Guide To Coil Prep And Care

When it comes to vaping, every part of your kit serves its purpose. Plenty of people focus on the power the battery holds (and the wattage it can fire at) and tank setup as far as airflow and juice capacity go. Something that can get a little overlooked is the coil - resistance and metal material aren’t the only things that matter. You also want to think about how to prepare and care for them to get the best out of them. Sure, you can just pop in a coil, fill your tank with juice and vape away - but it’s not the best way of doing things.

We’ll go through all the bits you need to know - from priming your coils to using your vape in the most coil-friendly way as well are looking after coils for drippers. With your coils being the only on-going cost aside from your e-liquid, they’re worth caring for properly so you can use them for longer and enjoy your vaping experience more too.

It sounds like it might be a whole lot more work, but the reality is priming your coils is very simple and only requires a minute or two and a bit of patience.

First, let’s look at the anatomy of a coil: Your coil is the core of your tank, serving to heat up your e-liquid so it can be evaporated for you to inhale. It’s made of three parts - a metal casing, some wire or mesh on the inside and wicking material (usually cotton but it can be flax or wood pulp too). The wicking material serves to absorb your liquid, which sits sandwiched between the metal casing and the coil wire or mesh.

When the battery is activated it heats the mesh, in turn vaporising your e-liquid. If that piece of cotton gets too dry, you’ll have no flavour, the cotton will start to burn a little and you’ll get a dry hit. All round, it’s a bit unpleasant and will significantly reduce the lifespan of your coil. By priming your coil before you use it for the first time will help you avoid this.

• Get your e-liquid of choice and a fresh coil. Start by placing a drop on each of the wicking ports (the little holes where the cotton is visible on the sides). It’ll absorb very quickly initially, as the cotton gets saturated it’ll start to sit on the surface a bit more.
• If you’re working with a larger coil that has enough space for you to drip some vape juice inside over the mesh and cotton, drip some e-liquid there too to speed things up.
• Fit your coil into the tank once the cotton looks sufficiently saturated.
• Fill the tank up with e-liquid and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes so every part of the coil is covered. While it might look like it’s done before you install the coil, larger coils often have very thick wicking so it’s worth giving it a little extra time to fully saturate.
• Once your tank is all closed up, take a few dry puffs (inhaling from the drip tip without activating the battery) - this helps draw e-liquid through the coil before you take your first puff.
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Once your coil is actually in your tank (nicely primed of course), there are a few things to remember when you’re actually vaping that will help to extend the lifespan of your coil. The first one is to not take super long inhales. Most vaping kits these days have a chipset that will have a firing cut off point however it’s usually 8 to 10 seconds and in that time your coil will almost certainly burn out. This feature is more in place to prevent the battery from overheating.

By limiting your puffs to 3 seconds or less, you won’t cause the wick to dry out too much or to overheat to burning point when you vape. Taking a little break between puffs (especially in more powerful kits) will also allow the cotton to absorb some more liquid between, meaning it’s saturated and ready to vape again. Ultimately it’s the cotton that eventually gets burned more than the wire so you’ll want to keep your juice levels up too. It’s all about saturation so making sure your tank (or pod) is at least half full at all times will help you get the most out of your coil.

If you’re using drippers with rebuildable coils, you’ll probably already know they can last you a while when you care for them properly. Some can last for months when cared for properly - stainless steel are particularly durable. To clean these and get the most out of them, it’s a pretty simple process.

• Start by exposing the build deck and removing the old worn out cotton.
• Keep your RDA on your mod and once all the cotton is gone, do a few dry burns to help evaporate any residual juice off. Don’t let them get too red or hot, just enough to remove as much of the e-liquid as possible.
• Once the coils have cooled a little, remove the RDA and rinse the deck and coils under water, giving them a bit of a scrub with either a metal brush, some steel wool or even an old toothbrush. Make sure they’re cool enough if you use a toothbrush or you might melt the bristles onto your coil.
• Dry off as best you can with a paper towel then re-attach your RDA to your mod. Do a few more dry burns to evaporate any water and your coils will be ready to re-wick and vape on again.
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All up, looking after your coils takes very little extra effort and the rewards are more than worth it. Better flavour, more vapour, less dry hits (if any at all) and you’ll be able to use them for longer meaning you won’t need to spend as much on replacing them.