Vape Coil Wire Types on Windows Pc

There are some basic characteristics that apply to all wire, regardless of the composition of the wire.

The first basic characteristic of any wire, vaping or otherwise, is the actual diameter of the wire which is commonly called the wire “gauge” and expressed as a numerical value. The actual diameter isn’t really important. What matters is that as the wire gauge number increases, the wire diameter gets smaller. So, 26 gauge wire is thinner than 24 gauge but fatter than 28 gauge. Common gauges of vaping wire from smallest to largest diameter are: 32, 30, 28, 26, 24, and 22. There are others of course, even odd number sizes.

Second, as the wire size increases the wire resistance decreases, and generally it takes longer for the wire to heat due to the larger mass of the wire. Thin gauge wires like 32 and 30 will be higher in resistance but will heat faster than 26 or 24 gauge wire.

You may have heard the term “ramp time”. Ramp time is the time it takes for your coil to heat to the temperature required to vaporize your e-liquid when you fire your mod. Ramp time is generally more noticeable with exotic multi-strand wire coils like claptons, but as wire size increases ramp time can also become more apparent with simple single wire coils.

Temperature control (TC)
temperature-control-wire-types
In basic terms, temperature control mods rely on a characteristic of your vaping wire to detect when to regulate the current and wattage delivered to the coil. Wires suitable for TC are chosen because of their Temperature Coefficient of Resistance (TCR).

OK, I promised to keep it light, so here goes:

The TCR of the vaping wire is the increase in resistance of the wire as temperature increases. The mod knows the cold resistance of your coil, and the material you are using. The mod is also smart enough to know that when your coil rises to a certain resistance (as temperature rises) that the coil is too hot, and it reduces the current to your coil as required to prevent burning.

Simple, right?

OK, on to specific wire types.

Kanthal
Kanthal-vaping-wire
My first foray into building coils was years ago when I was using 28 and 30 gauge Kanthal wire to rebuild the coil heads for my Kanger Pro Tanks.

Kanthal is ferritic iron-chromium-aluminium alloy with good resistance to oxidation, and commonly used for vaping in straight wattage mode. Kanthal is a great place to start if you are just getting into rebuilding, dripping, etc. It is easy to work with yet stiff enough to hold it’s shape when formed into coils, which comes into play when you wick your coils. Kanthal is extremely popular, and I still use Kanthal wire as my primary wire when building single wire coils.

One other possible downside of nichrome wire is the nickel content. I have used it, but folks with nickel allergies may want to avoid using nichrome for obvious reasons.

Nichrome is less common than Kanthal, so some may need to shop for it online.

Faster ramp than Kanthal
Easy to work
Holds shape
Nickel content
Lower melting point
May be hard to find locally
Purchase here

Stainless steel
stainless-steal-vaping-wire
Stainless steel is the most unique of the wires we will discuss here: it can pull double duty and be used for straight wattage vaping or temp control vaping (if your mod supports it — older mods do not). I have used dual-coil stainless steel builds to review TC mods since I can use the same build to test either mode. It really makes life easy if you switch between TC and VW often.

Allows applications to open network sockets.
Allows applications to access information about networks.