TC - a first disappointment

[scrumpox]

It's still early days for me on the TC learning curve.
One of my hopes and expectations was that it would extend the life of coils and wicks ... that would be a bonus for any vaper.
Now I'm used to kanthal coils lasting for weeks ... I replace coils out of boredom actually and way before they're past useful life.

I vaped these titanium coils for 2 days and not exclusively. The taste wasn't quite there so I thought it must be time to check the wicks ... the gunk on the coils came as a surprise. I rinsed them thoroughly and brushed them with a toothbrush ... then I started to try to scrape off the residue. Not a chance, these coils are done!

As I'm still trialling TC, the temp and power settings have been all over the place, but generally I've been vaping at around 40J 425F for two days. The juice was my standard ... RY59 with vanilla and a little sweetener, just as an additive. These coils are gunked way beyond the level that my kanthal builds get to. With kanthal you can dry burn and brush off the ash and get a nearly fresh coil. No such dry burn option with Titanium.

So is this the first major disappointment with TC? Coils last days instead of weeks?

 

[gary1968]

And here's me considering my first venture into tc with a istick 40.........

 

[Beastie]

The one thing about TC is the poor durability of the builds. I know that my experience with microcoils of nickel and titanium is that they gunge up faster than the spaced variety and are less stable. With titanium I have been dry burning albeit in temp control at 600f and it does clear up some of the gunk but occasionally you get a hot leg and have to scrap the coil anyway. At this stage I can knock out TC builds quickly enough that it doesn't matter and I get a week or two before I feel the need to recoil. For me the vape experience is definitely worth it but took months before I pretty much abandoned kanthal except on mechs. Keep at it and good luck!

 

[Tubbyengineer]

It's still early days for me on the TC learning curve.
One of my hopes and expectations was that it would extend the life of coils and wicks ... that would be a bonus for any vaper.
Now I'm used to kanthal coils lasting for weeks ... I replace coils out of boredom actually and way before they're past useful life.

I vaped these titanium coils for 2 days and not exclusively. The taste wasn't quite there so I thought it must be time to check the wicks ... the gunk on the coils came as a surprise. I rinsed them thoroughly and brushed them with a toothbrush ... then I started to try to scrape off the residue. Not a chance, these coils are done!

As I'm still trialling TC, the temp and power settings have been all over the place, but generally I've been vaping at around 40J 425F for two days. The juice was my standard ... RY59 with vanilla and a little sweetener, just as an additive. These coils are gunked way beyond the level that my kanthal builds get to. With kanthal you can dry burn and brush off the ash and get a nearly fresh coil. No such dry burn option with Titanium.

So is this the first major disappointment with TC? Coils last days instead of weeks?

I've had nickel coils that I've run for 6 weeks or more so it should be possible to make them last, it could be a wicking issue - I know I keep harping on about wicking but if you dont get enough juice to the coil it hits temp very quickly so you could get a burnt residue from that, plus sweetners do tend to gunge things up...

Run your temp up to 300c and dry fire it, it should remove most of the gunge if not all.

 

[scrumpox]

I've had nickel coils that I've run for 6 weeks or more so it should be possible to make them last, it could be a wicking issue - I know I keep harping on about wicking but if you dont get enough juice to the coil it hits temp very quickly so you could get a burnt residue from that, plus sweetners do tend to gunge things up...

Run your temp up to 300c and dry fire it, it should remove most of the gunge if not all.

Unbelievably, I am trying to listen to learn ...

Without coming across as argumentative ... ... I thought the whole idea of TC was that the juice doesn't get burnt? This is the same juice I use in kanthal builds and they don't get gunked up like this, there's no temperature limiting there.

 

[jsixtysix]

To be fair, this was one of the initial selling points of temperature limiting. Rarely mentioned these days though. I've had exactly the same problem and suspect it comes from adjusting it to vape how I like it. Which makes it tricky.

 

[Beastie]

I think vaporising juice will always leave residues it's not a byproduct of burning just that some constituents of our juice vaporise at higher levels especially the sweetener type things which will probably caramelise a little when they build up. With the ramp up programmes these tc devices give us in wouldn't be surprised if it's just a volume thing, I never imagined using my lemo 2 at 80 watts but that's what I'm typically hitting on a curve with TC. I can say my juice consumption went up with sub ohm and went up more with TC... Although I blame that on experimentation more than anything!

