Vapers

my new Ikarus mod with ss mesh coils I built. soon going to build some ss cable ones.

Been "diy"ing juice the easy way. Got me some pg, vg, and nic'd pg 36mg to make a base, and using MBV's PG based flavors. So far, all of them I've mixed at ~15% have been great except butterscotch. If anybody has a great butterscotch recipe sans diacetyl, please do share what flavorings you use.

My recommendations so far:
top of the list is Bananas Gone Nuts. Can't stop. Must... make ... more... Pretty dark, gunks up coils fairly quickly. No steep. 15%, final ratio 70/30 @9%
butterscotch tobacco - very very dark, will gunk your coils up, very tasty but not quite as much as BGN. day or two, vs. steeped for a few weeks, I ain't no connoisseur, but it tastes the same to me... 15%, final ratio 70/30 @9% nic
Cinnamon Roll - This one, 15% must not be right, it tastes... sharp? Not quite the buttery baked cinnamon roll I'm after yet. 15%, final ratio 70/30 @9% nic edit: retried this one ~2-3 weeks after making, delicious!
Guava - iono, haven't tried it. Very clear, though. 15%, final ratio 70/30 @0% nic, mixed for the woman, she ain't tried it yet.
blubacco - Just made this a few days ago, excited because it's a tob flavor but very very clear and with blueberry! Will let it steep a bit more, but I don't really believe in steeping. Reminds me of FA RY4 double + blueberry. 15%, final ratio 70/30 @9% nic

All vaped outta generic china CE# clearos from fasttech

RSST Genesis and Sigelei ZMax v5. 1.6 Ohm microcoil with 400 SS mesh and cotton hybrid. Makes ridiculous amounts of vapor!

So, does anybody vape because it's cheap, or am I the only one

I hear that SS mesh wicks better, or easier to clean, or something. Wait, what's the benefit of SS mesh again? It holds flavors longer or something? Or, is it cheaper than silica?

I've not had an issue with "muted flavors" and silica, I don't think. I do have to clean out the wick from time to time, I think certain compounds in certain juices don't atomize, and hence just concentrate in the wick, blocking the capillary cross section. With my older coils, after a dry off with a paper towel (no rinse), it tastes much better. I call it "field cleaning." Perhaps it is this muting over time that people are talking about? If so, it just means that SS can wick for longer before being cleaned?

Also, SS in a china clearo, this even worth doing, or should I stick to just buying/rebuilding heads with silica rope?

Also, when will someone invent an autoroller for coils? Sometimes I have too much jitters to do anything like coil... One of those pin wire wrappers, maybe could be modified?

BShanahan14rulz said:

So, does anybody vape because it's cheap, or am I the only one

I hear that SS mesh wicks better, or easier to clean, or something. Wait, what's the benefit of SS mesh again? It holds flavors longer or something? Or, is it cheaper than silica?

I've not had an issue with "muted flavors" and silica, I don't think. I do have to clean out the wick from time to time, I think certain compounds in certain juices don't atomize, and hence just concentrate in the wick, blocking the capillary cross section. With my older coils, after a dry off with a paper towel (no rinse), it tastes much better. I call it "field cleaning." Perhaps it is this muting over time that people are talking about? If so, it just means that SS can wick for longer before being cleaned?

Also, SS in a china clearo, this even worth doing, or should I stick to just buying/rebuilding heads with silica rope?

Also, when will someone invent an autoroller for coils? Sometimes I have too much jitters to do anything like coil... One of those pin wire wrappers, maybe could be modified?

Click to expand...

I think SS mesh wicks are pretty much only used in genesis style RBA's. It has fast wicking capabilities. Also, I roll my coils around a 1/16" drillbit and then take it off and squeeze them together and heat it with a butane lighter to make a tight microcoil. It's a very easy method of making coils if youre using ss mesh. I then roll the mesh tight and stick it through the coil.

I did that for a while, using drill bit to form perfect coil, but when using silica, a perfect coil starts working against you. (I'm so cheap, I'll reuse silica after cleaning rather than buy new. Can only reuse once or twice before it starts getting too disheveled. Then again, last I looked for silica was more than a year ago, maybe it's easier to find...)

For silica coils, I use a stiff unwound paperclip. You want the wire to be stiff enough to support the wick and pressure of winding the coil, but thin enough to not take up much space. Then, I put a rope or two of silica parallel with the paperclip, and wrap it in kantahl. Remove paperclip, fluff up silica a bit, and does good with few to no hotspots.

Been wondering about the benefits of SS, because I was thinking about making a "hybrid" wick, but don't know what the benefit of SS over silica would be. I chain vape, and somehow I still don't think I've experienced a "dry hit," so perhaps I don't need to bother with SS yet.

So far, the thing that has worried me is that I don't use NR wire to rebuild my coil heads. Haven't noticed any scorch marks or bad flavor, but I'd just feel better if there wasn't so much distance between coil and NR connection.

I do need to get me at least a vamo or vamo clone >.> I have 3 generic eGo batteries and a generic eGo Twist style 3.3V to 4.8V. I do like the variable voltage feature, but notice that I generally keep my voltage at 3.3-3.8V. I can't see how people vape at higher voltage!

