difference negligible – I simply buy whichever one is cheaper. Resistance wire comes in different sizes, with AWG as the typical unit of measurement.

Keep in mind that the larger the diameter of your wire, the less resistance it will have. For beginners, I recommend using 0.40mm (26AWG) wire – this gives you plenty of surface area for a given resistance, in addition to being very easy to work with due to the thickness of the wire.

*Note about resistance: The lower the resistance (measured in ohms), the hotter the coil will burn; however this does not always equate to a better quality vape since some flavours of e-liquid taste better with a cooler coil (higher resistance) than a hotter one (low resistance)

Wicking medium comes in a larger variety. The most commonly used are silica rope, SS mesh and cotton. Silica can be bought per meter, and can last a long time. However, many people do not like the taste it produces, and it may not work as well in RTAs if you use high VG e-liquid. SS mesh has a “crisp” and cleaner taste, but requires more effort to use.

My personal favourite is organic cotton. You can buy this just about anywhere, and it is VERY cheap. Many vapers agree that cotton has the best flavour and wicks fastest (delivering e-liquid to the coil) compared to silica and SS mesh. The only downside is that cotton needs to be replaced at least once a day – which is not a problem, considering it’s price and availability.

Steps in building the basic microcoil

Whew! After all that reading, we are finally ready to build our first coil!

We will be building a microcoil. This type of coil consists of numerous loops touching each other, with a narrow internal diameter. This gives it a large surface area relative to its resistance compared to regular coils, allowing it to perform as well as a coil with much lower resistance. The microcoil is compatible with all kinds of rebuildable atomizers, and is one of the most commonly used today. It is relatively easy to make, and performs very, very well.

Cut about 5 inches off your resistance wire. Make sure that it is straight and smooth; if it isn’t, then simply straighten out the kinks by running it through the blunt shaft of your screwdriver in a motion like you would sharpen a knife.

Start making coils by wrapping it around your drill bit and using your pliers to grip one end to pull each coil tight while holding the free end along with the drill bit with your other hand. Repeat this process for each loop you make in order to make sure each coil is tight. The first few loops are usually the hardest, but it gets easier with practice.

Make sure the coils are as close together as possible, but don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. We can fix that later on. I do about 8 loops of wire around the 2mm drill bit, giving me roughly 0.8ohms of resistance

Mount your coil on your atomizer while it is still on the drill bit. This prevents the coil from deforming as you tightening the screws down. Clip off the excess wire around the post.

*REMOVE YOUR BATTERY BEFORE THIS STEP IF YOUR ATOMIZER IS MOUNTED ON YOUR MOD WHILE INSTALLING THE COIL

Make sure that the coil is as close as possible to the airhole, but also make sure it is not touching anything, as this will result in a short!

Make sure that the coil is aligned to the airhole. Aligning the coil to your airhole will ensure even airflow around your coil, resulting in better flavour and vapor.

After mounting your coil, check for shorts, as well as the resistance of the coil you just built. Make sure that it is within your battery’s amp rating!!!!

Time to work out the hotspots. If you haven’t already attached your atomizer to your mod, do so now. Do not use fully charged batteries for this step, since a freshly charged battery will have too much power and might pop the coil we worked so hard on.

Fire the mod in short pulses (no more than half a second at most) until the coil starts to glow. You will notice that it does not glow evenly at this point, most likely only at the edges.

Release the firing button, and while the coil is still glowing gently squeeze the coil using a pair of tweezers. Release the coil after it stops glowing. DO NOT SQUEEZE THE COIL WHILE FIRING THE ATOMIZER.

Repeat step 5 until the coil glows evenly, starting from the center.

Take a bit of cotton and roll it between your thumb and index finger. Do not roll it too tightly, just enough to form it into a long cylinder.

Pinch the tip and roll it tightly, so you can thread it into the coil more easily.

When threading the cotton through the coil, there should be slight resistance but not too much. If you use too much cotton, you will choke the wick and e-liquid will be unable to reach the middlemost part of the coil. On the other hand, if you use too little it won’t wick properly. Either way, you will get dry hits. It takes a bit of trial-and-error to figure out how much cotton to use, but I find that the cotton roll should be roughly twice the size of your coil.

Trim the edges of the cotton and tuck it into the base of your atomizer.

After a day of heavy use, you will usually find flavour will start to change and the cotton will take on a darker colour, as well as a dark residue building up on your coil. You can simply pull out the cotton (gently!) and dry burn the coil (step 5) in order to burn out the residues. Install fresh cotton and it’s good as new!

Replace the battery with a freshly charged battery, and saturate your wick with your favourite e-liquid.