COIL BUILDING BASICS 101

Building Your Own Coils for Your Vaping Device

If you’re thinking about building your own coils for your vaping device, you better know what you are doing. There are dangers involved if you don’t do everything correctly. For a beginner, a good start is to build a 1.2 ohms single micro coil. With that said, here’s some information to get you started.

Tools You Will Need:

• Ohms Reader
• RDA
• Resistance Wire: Kanthal will be used for this demonstration
• 2mm Screwdriver or 2mm Drill Bit
• Allen Key or Screwdriver That Fits Your RDA's Screws
• Small Propane or Butane Torch
• Tweezers with Ceramic Tips
• Small Wire Cutters
• Scissors
• Wicking Material
• E-Liquid

Before You Start

DO NOT attempt to do this if you don’t have an ohms reader. If you have all of your supplies together, you’ll need to find out how many wraps the coil will need to be at the correct resistance. Try out the coil wrapping calculator here to find out exactly what you will need. For this example, for the 1.2-ohm single coil, it’ll need 8 full wraps.

Oxidize the Wire

You’ll begin by cutting a 4-inch piece of the kanthal resistance wire. Hold one end of the wire with your tweezers. Light your torch and heat the wire until it glows orange. This will make it less springy which will make it easier to work with. You’ll need to grab your 2mm screwdriver and start wrapping the wire around the shaft close to the handle. Keep the coils close together and wrap until you have your target 8 wraps. Keep the wire as tight as you can. Count the number of wraps on the opposite side of the two leads and make sure that you have 8. Now, pull on the leads and make it as tight as you can. Make sure that you do not take the coil off of the screwdriver.

Installing Your Coil

You’ll want to loosen the post screws on your RDA, but do not take them out the whole way. With the coil still on the screwdriver, place one of the leads in the positive post hole and place the other lead on the negative post. Try to position the coil in the center of the RDA while still on the screwdriver. Now, you can tighten your post screws down. Make sure that you don’t over-tighten them. You can now trim the leads as close to the posts as you can.

Testing Your Coil

You can test the ohms by connecting your ohms reader to your RDA. Your resistance should measure between 1.0 and 1.4 if you’ve done everything correctly. If you’re not getting a good reading, there could be a number of issues that are causing it. Avoid continuing until you have a correct ohm reading.

Test Fire

Now you can put your RDA on your MOD. Fire it up and see if the coil glows, then stop firing it. Squeeze the coils together with tweezers and repeat until the coil glows evenly, beginning from the center and working its way out. You can now place a small piece of wick inside of the coil. Trim any excess wick from outside of the coil. Wet the wick with a few drops of e-liquid. Now retest your coil after you once again check your ohms.

That’s it. Your new coil is ready to use. It’s not that hard to do once you know what you’re doing, but if you are not careful, you can end up ruining your set-up, so again, be careful. Make sure to check and double check everything before you begin enjoying the vaping session.