StemPod by MPL

TastyTicTac

New Member
Any stainless steel coils are going to work in TC mode. Here's a link for when you get your coils. Everytime you put new coils on you'll need to dry fire the coils to remove hot spots. Coils like the ones you bought can break easily because of hot spots.

https://www.advancedvapesupply.com/pages/316l-coil-wire-instructions



Luckily there's not too much trial and error with dry herb vaping. If you were vaping ejuice it would be 10x more work to narrow down the right settings.
Thanks for that resource! And I was just hoping the replaceable coils would be more like a perk for when I got bored of the vape and an opportunity to experiment with rather than something that could go wrong like in my case. I’m certainly hoping for more than 5 uses out of my next coils..
 
TastyTicTac,

dodgy_b

Well-Known Member
We want to apply this FAQ idea to the site, as well as a PDF of the instructions for easy viewing. What are some top questions you guys would like to see in our FAQ?

- I guess I'd like to know when to replace the coils be it by visually inspecting or certain read outs on the mod.

- A tutorial, text or vid, on how to replace them on the SP deck in particular.

- I think a list (or links to their respective websites) for the mods that Arctic Fox and Tubo/Funky Junky support. I know the pic of the list floats around here but this thread is starting to move pretty fast!

- Also, the instructions you include with the Stempod are fantastic. If they're not up already, then the pdf link you mentioned.
 
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withoutbliss

Accessory Maker
Accessory Maker
Thanks for that resource! And I was just hoping the replaceable coils would be more like a perk for when I got bored of the vape and an opportunity to experiment with rather than something that could go wrong like in my case. I’m certainly hoping for more than 5 uses out of my next coils..

<3 No problem. Getting into the coil game is pretty daunting at first. Especially when each wasted coil is another $1 or more. There will be alot less coil fails with dry herb vaping vs ejuice vaping but it definitely adds up.

When you buy spools of wire and wrap the coils yourself, you wont have to worry so much about a couple wasted coils. It'll be like pennies rather than dollars.
 

superdang9000

Flameo Hotman!
So, here is the coil build I'm playing around with. I've never built coils before, so this is all new to me... I've just been watching videos and such. Still need to eliminate a couple hotspots, but I'm having decent luck so far. I'm using 20g SS 316L wire, 9 wraps with I believe 3-4mm internal diameter. Using my Voopoo A1 with TCR 2550, 48 watts, and set to 410 degrees seems to pull some good vapor while not glowing much. It does take longer to heat up but that's not a huge concern of mine.

Curious what other, more experienced people might think about this type of coil.

edit: Oh, resistance comes in at 0.13


309ouf8.jpg


I did try building some stove top style coils initially, but they sat too high on the deck and pushed into the screen, so that was a no go.
 

withoutbliss

Accessory Maker
Accessory Maker
Sexy mod @superdang9000. Glad you're getting decent results so far. Coils dont look too bad either. If you can remove hot spots and they heat up evenly, it doesn't matter what they look like.

If you want them to ramp up quicker, try less wraps (as low as 5). You can also play around with smaller diameters as well. It's okay if the resistance is different than the stock SP coils btw.
 

superdang9000

Flameo Hotman!
Sexy mod @superdang9000. Glad you're getting decent results so far. Coils dont look too bad either. If you can remove hot spots and they heat up evenly, it doesn't matter what they look like.

If you want them to ramp up quicker, try less wraps (as low as 5). You can also play around with smaller diameters as well. It's okay if the resistance is different than the stock SP coils btw.


Right on, thanks for the tips! I'll try another set with fewer wraps. Also have some 24g wire that I was going to try a twisted coil build with, and some of those Juggernaut prebuilt ones should be here soon too.

If anything it's a fun learning experience!
 

ray_b

Well-Known Member
Those coils look great @superdang9000.

Some thoughts from another noob.

As I understand it, the TCR value is a physical property of the alloy used to make the wire, SS316L has a TCR value of 0.00092. Single coil, twisted, or clapton, the configuration of the coils doesn't change the TCR value.

I was doing some reading about the suitability of SS 316L for use in TC mode and I ran across a comment about SS316L coils in this thread at e-cigarette-forum.com, here's what I found interesting:

"Some coil materials like SS's work better with more coil mass, like a clapton or dual coils, or just adding more wraps..."

"I can tell you though even on a dna board if you're running 316L without enough coil mass (single instead of duals, round wire instead of clapton) it will be inconsistent and even pop itself out of TC every now and then once the coil gets some use."

I've ordered some Temco SS316L wire in various gauges. I also ordered these 0.25 ohm staggered fused claption SS316L coils, I needed to spend a few more dollars to get free shipping.
 

