Experiments with TC

[paul2566]

This, in spades, with whipped cream and a cherry on top...

Again thank you for your views, but for me what I am trying is working, what I was trying, was not.

It just wasn't able to make it work for me.

 

[paul2566]

For Tc the best thing to do is to adhere to the K.I.S.S. mantra. The less complex it is the less there is to fault find and fewer confounding variables if something doesn't work well.

I appreciate its early days, but so far of the 4 builds I have tried, 3 have worked very well with no issues at all. I've been vaping build #3 all afternoon, just about drying out the coil each time, and no dry hits. The first of the 4 builds only failed due to a very basic oversight by me. Wicking hasn't been an issue at all. In fact I've found these builds far easier than the single wire spaced coils mentioned, and I did get pretty good at producing some good looking spaced coils.

I have no idea why it's working for me, it just is.

 

[E3Nomad]

I'm with Mr. Numpty & Tubbyengineer on the principle of K.I.S.S. and there's clearly some disparity between their experiences (which I share) and yours. I'm wondering therefore if there are perhaps other factors at play. As our "hobby" developes, the choice of variables has grown exponentially and it may be that your lack of success with simple builds was due to the mod settings you chose. I'm finding that different mods have their own idiosyncrasies too, so that 215°C, TCR of 0.00500 and 45 watts bunged at an atty showing 0.5 ohms resistance can have completely different, mod-dependent outcomes. I've even found that an upgrade can change a mod's TC performance, which suggests that manufacturers are tinkering as much as we do. But hey, isn't that part of the fun of it? The tinkering? As ever, it's different strokes for different folks and I'm glad you're finding stuff that works for you. But when time allows, revisit those simple builds - you might even surprise yourself!

 

[paul2566]

E3Nomad

I'm sure you are right, I've only been vaping about 12 months, and into TC for a lot less than that, so don't have the experience of others. But I've never been one to rely on theory, and prefer practical experiments to find my way. Funny enough I couldn't get on with the X Cube until I started messing with stainless and claptons, now I think it's great.

I'll continue to share my journey and hopefully others will add their own to this thread so all can benefit.

The problem I have now is that having found some builds which work well, I've stayed with them, so until the tinkering fairy comes calling I may just try and repeat them to see if it was just a fluke.

 

[paul2566]

#4

Tobecco Velocity clone.
Air flow wide open.

SIGELEI 150W TC MOD

Single coil (spaced around a machine screw)
I.D. of coil about 3mm
Wrap 0.27mm NI200 (CrazyWire)
Coil wraps = 10

TCR pre-set by mod manufacturer

Mod set to 200 degrees C
Mod set to 30J
Coil reads 0.21 Ohms which is spot on with Steam Engine from their coil wrapping page

Below is the info I got from the Steam Engine wire wizard.. This wire wizard info differs a little from their coil wrapping page?

Resistance 0.197 Ω
Resistivity 1.68 Ω/m
TCR in vaping range 6087 ×10-6
TC precision 1199
Heat flux per Watt 10.04 mW/mm²
Heat capacity 27.27 mJ/K
Current per Volt 5.08 A
Power dissipated 100 %
Diameter 0.27 mm
Length 117.48 mm
Surface area 99.65 mm²
Cross section area 0.06 mm²
Volume 6.73 mm³
Mass 59.8 mg
Density 8.89 g/ccm


My results;
Temp control works , and the device cuts power as it should, which prevents dry hits.
Ramp up time as one may expect with this fine wire is not noticeable.
Poor clouds.
Average flavour.
If I increase the temp setting I can see the cotton start to discolour.
Setting the Joules much higher and the device cuts power more often to compensate.
I had to re-wick this 4 times, first time I used about 2/3 the amount of wick I would normally, not very much flavour or clouds. Re-wicked with less than half of my normal wicks (I can pull the wick in and out with no resistance or coil movement) and things improved a little. The last attempt has so little cotton, I couldn't roll it or it would not have made contact with the coils, so I just left it fluffy. The fact that I am able to re-wick such a fragile coil so often should indicate how little wick I am talking about, the coils haven't moved at all since they went in.