 

[scrumpox]

To be fair, this was one of the initial selling points of temperature limiting. Rarely mentioned these days though. I've had exactly the same problem and suspect it comes from adjusting it to vape how I like it. Which makes it tricky.

I think vaporising juice will always leave residues it's not a byproduct of burning just that some constituents of our juice vaporise at higher levels especially the sweetener type things which will probably caramelise a little when they build up. With the ramp up programmes these tc devices give us in wouldn't be surprised if it's just a volume thing, I never imagined using my lemo 2 at 80 watts but that's what I'm typically hitting on a curve with TC. I can say my juice consumption went up with sub ohm and went up more with TC... Although I blame that on experimentation more than anything!

So the issue is we've come to TC after lovely warm vapes, and we want TC to give us the same warmth?

I think the sweetener is a red herring here ... wish I hadn't mentioned it, it's minimal ... it's not a sweet vape at all and it just doesn't gunk up on kanthal which I would assume is running at higher temperatures. I've got two tanks here set up with a quad coil and a dual clapton respectively at 45-50W, just caning the same juice and not gunking up .. or not to anywhere near the extent that the Titanium did.

I'm still really disappointed, burning juice with TC is a complete mindfuck! It's the very last thing I was expecting.

Wicking ... ramp up ... microcoils ... more to ponder! Standard, single Ni200 coil in the Goblin Mini tomorrow.

 

[Beastie]

So the issue is we've come to TC after lovely warm vapes, and we want TC to give us the same warmth?

I think the sweetener is a red herring here ... wish I hadn't mentioned it, it's minimal ... it's not a sweet vape at all and it just doesn't gunk up on kanthal which I would assume is running at higher temperatures. I've got two tanks here set up with a quad coil and a dual clapton respectively at 45-50W, just caning the same juice and not gunking up .. or not to anywhere near the extent that the Titanium did.

I'm still really disappointed, burning juice with TC is a complete mindfuck! It's the very last thing I was expecting.

Wicking ... ramp up ... microcoils ... more to ponder! Standard, single Ni200 coil in the Goblin Mini tomorrow.

Yep we're reinventing the wheel here but having fun whilst doing it! Tbh I still enjoy kanthal on my mech. I just am a dabbler by nature and TC is innovation... Maybe for the sake of innovation but gives me more to fiddle with!

 

[Tubbyengineer]

Unbelievably, I am trying to listen to learn ...

Without coming across as argumentative ... ... I thought the whole idea of TC was that the juice doesn't get burnt? This is the same juice I use in kanthal builds and they don't get gunked up like this, there's no temperature limiting there.

It does definitely reduce it, although some of that reduction is dependent on the temperature at which the sugars etc. in the juice burn, From that photo I suspect one of the problems has been "Hot" wraps, the upper one of the two coils is only gunked up on one end - usually that means that one end of the coil is getting hotter than the other. Since the mod only measures the TOTAL resistance of the coils it cant tell if one end is getting really hot and the other isn't, this would also affect the second coil in a dual coil setup.
The other point to note is that the lower of the two coils is gunked up only on the underside - whether that's just where you've tried cleaning it or whether it's because the wick wasnt delivering as much juice to that section of coil so that it got hotter I don't know.
When you build you coils from Nickel you can do a little dry burn, just get them to glow a dull red only, dont get them glowing like the Eddystone light or they'll collapse / break.
Titanium can be heated until it starts to glow but it will take a brave heart and a willingness to watch your coil vanish in a flash of light if you overdo it - I've been testing the limits on this and you can get a dull red glow safely and it will show up any hot wraps. If you get the coil to the dull orange stage you will start to get a coating of TiO2 which is a bad thing and you're best to hust throw the coil away.

Keep trying, you will get coils that dont gunk up as quickly, even if it's only half as quickly - I think sometimes the ingredients in juice can be just too sensitive for vaping without gunking up the coils...