E0x

Well-Known Member
try make coils around 0.5ohms resistance ( the is like 8 inch of wire ) and set tcr 185 , you will get temp control around 160-220 range temp , over that maybe combust but who knows hehehe :D
 

superdang9000

Flameo Hotman!
Ok, here's the twisted 24g build...

14v3dpx.jpg


Seems to put it in the right range around TCR 2550 (or 255 for those normies), 390-400 degrees @ 45 watts. Resistance reads .16. However, in both of these tests, the coils still need to reach glowing temps to produce vapor. Not sure where to go from here.

Both versions do seem to give a bit more even heat distribution than the notch coils.
 

PPN

Volute of Vapor
Is the goal to vaporize without reaching glowing temps?

Very nice coils btw.
Yes, this is the goal cause it will help to eliminate hot spots and byproducts from high heat of the coils might be a concern for health. Although this is works with a large heating element, the mass compensate so you don't need to crank the t° up.
 

KeroZen

Chronic vapaholic
I think you guys are missing a key element here: we're not trying to heat a cotton wick, we're trying to heat passing air. It's way more involved than you imagine! You can't just transpose e-cig coil designs to convection vaping and expect the best results.

Coil geometry does play a huge role. Surface area too. How the atty air inlets are and their location etc. I reiterate, please read the BULLI and Project threads if you don't want to reinvent the wheel (granted it's less fun without pictures since imgur is gone but still)
 

oddjobold

Vape swap shop
I think you guys are missing a key element here: we're not trying to heat a cotton wick, we're trying to heat passing air. It's way more involved than you imagine! You can't just transpose e-cig coil designs to convection vaping and expect the best results.

Coil geometry does play a huge role. Surface area too. How the atty air inlets are and their location etc. I reiterate, please read the BULLI and Project threads if you don't want to reinvent the wheel (granted it's less fun without pictures since imgur is gone but still)

As i heat and spinter are based on mesh coils would be interesting to try this out. Been on holiday in scotland. Stempod should be waiting when i get back.
 

superdang9000

Flameo Hotman!
Coil geometry does play a huge role. Surface area too. How the atty air inlets are and their location etc. I reiterate, please read the BULLI and Project threads if you don't want to reinvent the wheel (granted it's less fun without pictures since imgur is gone but still)


Man, that's about 75 pages of material to read through... and I already spend too much damn time here! :lol: Much of it seems to revolve around the other components in a DIY vaporizer from what I was able to glean by skimming. Any chance you could point me to which pages I should be looking at for coil discussion, or even just a general coil style or length that was found to be more successful than others?

I see some mentions of stove top, inception, and SS mesh but the discussion seems to drop off after that. I did try the stove top style but it ended up being too tall for the StemPod. If the concept has merit, I can revisit it but that inception style definitely looks interesting too.
 

ray_b

Well-Known Member
Man, that's about 75 pages of material to read through... and I already spend too much damn time here! :lol: Much of it seems to revolve around the other components in a DIY vaporizer from what I was able to glean by skimming. Any chance you could point me to which pages I should be looking at for coil discussion, or even just a general coil style or length that was found to be more successful than others?
Yeah, I'm not finding much directly applicable to building coils for the StemPod. I've been doing some selective searching through the Bulli and The Project threads using Google and using several variations of search terms like:
Code:
bulli coil+build site:fuckcombustion.com
Code:
the+project coil+glow site:fuckcombustion.com

I found some generally useful information like this:

"Think about it in a more general sense.
Overall efficiency should increase with gauge of wire. Basing this on faster heatup and cool down. Minimal losses because of "time".
Overall heat transfer ability goes the other way. Meaning thicker gauge gives more transfer but wastes heat (calories) in the energy to get hot and wasted on letting it cool.
Make sense..? Kind of a gut feel.
So, if true, the trick to optimise the best of both worlds would be to use a gauge that is as thin gauge possible and still have enough transfer ability to get those clouds. IMHO, going thicker really is just overkill. But fun nonetheless. I have noticed a couple supporting comments like using high wattage with thicker gauge, and battery life isn't as good. Also, haven't noticed any single cell users have been playing with the thicker stuff. All indicates it takes more power."

But I'm not finding anything specific to our situation. Maybe I don't know enough about the subject to know what I'm looking for.
 

withoutbliss

Accessory Maker
Accessory Maker
Yes, this is the goal cause it will help to eliminate hot spots and byproducts from high heat of the coils might be a concern for health.

This video clears up alot of the health concerns involved with SS coils.


Coil geometry does play a huge role.

