Great vaping in Temperature Control (TC) mode with SMOK mods.

It’s been more than five month since I switched from cigarettes to vaping.And I feel really good.
Furthermore I believe that vaping also engages people to experiment to such an extent that it can’t be compared to smoking cigarettes in any way. It didn’t take me long to make my own coils with Nichrome80, Kanthal A1 and e-juices and I find it still as a very amusing hobby. But there was one thing that I didn’t try and it was in the back of my mind for some time. Finally, I purchased stainless still wires and tried vaping in TC mode.



So, I built my first pair of stainless still coils with round SS316L 24AWG wire (wraps on coils should be spaced and not touching each other as for Wattage mode) mounted them on ADVKEN Champion RDTA. As well I did some reading before setting up SMOK G-PRIV mod.

TC settings:

Material: Stainless

Preheat: 30W

Adj-TCR: 0.00094 (value for SS316L wire and should not be changed)

I screwed the atomizer on the mod and measured the coils’ resistance as usual, set the temperature on the mod to 200oC. Since then vaping on G-Priv is fabulous. Taste is very good and clear, no burning, not even if the juice runs out.

So far so good, so I built some more coils on different RDAs and RDTAs and could not be happier than that until I tried my other mods with the same settings.

So, I tried SMOK Alien and two SMOK AL85 (both the same software version). To my disappointment they didn’t perform as I’ve expected and they’ve been switching to protection mode much too soon and there wasn’t much vape coming out.

It didn’t take long I realized that resistance readings on different mods with the same atomizer (it has to be room temperature) are showing different numbers.

By this time I had six atomizers with SS coils and measured their resistance on all the mods. You can see the results in the table down below.


I assumed the resistance readings on my SMOK G-Priv are correct since it was working perfectly with all atomizers so, I decided to refer to it as the reference mod. Interestingly enough it is the only mod I was experimenting with that doesn’t have (ADJ OHM) resistance adjustment. Mods AL85 and Alien have this resistance adjustment in the settings menu and can be adjusted ±0.030 ohm which is actually for TC vaping more than enough to do necessary adjustments as I believe that this mods are built with less accurate measurement electronics.
The results showed that after initial resistance measurement (coils must be at room temperature) my Alien mod’s resistance adjustment should be in average readjusted for +0.020 ohms, AL85 (black) +0.012 ohms, AL85 (red) +0.025 ohms. By using the same settings on all my mods and applying resistance adjustment to Alien and Al85 mods vaping on all of them is the same great experience. Good thing about SS coils is that they can be used in wattage mode respectively.

Well, that’s how far I’ve got with TC mode and the toys I can play with. I would really like to hear your feedback, experience and opinion about TC vaping. I love it. I didn’t know vaping can get that good.

**Updated**

damn I always miss spell 'steel' sorry for that

 

glad you enjoy your experiment.
I don't have so much return about the time I was testing TC (about 2 months).
I was feeling a bit ignorant reading about TC and I was wishing to learn (enjoy learning) not only by reading but test by myself.
You look right on many points (I was using SS as you):
- space wraps is important ( can be also good with a RDA on a mech)
- TC depends a lot of the ship-set of the mod ( just vaping, we don't need to an expert to make the difference between a good DNA, a standard ship set or a bad clone): changing of mod mean change your set-up.
Reading around, TC vaping have "aficionado" who will not come back to standard vaping or mech, (no dry hits, save your batteries, juice consummation, etc....)
I came back to "old time vape": 75/100 of the time, mech and single khantal coil on RDA, because it's sensation, simple and difficult.....
Vaping is a bit magic, we're all different the way we vape, and I love it.

 

I have encountered tanks in the past that vape infinitely better with TC. A night and day difference.
The Hurricane, the original Lemo Drop, and EHpro's Bachelor/nano.

Never bothered with drippers though. I see you have a Lush Plus - how is that with TC? It's one of, if not the finest atomizer I have ever used. Very underrated.

 

Well, I use drippers mainly for testing my e-juices purpose. But as you mentioned Lush Plus dripper, it is a little devil and I use it mainly when watching movies and it feels like Devil plays a flute.

I used to use my other tanks and drippers first with Nichrome 80 then switched to Kanthal A1 and as you know some tanks and drippers suit us better than others. But that was using Wattage Mode as these wires don’t support TC vaping. I find Kanthal A1 more satisfying than Nichrome 80.

Wires suitable and most frequently used for Temperature Control are Titanium, Ni200 and Stainless Steel. I’ve chosen SS mainly because it can also be used in Wattage mode. In its basics there is no big difference between Wattage or TC mode, the only difference is that in TC mode you set the top temperature of your vaping and it is not that you can’t have a very hot vape although there is a recommendation to vape at temperatures 200-250oC. It’s more like a guard that prevents vaping at temperatures which may not be very healthy to vape at.

My personal experience with SS coils is more about better and clearer taste, whether it’s due to material or due to spaced coil’s shape or both, I couldn’t tell. I could not confirm, as some vapers claim, that TC vaping saves batteries and e-juice. I think it is all up to the manner one vapes in Wattage mode.

