When you want to take your vaping one step further, you eventually get to the point of building your own coils and changing the cotton yourself.
It may seem advanced at first, but give it a few tries and it will become easier. If you need help, you are welcome to visit one of our physical stores and talk to the staff there.
There are different coils and wires, different materials and different sizes. We will go through most of them in this post, starting with Kanthal, abbreviated KA1.
Kanthal withstands very high heat and has a slightly higher resistance, which is very good if you are going to start making your own coils for your vape. Kanthal is quite stiff compared to SS316L and N80, which we will cover later.
Kanthal is very good to start with if you are going to make your own coils, easy to handle and perfect for beginners, as Kanthal is more difficult to burn out.
When making coils, it is good to have the right tools: a coil jig, wire cutters and wire. If you do not have access to a coil jig, a screwdriver will work well. There are various tool kits for making your own coils, and we have tool kits with everything you need to make your own coils and change the cotton.
Nichrome80 (N80) is the wire that is most popular among vapers due to its short heating time and low ohm (resistance).
N80 is an alloy consisting of 80% nickel and 20% chromium. It is an alloy around the wire that prevents nickel from being released, helping you avoid nickel poisoning.
SS316L is stainless steel and is more popular among vapers who want to use temperature control mode (TC) on their mod. SS316L can also be used in wattage mode, as its heating time is very short.
There are many different types of coils: regular round-wire coils, Twisted, Clapton, Fused Clapton, Alien and many more.
A regular round-wire coil is very good to start with, as these are the cheapest to make, allowing you to practise a lot. If you make a mistake, it will not hurt your wallet as much.
A Twisted coil consists of 2 wires twisted together. This type of coil provides slightly more flavour than a regular round-wire coil and is still fairly inexpensive to make.
A Clapton has 1 core wire with a thinner wire wrapped around it, called the outer wire. This makes the coil produce more vapour and more flavour, and the coil can handle higher wattage than regular round-wire coils.
A Fused Clapton consists of 2 or more core wires, with a thin outer wire wrapped around them. Nowadays, 3 core wires are most common. These coils are made to produce a lot of vapour, plenty of flavour and handle high wattage.
Alien coils consist of 2 or more core wires, with 3 core wires being the most common. The outer wire is wavy, as you can see in the picture. They take some time to make and therefore cost a little extra. You must first make a Clapton coil, remove the core wire, stretch out the outer wire and then wrap it around 3 core wires, which requires a great deal of concentration from the person making the coils.
These coils provide very good flavour and vapour production, and they can also handle very high wattage.
It is difficult to know which coil or coils suit you best. Do you vape MTL or DL?
For MTL, we recommend regular round-wire coils, Twisted coils or Clapton coils. You can use more advanced coils if you want, but then you need to use very small coils.
For DL, you can use whatever you want. We recommend starting with round-wire coils when learning to build in an RDA/RTA/RDTA, and then gradually using more advanced coils. This also applies to MTL RDA/RTA setups.
Experiment until you find something that works for you.
We are often asked what wattage to use with an RDA/RTA/RDTA. You decide that entirely for yourself. You will find the wattage that suits you and the e-liquid you use. E-liquid can taste different depending on which coil or coils you use and what wattage you use. Some e-liquids may taste very strong and very good with certain coils at a specific wattage, while certain coils and settings may not suit your taste.