Ive never used silica so I'm not sure what the benefits are if any. I use a sigelei zmax. Its a variable wattage. Its convenient to use 18650's in my opinion since I have so many from my lasers!

I Will post a Nemesis mod by Atmomixani in sales thread in a few minutes!Take a look and if somebody want to buy it let me Know!Thanks!

Ok just a bit of an update.
Bennet326 was kind enough to mix me up some juice and it was perfect, so much better than the "over the counter" crap.
Its hard finding nic base in the UK but I've found some 72mg stuff, not cheap though!.
I have a couple of Shisha type pens which work well, I ditched the vamo, didn't really float my boat.
Then I got this bad boy..



I'm impressed, with Bennet326's juice I get a good throat hit and a lot of vapour.
Also, Mark-in-dallas was right, the pain I was experiencing was down to the way I was taking hits, slowed it down and took it easy, no more pain.

Have you already let go of your vamo? I've been meaning to buy a cheapo knockoff from china for a while, just haven't gotten around to it, but really can't justify buying a new toy when my current setup still technically works.

DIY juice is the way to go to be economical, but a true artist can mix flavors and make an awesome juice. I've DIYed enough to know that I'd never sell any of my flavors, but they are leaps and bounds better than the juices at the convenience store ;-)

Yeah I sold it a while ago sorry.
I'm about to have a stab at mixing my own, Bennet326 gave me some tips via email but any more tips are welcome :beer:

Number 1 advice: keep a log book!

I've been using mt baker vapor for their flavorings, I think they mix up different flavors at the right ratios and then sell them as their own flavors. I'm just trying to save money, I ain't no perfumist or flavorist. However, you can find raw flavors quite easily as well. Be careful, though, they are all food flavorings, and some food flavorings do bad things to the lungs.

For my tried and true flavors, I pretend that the flavoring is PG, and that I would use ~15% flavoring for every bottle. (This is because I am noticing that for the most part, these MBV flavors need around 12-15%. Raw flavors can sometimes be as little as 1-2%!!!!) I can then maths out what ratio of PG, VG, and nicotine to make as a base, to arrive at my intended PG/VG ratio. Then, I can make individual bottles by measuring out the flavoring, and then filling with my base to 15mL in the dropper bottle.

Experimenting is where the log book really really helps. Can't hurt to have a good supply of dropper bottles too ;-) I use an old 510 atty to test flavors. If it tastes alright, or tastes like something more than nothing, I'll also let it sit for a few weeks, shaking and refreshing the air every day or so, and test it after that. This is because everybody claims steeping is important. I haven't noticed much change after steeping, so I don't know why I still do it. My thoughts are that some of the flavors are dissolved in alcohol, so the steeping is probably meant to purge the alcohol from the solution to allow the flavor particles alone to suspend in the glycerin, so I squeeze out the air that I presume has vapor alcohol, and shake it to increase surface area and hopefully increase alcohol purging.

Folks say that an ultrasonic cleaning bath can steep your juice in minutes, so it may be more to it than just purging the alcohol in some flavors.

I've noticed that some of my flavors taste better after the coil has been given time to "age" or gunkify a bit.

Well, that turned out to be less tips, more random ramblings. :thinking:

^^ haha it all welcome though.

And yeah I'll make a log of what I'm mixing. And actually it was the ratio of flavourings I was confused about. I guess it's trial and error.

Regards

So, it was annoying me how fast this thing goes through AW 18650's , so I decided to make it rechargeable.

I had the idea of using an old RC helicopter USB charger plug, the reason being is the USB plug has all the charging circuitry in it, it charges at a steady 350mA untill it reaches 4.17v then steps down to 10mA trickle charge, then cuts out at 4.19 / 4.2V and the LED extinguishes.
I used FlaminPyro's silicone wire for the interconnects

Hole enlarged and socket put in place.



Electrical connections made and bottom screwed on.



Finished product.




No more swapping 18650's , till the cell itself gives up, then it's a 5 min job to swap the old cell out.
Ped

OK, so any serious vapors have probably already heard of the Evolv DNA 30 chipset which can run atomizer resistances as low as .4 ohms and as high as 30 watts, and there are already a number of mods available with the chipset if you don't mid getting on a waiting list or putting in a pre-order.

Yihi eCigar recently released the SX350, which can run resistances as low as .2 ohms and at up to 35 watts. The board is available now but hasn't made it into any mod releases yet, at least not that I'm aware of anyway. So, I decided to make my own, cause that's just what we do right?

This little beast is a KILLER!!! I got my greedy little hands on the chipset from varitube.com for $75, purchased a Hammond box (1590ABK) from mouser.com for under $9, and got the switch and 510 connector on eBay for around $10. A couple of hours of cutting, drilling, soldering and expoxying things down and she came to life.

Nice.

What battery you using? , one of the guys over at UKVapers did something the SX350 , but I cant grab it as the site is down at the mo.

I wouldn't mind someone taking actual current readings on one of these running at 35w to see what it's actually doing.

EDIT

ukvapers.org/Thread-First-SX350-Box-Mod-now-built?highlight=Sx350