Finally, as Jpr put it nicely “Vaping is a bit magic, we're all different the way we vape, and I love it.” And I agree with that.

 

Glad to hear you've had an enjoyable TC vape with a Smok mod! After my experience with the H-Priv and X-Cube's bad TC (relative to other mods) I gave up on the brand. Even with adjustments to the resistance with the H-Priv I found the all too often peaks, cut-offs and pulsing too extreme with SS316L which is my go to TC wire. It was odd because sometimes I though I nailed the settings on the H-Priv with good vaping and in the next series of vapes the distinctive cut-offs and slow pulsing would return. Perhaps they improved things some.

Guess I'm an "aficionado" as I vape TC almost exclusively and really enjoy the consistency of it relative to other methods.

@Rick O-Shea : The Lush performs absolutely great with TC.

 

Hi Scratchy. Sorry to hear about you problems with H-Priv and X-Cube. I wish I could test them and try to address the problem. In my opinion, besides basic TC setting, it is at most importance to get really accurate setting of a cold coil resistance. SS wires are great for the flavor but not so great for TC vaping simply because resistance coefficient (resistance-change factor per degree Celsius of temperature) is quite low and it effects accuracy of electronics and makes it easy to perform falsely. As you mentioned pulsing and cutting off. While resistance coefficients for Titanium and Ni200 are way much higher and easier for regulating electronics to calculate with higher precision.

Temperature coefficient of Resistance or TCR for:

SS316L = 0.00092

Titanium 1 = 0.00350

Ni200 = 0.00620

There is one more thing that I noticed and is purely my observation. When I lowered air flow on my atomizers by adjusting the air flow rings, there is lower frequency of pulsing the coil and vaping becomes more consistent and smother. So consequently, the amount of air flow (cooling of the coil) is just another confusing factor that affects the accurate reading of the coil's resistance (temperature). It may be interesting to try that as well, because Stainless Steel is a bit tricky as I mentioned above.

I am glad I’ve got my gear working properly and I really enjoy TC vaping. I hope you'll fix your problem with your Mods.

 

Hiya Nowhereman and thanks for the good wishes and suggestions! I'm already very well-versed and experienced with TC vaping but your info is good for newbies for sure and really nice of you to post here. Simply put, I believe the issue is with the SMOK chipset in the mods I have and settings aren't going to make any difference. While Smok may have addressed some of the issues with later iterations, many like myself found their TC implementation to be quite poor relative to others, particularly with SS wire which I prefer. My quick recommendations to anyone who wants to go with TC on a more regular basis are the following:

1. Go with a mod sporting a well-regarded TC chipset. For example, DNA series or Yihi and while not as expensive, the still decent enough Joyetech/Wismec/Eleaf mods (some models can have other issues not related to TC such as 510 connection and build quality). I have read from some respected TC vapers that the Smoant mods are pretty good with TC as well. Hohmtech mods are supposed to be fantastic with TC but are hard to get.

2. Any of the above should work just fine with SS316L and I've not had any issues using that for quite some time. Early on when people started using SS316 or any SS variant there were issues with the mod popping out of TC mode and into wattage mode. I experienced that myself a couple-few years ago but not once since. With SS wire, target at least a 0.3 ohm resistance (higher can be better for additional accuracy such as 0.5 to 0.7, if possible) and space the coil and make sure the connections are solid. I'd recommend against Ni200 and while Ti works very well, caution strongly against dry burning with any glow.

 

Thanks Scratchy for sharing this valuable info. I assumed you have a lot of experience with TC. You are right about building SS coils with high resistance as much as possible to gain at accuracy. I think I'll wrap a built today and see how it goes. I was lucky with SMOK G-Priv mod. It is accurate and performs really well without any adjustments. As for Alien and AL85 there is a lot of fiddling to get them working. I'm not planning on buying new mods but I am tempted to try Yihi. I read a lot about Titanium and Ni200 wires and I believe SS is the wire to go and the taste is really nice and clear. Again Thanks again for great info.

 

That was cute Siam Diesel and as we all tend to say 'Keep on Vaping' ( miss a smiley with the mod in the collection available here)

 

Absolutely no fiddling here. Wrap spaced coil, install, wick, vape. Mod already set to preferred temp and wire type.

**Updated**

Well, I take that back...there was fiddling with the Smok mods I mentioned and the early days with some of the Joyetech mods. Caught myself on this one!

 

We're all different not only about the style of vape we enjoy.
If I can do it I prefer vaping with a limited interaction of chip set, electronic, upgrade update (as it's for computer, tablets etc...)
I'm a bit ignorant about electronic mods because I don't really follow the evolution since more than 1 year and it change very fast .
(bad/good excuse: in LoS, no vape meeting , no shop for a test, etc...)
A good TC vape depends IMO first of your chipset (before it was : german dicodes/pipeline, chinese Yihi et american Evolv DNA) and the possibility of upgrade). A good chipset was an expensive one (maybe about 50 us dollars), before some companies (Chinese) just don't have upgrade but a new model.
it's a economic war.
If I'm wrong in some parts of this post, feel free to correct it (no offense)
If the electronic Mods are now achieve for TC, I'm just happy for TC vapers.