This reactor coil seems like the best bet as far as geometry goes. Since the SP has a different post style I'm wondering what other RDA's the SP is compatible with. Maybe there's different post options out there if it is compatible with others.

r7w2hc.jpg
 

superdang9000

Flameo Hotman!
So, I made another pair of coils with just plain 24g wire, 20 wraps each, and have been using it on the standard SS temp profile on my mod. The temp is up around 565 degrees at that TCR, but I'm getting some pretty good vapor with almost no glow. Not huge clouds, but very satisfying. I'll probably stick with this one for a while and play around with different airflow and temp settings.

I'm sure I'll continue to experiment because, hey, I like to tinker and the StemPod is awesome for that. Anyway, just sharing in case anybody else is out there doing the same. Would love to see some other builds when more of these babies are out in the wild.

edit: bonus pic of my travel setup, with titanium stem!

2hhouqg.jpg
 
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sickmanfraud

Well-Known Member
So, I made another pair of coils with just plain 24g wire, 20 wraps each, and have been using it on the standard SS temp profile on my mod. The temp is up around 565 degrees at that TCR, but I'm getting some pretty good vapor with almost no glow. Not huge clouds, but very satisfying. I'll probably stick with this one for a while and play around with different airflow and temp settings.

I'm sure I'll continue to experiment because, hey, I like to tinker and the StemPod is awesome for that. Anyway, just sharing in case anybody else is out there doing the same. Would love to see some other builds when more of these babies are out in the wild.

edit: bonus pic of my travel setup, with titanium stem!

2hhouqg.jpg

Where did you get that stem? Link if possible. Does it get hot in your mouth?

I need a bit of assistance with my stempod, please.

I put the SP on my cuboid 200 mod that already had firmware from @funkyjunky on it.

When I press the button for an on-demand pull I notice the coils flash red and then settle back to a normal color. Is this normal?

I initially had a resistance of .124. I increased it to .128 and now I get some (not too much) vapor at .215 C.
 

wall

Well-Known Member
Where did you get that stem? Link if possible. Does it get hot in your mouth?

I need a bit of assistance with my stempod, please.

I put the SP on my cuboid 200 mod that already had firmware from @funkyjunky on it.

When I press the button for an on-demand pull I notice the coils flash red and then settle back to a normal color. Is this normal?

I initially had a resistance of .124. I increased it to .128 and now I get some (not too much) vapor at .215 C.
I'm no expert but things tend to glow a little red when hot so I don't worry about it because unless I'm trying out some insane watts Dan has tested it all and if he feels its ok then thats good enough for me
 
wall,

ray_b

Well-Known Member
So, I made another pair of coils with just plain 24g wire, 20 wraps each
How is the fit of the 20 wrap coils?

Here's my first effort. 24g SS316L, 16 wraps, 2.5mm ID. The coils don't heat evenly. The length of the coils looks too long, the side of the coils facing the posts is compressed and the opposite side is opened up a bit. Maybe this is part of the reason why they're not heating evenly.

My original coils have stopped heating well and the cold resistance is rising, looks like they're done. My Stempod was used every day for 11 days, 4-6 sessions a day.

h3VwPNkc_o.jpg
 

Vape Donkey 650

All vape, no smoke please.
@superdang9000, @ray_b, good work with the alternate metal coils for the SP! One coil build at a time, posting and sharing results, we can crowd-source this and narrow it down to several types of wires and shapes of coils that work well with the SP. :tup:

And since we're posting up some alternate coils and heaters for the SP that do work, I might as well share my results to show what DOES NOT WORK, so that no one else out there holding the same failed ideas in their head that I did, don't have to go bother repeating them... :shrug:

As I had hinted at earlier...I wanted to give some of these alumina ceramic heaters I have lying around a try in the SP.

JjnJRU6r_o.jpg

NXjcNR7b_o.jpg

QF8OsP2W_o.jpg


So first I tried these ceramic rods, about 0.5Ω each, 0.26Ω for a pair on the deck. Their "OEM" purpose is to heat up a quartz crucible which you dab off of, like a mini quartz banger, so they don't directly touch the concentrates in their default application, but I've also build a few RBA for RTA with ceramic wick where these rods do touch oils directly to vape them, and they work quite well in that application too. But can they make convection vape? :suspicious: Well, no. :(

I use a TCR of about 140 for direct conduction, 225 to heat the quartz cup, and the rods don't have to glow for this. I knew I had to go much higher for convection, but raising the TCR # in increments of 25, going all the way to TCR 700, 750+ :o the rods were definitely glowing, taking a long time to warm up, making the mod, CPU, battery & everything get pretty hot...but no vapor at all! Hardly a wisp, barely even any flavor. :rolleyes: What a waste of good voltage and airflow. I would think the placement of the rods right over the air tubes & their size (similar to the notch coils) would make something at least...but nothing!

moving on.... ceramic donuts! :p

jDIdaMLH_o.jpg

Donut so bright, white and reflective! :cool:

TJpRnkn9_o.jpg

The air holes on the SP whoosh right through the donut hole, maybe this is good?

