Recoil in horror - The Kanger rebuild guide

We've all got 'em, and with the new cartridges being manufactured as sealed and
therefore non rebuildable units (though we shall see about that), it's time to d
ig out the dead ones and save some money. The following works with whatever gene
ration of Kanger PT heads you may have - and to make things even easier, you'll
be building a single coil regardless of whether your device uses duals or not. T
he dual coil is more a gimmick than anything else, and a lower resistance single
coil will outperform it all day long.
What you will need is the following.
28g Kanthal
Wire or nail clippers (scissors that you don't mind blunting will be fine)
Something around 1.2 - 1.5mm around which to wrap your coil. 16g or 18g hypodermic
needles are fine, but as long as you have a way of testing your resistance, the
n don't be scared to eyeball it with something that looks about right. You may n
eed to tweak your build with an extra or lesser wrap though.
Cotton wool. It can be organic or non organic, and you don't need to boil it.
Metal flat-tipped tweezers, or small flat-faced pliers
Torch or lighter - preferably one of those blue jet flame ones.
Juice in a fine tipped bottle.
A small dish with some vodka or rum in it. Treat yourself - pour a shot to sip on
as well.
STRIP BITCH!
First remove your coil head from the tank and hold it in your fingers by the thr
eaded end. Working from top to bottom, what you will see is a removable chimney,
a rubber grommet that holds the wick in place and prevents too much juice enter
ing the chamber, the main body of the head, and where your holding it is the pos
itive contact inside a rubber insulator. I suggest disassembling the unit bottom
first, as the chimney gives you something to hold onto, and is the easiest part
to remove. With your finger nails, pluck out the silver contact in the base, an
d set it aside somewhere safe. Next CAREFULLY remove the insulator. This is frag
ile and prone to tearing, so take it gently. Also note that the two tails of the
coil can now be seen - one inside the insulator, and one outside it. Put that w
ith your contact. Now slide the rubber grommet off the chimney, and finally pull
the chimney off - it's just a press fit. Set those aside. You now have the main
body with one or two coils inside it. Dig those out, and discard them. Notice h
ow thin those wires are. Put everything in your dish of booze to clean them.
WRAPPED ATTENTION.
Time for the fun part. Take a good sized length of 28g Kanthal - six or eight in
ches is way too much, but will give you something to hold onto, and won't leave
you scrabbling with tiny 'legs' - and hold it in your tweezers. Now run your lig
hter or torch over it until it glows yellow/red. It cools pretty quickly, but gi
ve it a second before touching it. Lay about an inch and a half of the wire alon
g whatever you're wrapping around, and grip tightly with the thumb of your stron
g hand, and the inside of your middle finger - you want your index finger free t
o move. Holding the rest of the wire between the thumb and outside of the index
finger of your weak hand with most of the wire inside your curled fist, start to
wind around your 'mandrel' (needle). You'll find that the wind is best made wit
h a combined movement of both hands, and should be kept as close as ninety degre
es from the line of the mandrel as possible. As you make a wrap (remember to kee
p count), press it down hard with the nail of your free index finger. Do this el
even times in total (this is a 'best guess' and the size of your mandrel will ef
fect the finished result's ohm rating), and finish so the tails both end pointin
g towards you. Release the tension on the first tail, press your wraps together
as best you can, and pull your tails at the same time so they're both pointing i
n the same direction.
BURN BABY, BURN.
remove your coil, and CAREFULLY press it end to end in your tweezers. Too hard a
nd the coil will collapse on itself, but you need to ensure that what you see be
tween the prongs is a nice straight coil, with no gaps between the wraps. Still
maintaining pressure on the coil, use your torch or lighter to heat it up red ho
t. Be careful that you're not holding the tweezers too close to the tip, as they
will get nice and toasty. Keep holding them as they cool (blowing on them helps
), and be careful you don't touch them until they're cold enough. Straighten the
legs so they're parallel to eachother and kink free.
SOMETHING WICK'ED THIS WAY COMES
you should now have a nice tight micro coil, with legs way longer than you need.
Trim one down to about an inch and a half, the other to an inch, and offer the
coil up to the hole in the empty base by sliding both legs into the hole, and po
sition the coil so it lines up with the bottom of the two wick slots. You need t
o ensure that it doesn't touch the sides of the recess in which it sits. Assumin
g all is good with your test fit, take the coil out, and grab your cotton wool.
Tease out a thin sliver of cotton about two inches long, and twist one end into
a fine point. Thread this through your coil, and pull it through until you have
equal amounts protruding from each end. You'll know when you have the right amou
nt, as the cotton should slide through with a small amount of resistance: if you
have to tug on it, you've used too much; if it flops around and just falls out,
then you've used too little. DON'T TWIST IT TOO MUCH!
A FITTING END
Put the wicked coil back into the base, and place the ends of the wicks into the
slots. Make sure there's no coil to base contact other than the legs, and that
it's even in the recess. Pull the wicks a little, and now apply a gentle twist s
o you can see down past them and into the base. You don't want the wicks closing
off your airflow. Now comes the fiddly bit. Reinsert the rubber insulator into
the base so one wire leg is between it and the housing, and the other is inside
it; then CAREFULLY reinsert the positive contact. I'm not going to lie, this is
a pain in the ass the first couple of times you do it, and there's no secret tip
I can give you - you just need to struggle through and find your own knack. Now
look into the recess where the coil is, and by pulling on the legs and/or twist
ing the contact, make sure the coil is level with the bottom of the wick slots,
and that the wicks go straight through them. Again, check for anywhere that the
coil is touching the base, and if necessary use your tweezers to wrangle it away
from a potential short.
Next prime your wick with some juice, pop your chimney back on, slide the rubber
grommet over it so it presses down on the wicks, and trim said wicks so they're
just a millimetre or so proud of the slots - most people square them just short
of the edge of the base to be safe and ensure they don't slip back into the bod
y of the coil head.
Congrats - you've just rebuilt your first coil head, insert it into your atty, a
nd check the ohms. You should be in the 1.3-1.5 neighbourhood depending on what
you used as a mandrel, and how tight your wraps were - plenty to fire in most VV
devices, and not low enough to melt your insulator and grommet. If you're airfl
ow is a bit hard, you need to ease back on your wicking, or maybe apply a bit mo
re of a twist. If it dry hits, then you've used too much inside the coil. If it
gurgles or floods, then you've used too little, or they're too thin where they e
xit the chamber via the slots. Now you know what resistance your build gives, yo
u can experiment a little and fine tune to what suits you best - throw on an ext
ra wrap if it's lower than you like, or take one off if it's too high.
As you're using a thicker wire than stock, these things will last almost indefin
itely, but will benefit from rewicking now and a again. You can even soak them i
n a small pot of booze (I use one of those old 35mm film containers, though kind
er surprise capsules are surprisingly water tight), let them air dry, and they'r
e virtually good as new. Just remember that even wet cotton will burn, so it wil
l need replacing.
Here are a couple of videos that show other styles of rebuilding at different oh
ms, and with different coil/wick styles. If you watch them before following the
above instructions, you'll get a better idea of some of the basics.
LET'S REBUILD A KANGER PROTANK 2013: http://youtu.be/e8FFhFYDd2Q
Kanger Protank Bottom Coil Rebuild HD Close Up: http://youtu.be/6OHLJ92Lvx8
Protanks and Evods, Anti-Gurgle Rebuild Method: http://youtu.be/JJQ_8-v

Nymza Vril 2014

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