This is by far the least pleasing of the builds, but with the Sigelei I'm stuck with Ni200 or Kanthal in power mode.

 

[scrumpox]

Reading through your results, @paul2566 , it seems that you place a great store by the avoidance of dry hits. You comment on vapour and flavour production but not on the experience of the TC vape as opposed to a wattage/power vape. You say TC works if you don't get a dry hit ... I would not say that's the real criterion of whether TC works or not. As you've said, it's less about theory and more about the practicalities of vaping.

When I play around with TC, avoiding dry hits is nowhere on my list of priorities ... possibly because I use tanks rather than drippers the vast majority of the time. What I'm looking for in a vape is how well the wicking, airflow and heat generation are working ... when they're balanced you get the vapour and flavour you want. When something's not right one or more of those things has to be changed. If TC is to be valuable it must help and not hinder the set up or balancing.

TC should remove overheating, set a ceiling ... it should deliver a consistent vape after ramp up. That consistency is fundamentally how TC differs from non-TC vaping. That's my perspective anyway.

Enjoying the reports and as always a different vaper's perspective is refreshing.

 

[paul2566]

Reading through your results, @paul2566 , it seems that you place a great store by the avoidance of dry hits. You comment on vapour and flavour production but not on the experience of the TC vape as opposed to a wattage/power vape. You say TC works if you don't get a dry hit ... I would not say that's the real criterion of whether TC works or not. As you've said, it's less about theory and more about the practicalities of vaping.

When I play around with TC, avoiding dry hits is nowhere on my list of priorities ... possibly because I use tanks rather than drippers the vast majority of the time. What I'm looking for in a vape is how well the wicking, airflow and heat generation are working ... when they're balanced you get the vapour and flavour you want. When something's not right one or more of those things has to be changed. If TC is to be valuable it must help and not hinder the set up or balancing.

TC should remove overheating, set a ceiling ... it should deliver a consistent vape after ramp up. That consistency is fundamentally how TC differs from non-TC vaping. That's my perspective anyway.

Enjoying the reports and as always a different vaper's perspective is refreshing.

I think I see what you are saying. Perhaps I haven't put it very well.

With the clapton hybred buids I am getting an easy build, easy wick, good juice flow (80VG), and the flavour I am looking for, plus the clouds that on occasion amuse me.
On the simple spaced coil builds, I find it difficult to wick correctly, and the flavour (and clouds) simply are not as good.
I accept that with the 'simple' builds I must be doing something wrong, but the builds 1 to 3 above do seem to give me what I want with little faffing around, the only annoying thing is I don't know why.
To get to the flavour and clouds I need to consistently hit and maintain temps, but with the simple spaced coils, TC kicks in and drops power a bit too much. Increase the preset temp ceiling as you put it leads to dry hits and bad taste.

I hope my waffling makes some sort of sense.

 

[paul2566]

On the plus side I have crawled out of the stone age and managed to upload a picture, now to conquer the concept of focus.

 

[E3Nomad]

(/snipped for brevity.........) but with the Sigelei I'm stuck with Ni200 or Kanthal in power mode.

Not necessarily. In the Wire Wizard section of Steam Engine, alongside the temp gradient graph, you'll see the tab "Equivalents". I regularly use this to get TC for NiFe30 on my IPV D2, which only offers Ni200 or Ti1. When vaping at 215°C, I set the mod temp at 200°C and select Ni200 as the coil material. Simples! (and yes I'm known locally as Meerkat because of the way I pop my head out of the hatch on my boat whenever visitors come calling). Probably not as accurate as a dedicated TC setting, but it works for me!

 

[paul2566]

Not necessarily.

Yeah, I've used offset temps and SS, NiFe30 and NiFe48, it works to a degree, and I can get a decent enough vape from it, but would really like to get it working with the wire it was designed for ideally. It's pretty damn good with kanthal though, and works well with the Griffin, Steam Crave, and Aspire tanks. It's a good solid mod.