Can I make it brief? Well, it also didn't work! :bang: I had the TCR # up to 600-700 (much higher than the 400 or so used for direct dabbing) and although the donuts didn't glow like the rods, I was only able to get a mere trickle of vapor from the large dual 13mm donuts with TCRs higher than 700, 400F temp. Needing over 60w and 8-10 seconds to warm up (slow) and making plenty of radiant heat, this seemed like a very ineffective way to vape on the SP. Maybe it could be viable with a larger cell or 2-cell mod and more watts, but it would still get hot af and not offer much benefit over the notch coils except not glowing?

So basically, alumina ceramic heaters...pretty big fail on the SP. :shrug: Maybe some other people can make this work, maybe a monster "quad rod" build would work without glowing (and make alot of heat too) but it just seems these type of heaters won't be competitive with metal coil builds on the SP. Someone had to try it!

So I went back to my original, default pair o' notches that came on my SP. A little beat, they ohmed in at 0.98Ω (what happened? I think the notch-segments contacted and semi-shorted. As soon as I test fired, even glow, right back to 0.125 :tup:)

I tried very carefully to align the position of the dual notches to be as even & symmetrical as possible. I think when the notches sit at odd, asymmetrical positions, it chars your flower load un-evenly more easily. A little tweaking on those notches, and quick, easy, full clouds are restored! :clap:If anything, a slight hot spot in the middle, easy to stir away.... but still...

This video clears up alot of the health concerns involved with SS coils.


If I interpret this correctly, this is just more reason not to trust the brittle little flaky notch coils? I can't tell just by looking at them if they glow brightly or dull. It's not a bright white glow but it's pretty bright and red at least, not dull. It's easy to accidentally knick or contact the coils when removing the middle section of the SP also, so that does not inspire confidence about cracking open that oxide layer. :mad: :uhoh: I'd like to see some of you guys test some more nice potent, low-glow & glow free coil builds to help narrow it down for me. I'll huff just a little more hexavalent chromium in the meantime :D :(

@withoutbliss even if you and guys like @KeroZen don't actually have the SP to be able to test these different coils with us, any productive ideas & tips on building coils, theory, what you think may or may not work well, any info like this is much appreciated! :tup:

Maybe I can even summon some of our other coil-pros like @Accept, @Boden, and @2clicker to chime in with any thoughts / ideas for us stempodders? Yes, they like to dab off their coils, but maybe their familiarity can help us floral-convectioneers too?


I think you guys are missing a key element here: we're not trying to heat a cotton wick, we're trying to heat passing air. It's way more involved than you imagine! You can't just transpose e-cig coil designs to convection vaping and expect the best results.

Coil geometry does play a huge role. Surface area too. How the atty air inlets are and their location etc. I reiterate, please read the BULLI and Project threads if you don't want to reinvent the wheel (granted it's less fun without pictures since imgur is gone but still)

This concept is not lost on me. To be clear, I'm familiar with TC mods, ceramic atomizers and building coils, but I'm still a bit of a convection newb, and I've never gotten into wrapping coils myself since I don't like dabbing off them either. But I have learned a little from browsing the coil pr0n in some of the good ol' coil threads in the concentrates section...

So for the SP in particular, I think relatively compact sized wraps, perhaps non-contact (the loops between the coils not touching / shorting each other, with space in between each loop) so the air can pass through the coil and make more convection, like our stock notches?

And also, using "complex shapes" like braids, ribbons, alien wire, inception coils, etc, that have higher mass but also are more "porous" to passing air might be more powerful & effective than simple wrapped, round wire?

But I'm the new here, on the particular field of wrapping wire...so I'm happy to soak it up. :)
 
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HerbieVonVapster

Well-Known Member
Wow a lot of useful info posted well I was camping. The stempod preformed great the whole trip. Even with the jury rigged coils.

There's a few coil builders on eBay. I ended buying a assortment of ss coils to try. There's some neat builds but felt assortment was the best ideal to decide on the shape etc.

This one is kinda wild looking a lots of different choices in SS wraps. Well worth a look for design options.

s-l1600.jpg



I feel with the right coil the replacements would be a lot less often. Maybe something along the line of this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4-SS-STAGG...270161?hash=item1ebfb41991:g:DVgAAOSwB09YM24D
 
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