I can taste the cotton in my RDA - A couple questions.

[Tirouu]

Oh wow. Now I think you've picked the most sweet make on the market. I bought two bottles when they first appeared and even though I like sweet these were overload.

IVG seems to be the most popular, leading brand for juice where I am in Ireland. Any brand recommendations? I haven't explored many brands, I found one local company I loved Gorilla Shaker and stuck with them, but I moved away and am too lazy to order online. Would like to try some more stuff out, always stuck with the sweet fruity stuff.

 

[conanthewarrior]

From the photo it looks like you are running dual claptons- this type of coil has two thinner wires inside and is then wrapped on the outside with even thinner wire.

Because of their mass, they need a bit more power than 45W.

Regarding your cotton, it looks OK to me, but it could be possible you are packing it too tightly. When you rewick your coils and push the cotton through, you want there to be the tiniest bit of resistance on the cotton as you pull it- not so much it is hard to pull through, but not so easy it just slides straight through.

It will probably take a few attempts but then you will get wicking down easily.

Regarding the spitting, this can happen when the cotton and coils are over saturated, meaning you have dripped too much juice into the RDA. Also some coils do spit more than others.

Tasting the cotton can happen when you first rewick, but should go away quickly after using the RDA a few times after rewicking.

 

[MTB Vaper]

I'd say you need to cut the cotton shorter, so the ends are just touching the bottom of each side.
I've not got the drop dead 2, but I'd say coils have been pulled into the centre, I'd try putting a 3mm coiling rod or 3mm screw driver in them and try pulling them outwards so more centred with the grub screws, this will help with spit back and get the coils closer to the airflow.
Spit back can sometimes be to low wattage for the coils, upping the wattage means the coils vaporise the liquid quicker stopping spitting.

 

[MTB Vaper]

After moving the coils you'll need to gently glow them and recheck for hotspots.

 

[conanthewarrior]

I'd say you need to cut the cotton shorter, so the ends are just touching the bottom of each side.
I've not got the drop dead 2, but I'd say coils have been pulled into the centre, I'd try putting a 3mm coiling rod or 3mm screw driver in them and try pulling them outwards so more centred with the grub screws, this will help with spit back and get the coils closer to the airflow.
Spit back can sometimes be to low wattage for the coils, upping the wattage means the coils vaporise the liquid quicker stopping spitting.

I didn't notice this on first glance but think you are right, in the first photo the cotton looks kind of tucked under like there is too much length, vs just touching the bottom as you suggested.

I also didn't notice the coils may be pulled into the centre, this can indeed cause problems of its own so that is a great suggestion.

I believe you are bang on when you mention the low wattage causing spitback, I did advise that 45W is very low for what appears to be thick dual claptons- to get them firing nicely depending on the gauge of wire used and wire type it could even need double the power to actually work properly.