FEATURE
To Infinity
and Beyond
BREAKING DOWN THE ALIEN COIL
WE’LL TAKE YOUR VAPE TO ANOTHER DIMENSION
BY STEVE MASSINGHAM AKA CRAFTY COILS
“Aliens are complicated little buggers”
So, aliens. Chances are, you’ve heard of these coils. But before
you get all excited, you should know that they’re complicated little
buggers, both when it comes to making them and understanding
how they function.
Let’s start with what an alien really is. There are in fact two types.
Firstly, there’s the classic alien wire comprised of three round core
wires parallel to each other, then wrapped in a curving fuse wire,
creating the characteristic wave pattern. The second is less about
the actual coil and more a fusing technique that can be applied to
other types of core.
STILL WITH ME?
To make that fuse wire, you’ll need to start with some clapton
wire. Then you’ll have to deploy some maths. The first question
you need to ask yourself is how wide is my wire?
I’m going to use two examples here, the first is a classic.
These are fairly simple to work out. If you’re using 28 AWG which
is 0.3mm diameter, your overall core will be 0.9mm so your initial
clapton needs to be on a core one-third of your overall wire width,
which is .9mm. Nine divided by three equals 3mm. Simple. With a
classic, you just clapton one of your core wires.
The second example is a 10-ply staple. Each piece of ribbon is
0.1mm so your overall width is 1mm. One divided by three equals
0.3333333 recurring, which is less simple. If you don’t have a nice
neat number to work with, you round up, in this case to 0.4, which
is 26 AWG.
START YOUR CLAPTON
There a couple of things to remember here. First, your clapton
needs to be wrapped the opposite way to how you plan to wrap
your alien. For example, I wrap my claptons counter-clockwise
and then my alien clockwise. This helps put the wrap down cleanly
and ensures the pattern comes out properly.
78 | VM17
The next part is removing the clapton from the core wire. There
are two methods for this. The first is to run your drill the opposite
way to the clapton but without letting it unwind. It will just loosen it.
You’ll know it’s working when you watch the wrap start to work its
way back down the core wire. Make sure you don’t let it unwrap.
The second is to stretch the core wire, which is harder to do with
26 or lower. Just grip each end of the core wire with some pliers
and stretch it. In both cases, the clapton wrap should come off like
a slinky or a long spring.
Your next job is to stretch this out. You must be slow and careful
about this as it has a bad habit of linking up and twisting on itself
if you’re not careful. You need to stretch it to create the wave
pattern, but you want it slightly tight to account for a little tension
stretching when you’re using it to fuse your cores. Once it’s all
stretched I like to put it on a spool as I find this makes it more
manageable as the spool prevents the wire from twisting up on
you as you fuse with it.
AND THEN THERE’S THE WRAPPING.
The key here is to lead the bind point by about 10 degrees. This
will help the wave pattern form and prevent the dreaded back-
wrap where it suddenly goes the wrong way. Try not to go too
quickly as it can be fiddly. I favour control over speed.
Now, if you’re making a traditional three-core I seriously advise
you to invest in some alien makers. They make life so much easier
by giving you a moving bind. This allows you to fuse your cores
at the point of the bind and the fuse wire pushes your bind along,
meaning your cores can’t twist up. If you can’t get an alien maker
or if you’re making a staple, I suggest you make a small bind from
some ribbon and just move it along when your fuse reaches it.