Wrap the Perfect RBA Single Coil

Do you vape? Have you ever been interested in making your own coils? Would you like to cut down on the costs involving purchasing replacement coils? This tutorial might be for you!

This is going to be a simple DIY tutorial, on how to wrap a nice, clean coil for your RBA. This tutorial is for a college project. I hope you enjoy it!

Skill level: Beginner.

ETA: Less than one hour.

Disclaimer: I do not condone smoking, or vaping. This tutorial does not show you how to acquire these things. It merely explains how to wrap a coil. These products are only available to those who are, of the appropriate age.

Things you'll need:

1. You will need an atomizer, which is a battery for a Personal Vaporizer.

2. You'll need some Kanthal wire, which you can pick up at a Vape shop, or on amazon. Also, on many different websites that cater to vaping. I prefer using 26, and 28 gauge.

3. You'll need some Japanese Organic cotton, or organic unbleached cotton.

You can find both here: Master of Clouds Kanthal and Cotton kit.

4. You'll need a tank, that supports rebuildable coils.

5. A small sturdy metal rod, screwdriver, drill bit, etc. Something we can wrap the kanthal around.

6. Scissors, or nail clippers, to cut the excess wire.

7. Small screwdriver to secure the kanthal down. (This will usually come with your RBA.)

8. Tweezers are awesome to have, and you'll need them if you want perfect coils.

9. You'll need your favorite e-liquid, too.

For this step, we'll need the kanthal, and the RBA unit.

For this tutorial, I'll be using my Russian 91%.

For this step, you'll need some wire. I recommend that you use at least 6 inches of wire. Pull, and cut with scissors, or nail clippers. Doing this with nail clippers will dull them.

For this step, i'll show you how to tightly wrap a coil.

You'll need something small, and metallic, like a drill bit, or a screwdriver.

Take your non-dominant hand, and hold the bit, using your thumb to hold the wire in place.

Then, with your dominant hand, begin to slowly, and carefully wrap the wire around the bit.

For this tutorial, we'll do a six-wrap. Six is a good beginner's starting spot.

The amount of wraps that are created, will increase the coil's Ohm Resistance.

There's a mathematical formula related to this, but I won't be covering it here.

Though, I will provide the link, to those who are curious. Also, a link to a resistance calculator.

Ohm's Law

Coil wrapping, and target resistance calculator

After you've wrapped the coil, and have confirmed that you're satisfied with the work, you'll need to mount it to the RBA. To do this, you'll need to connect each end of the coil to a separate screw inside the RBA's head. My unit, and yours will vary, but the concept is the same.

After mounting, be sure to cut off the excess wire.

This step will show you how to dry fire your new coil, check the voltage, and get rid of uneven heat.

So, to do these things, you must have your coil mounted, and placed on your Atomizer. My coil rang in at 1.3 Ohm Resistance, which will fire a bit hot, but is not a sub-ohm rating. This should work perfectly.

So, once you have everything mounted, fire your atomizer until the coils are red hot, then let go. Notice some of the coils aren't bright orange? That means we don't have even heat across the coil. To fix this, we need our tweezers. Fire the coil, and get it bright orange, then let off the power. Then, use the tweezers to compress the coil with a little bit of pressure. You want to compress the coil, but you don't want to squish it, and ruin the coil's form.

This step will show you how to add the cotton, which is essential to juice absorption. You can use a multitude of cotton types, but for this one, I'll be using a strip of organic Japanese cotton because it tastes better.

The easiest way I've found to do this, is wet one end, and twist it in your fingertips. Be gentle, cotton is extremely fragile. Thread it through your coil, just like you'd thread twine through a needle. Cut the excess ends of the cotton, when you're satisfied.

Before we suck anything into our lungs, we need to make sure that it's not burnt cotton. To do that, you should prime your coil, and do a pre-fire check. Just put 2-3 drops of e-liquid directly onto your coil, and cotton, then fire for 1-2 seconds. If you burned the cotton, you didn't use enough juice.

This step is basically you, putting your RBA back together, and putting it onto the atomizer.

Thanks, for reading!

Bonus video of my Kanger Subtank Mini!