A stainless wick for a ce2 tank

Hi People

Well impressed with the wicking ability of the stainless steel mesh that came with the FRTA (squiggle), I had a look around to see if it could be utilized in other applications.

80% of my gear is ce2, so I decided to look at the possibility of replacing the fiber wick with the mesh. I latched on to an old one that was in need of a rebuild. Not really a lot to say about the process apart from be carefull!!

Pull the thing to pieces and dig out the old wick. Depending on how badly its gunked up, the job can be easy or a bitch. Mine was a bitch. I have a bunch of tools for working small, so a while later had the coil stripped of the old wick. At this point, check the coil and dry burn until the coil heats up as soon as you fire it. Rinse under the tap and have another poke around to get rid of any ash and residue.

Prepare the wick. This started as a 12mm x 50mm strip. It was this size for easy working. Using a mandrel, in my case a darning needle, role length ways until the wick is as small as you can get it. Remove the needle and find a smaller one and continue making the wick smaller. For those of you that used to roll your own smokes, you will already have the technique!!!

To be honest I had to trim some material from the wick as it ended up too fat to feed through the coil. A little fiddly, but better to start off big than too small, after compacting the tube.

Once the wick was small enough to fit through the coil, it was time to oxidize. This was done over the gas cooker, and was repeated five times with pg. At this point, I decided to oxidize the coil, to reduce the chance of the oxide being scraped of the mesh when feeding through the coil. This was done with a battery to heat the coil and then squirting pg with a syringe.

A couple of things to watch out for. You don’t need the mesh touching any metal or wire joints. I just eyeballed the length of the wick to avoid touching the metal base. You will see in the picture the wick is sticking out both sides. The idea is that when assembled the tube will compress the wick, and stay in contact with the tube, away from the internal wires. I trimmed the wick to the correct length after the picture.

So far working extremely well. I don’t recommend anybody tries this, I only posted to show the possibilities!!!

 

Awsome idea personally I don't think the wick is the only problem in the design for eg I use ce2 wicks in my iatty and its performance is unbelievably better then the standard wick

 

Wow I need some mesh. Do a video for sure. I want to see how it vapes.

How does it taste?

 

Tastes very good. I believe the coil in this one is 3ohm. Just run the tank down and couldn't get a dry hit.

 

WOW! now that is a great idea.

would like a video for sure.

 

Sorry I cant do videos!!! Cant even take a decent picture?? Maybe when one of the younger sprogs tries, they can do the video!!!

 

One thing I have noticed is that the stainless wick is very tolerant of high voltage. Wound the thing up to 6v and very satisfying!! Never run high volts before as I always ended up with burnt wick on the ce2. Drinks the juice tho'!!!

 

Ooh, might have to try this Robray, I like my ce2's and this sounds like a fun little project.

 

There is a walk through in the modders section on ECF. That Scubadan guy does one with pics.

RC

 

Thanks Ravenscroft

I spent my early few days of vaping on ECF. very infrequently go back there, but your prompt about the walk-through by Scubadan sent me back. Yes some very interesting stuff and I will have to spend some time checking it all out. Thanks again.

 

Thanks to Ravenscroft here is the link to Scubadan's posts on ECF. Looks to be a good resource for anybody interested in stainless modding etc. Its going to keep me busy for a while!!!

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/modding-forum/194934-scubagen-mods.html

 

If its so good why has no one made this available to the masses yet! Get crackin Robray I want to try one, those could fund a nice vape mod collection

 

Hi greazy

Didnt say it was good. Never seen his stuff before. My only interest is the links to the source of some of the material used. For instance found a good idea for the food grade silicon that we have been looking for!! Plenty of good ideas as well!!

 

I mean Your meah ce2 wick not his stuff Well if your impressed it must be good great ideas are basis of
Vaping and for us that don't hve the time or enthusiasm to pursue such experiments we often
Miss out , interested to know The longevity ofthe mesh wick coil etc compared to stock ce2s then maybe I'll try my luck at making one thanks for sharing anyway knowledge is useless unless you share it

 

''knowledge is useless unless you share it''

Couldn't agree more!!

So far very impressed with the stainless mesh. I have it in a couple of Clearomizer tanks and so far cant .comlt it, but its early days. Run them both at different voltages, and so far they are the only ones in my arsenal that dont crap out at high voltages. They wick very well and don't seem to over wick, like some of the ce2 stuff tends to do. In the near future I intend to retro fit one of the Stone Vision tanks, but I need one of them to self destruct first. So far behaving very well, apart from overwicking with thin juice.

My only concerd is that the set up realy drinks the juice. Maybe thinner wicks?? Dont know yet?

 

I don't know how many people are following this thread, but I just thought I would bring up one point. If you are considering playing around replacing wicks, you will need to start collecting "Working small" tools. My eyesight is not wonderful and the work take a lot of concentration. Nothing worse than messing up a good working coil 'cos you don't have the right tools. A couple of pictures of a part of my kit, and maybe give you some ideas. None of the stuff is expensive and for the most part available at Jaycar and Bunnings.

 

Nice looking tool collection there Robray, I have similar but instead of a magnifying I use a Berger loupe ( a pair of goggles with mag len's) I have from my old military spec soldering days.

 

I need something that I can strap on my face that makes things look bigger. My eyes are failing but more than that I need something that stops my hands from shaking'

It is a real shit to wrap a new coil with shaking hands. I get it done but how did this shaking happen? I used to be so perfect and precise, age is a real shit of a thing.

RC

RC

 

I had never heard of a Berger Loupe, so Googled for a look see. It looks like an fine piece of kit and maybe just what I am looking for? I like the way the lenses focus. What is not shown in my pictures is a duel loupe with lights. As far as I am concerned very overrated as a duel setup. I just use it as a single unit, and dont use the light. The focal length is too short and the light to bright.

 

I really want to try this but I've read somewhere that a kink can restrict the wicking action? So I wonder if where the wick is bent downward could slow things up for thicker juices? Nothing worse than a CE2 that doesn't want to wick fast enough... ick!