510 atty lifespan?

[KennyD]

I'm sorry guys but you are complaining about a simple 10 dollar part.

One atomizer is the same as 2 packs of cigs....lol I'll take an atomizer lasting ONE WEEK compared to 7 packs of cigs totaling 40 dollars lol.

[a2dcovert]

I'm sorry guys but you are complaining about a simple 10 dollar part.

One atomizer is the same as 2 packs of cigs....lol I'll take an atomizer lasting ONE WEEK compared to 7 packs of cigs totaling 40 dollars lol.

No, I'm complaining about a part that may soon not be available at any price. Where have you been? Do you not know that the FDA may ban the sale of the e-cig very soon?

[KennyD]

Propaganda. LOL the FDA haha.

I will stock up on 20-30 atomizers if I need to. Put debt on, like every other american. What's another 1,000 lol. Just think 1,000 bucks buys a lot of e-cig stuff

[General Idea]

I sell the 510 (and a few other models) at my ecig shop.

I've seen 2 kinds of failed atomizers, one kind that just produces too small an amount of vapor and another that leaves a bad metallic taste in your mouth.

If it gives the bad metallic taste it's done... I had one do this fresh out of the box.

If the atomizer is clogged, I use a 100 watt ultrasonic cleaner at the shop for 10 minutes with a small amount of simplegreen - then blow it throughly with an air compressor. more often than not this works, by the third hit with it we get excellent vapor again.

Just my experience... I wish I could (easily) fix or replace my 601 pipe atomizer.

[cheech]

I'd like to try the ultrasonic cleaner on my 510 atty. Just hope I don't break it.

[tromboneking]

I'm on my fourth month with my atty. I just blow them out every once in a while. I'll use it enough where i have to replace at least 1-2 batteries a day...my heavy smoke days (weekends), I'll replace the battery a lot more. I only switched a few times from a few hours to about a week. I think I did that about 3-4 times because I got the long life attys and wanted to try them with the 901 whistle tips that I bought just for that atty type to test it out.

My attys are from TW and have been great...not too great with vapor at times but fairly consistent nonetheless.

[Scottbee]

I'm going to go mildly against some of the grain here...

I had an atty die recently. It ran quite hot for a while (but still produced good vapor) and then it finally went soft. A resistance test showed that it had gone up above 5 Ohms.. so I knew that there was no bringing it back. I took it apart in order to make a cartomizer adapter for my 510.

When I pulled it apart I saw that there was a fair amount of gunk that had essentially crystalized at the center of the heating coil. This stuff was as hard as a rock.. almost like glass. It had essentially "killed" the center section of the coil, and only the edges were now getting hot. That led to the edges going incandescent (glowing red), and that led to oxidation of the nichrome and the lost resistance.

That chunk of crystalized gunk could probably/possibly be dissolved in a solvent like alcohol... but it was a hard chunk and it would probably take a long time with a lot of agitation. It was just too far gone in my opinion.

I'm thinking that the gunk built up incrementally, day by day. And if I could remove it day by day... it should be pretty easy. So this week, I have started to rinse my atty every morning with alcohol. No big deal, and so far so good.

I plan on taking this a step further. I'm going to get a small pill bottle and put the alcohol in it. And every night I'm just going to drop the atty in the bottle, give it a shake, and let it soak overnight. Every morning I will blow it dry, put a few drops of liquid on the bridge, give it a few minutes to go down the wick (I know that's a very important step!).. and see how it goes.

I'm not recommending that anybody else try it. Just like Jim Morrison, I will personally go to the edge and bring back the message for you!

[a2dcovert]

You are on the right track Scottbee. I have been soaking my attys in rubbing alcohol for some time now. It has worked well for me. Here is some data I recently posted about attys:

In my experience so far it is important to check the resistance of your atomizers. The resistance should be normally around 2 to 3 ohms. This will give you an idea of the electrical health of the atomizer. It will not tell you that there is or isn't a dirty coil. An atomizer coil that is coated with carbon will still have good electrical resistnace.

There are 3 types of atomizer failure:

1. Electrical problems that can be detected with an ohm meter. Resistance higher than 2 to 4 ohms is not normal. This indicates something is breaking down either in the coil itself or the coil connections are going bad. Be sure that the multimeter you are using can be trusted to give fairly acurate numbers.

2. Coil coated with carbon. This is hard to correct due to the toughness of carbon. It is extremely difficult to get rid of carbon build-up. Some try dry burn, hydrogen peroxide burn and other different ways to clean this carbon off. This is the leading cause of atomizer failure.

3. Wicking problems due to juice clogs. This problem is usually easy to correct by soaking in alcohol or other "safe" solvents.

I hope this helps.

Kevin

[VinnieVapor]

Good reading !

Now I know why one of my atomizer died: I had done many mistakes :

• I did not knew the gurgling sound was because I flooded the heating element. It made my 510 make sound, like a heavy puff on a cigarette ! I tought it was cool and did not care.
• By distraction I leaved the button pushed for way too long (almost burned my fingers) ... After that the atomizer became bad: poor vapor and overheating !

Those mistakes lead to a big clog for sure

I tought the flood was mostly a problem leadign to fluid in the mouth. Now I know better. Thank to everyone who share their experiences

[a2dcovert]

You are on the right track Scottbee. I have been soaking my attys in rubbing alcohol for some time now. It has worked well for me. Here is some data I recently posted about attys:

In my experience so far it is important to check the resistance of your atomizers. The resistance should be normally around 2 to 3 ohms. This will give you an idea of the electrical health of the atomizer. It will not tell you that there is or isn't a dirty coil. An atomizer coil that is coated with carbon will still have good electrical resistnace.

There are 3 types of atomizer failure:

1. Electrical problems that can be detected with an ohm meter. Resistance higher than 2 to 4 ohms is not normal. This indicates something is breaking down either in the coil itself or the coil connections are going bad. Be sure that the multimeter you are using can be trusted to give fairly acurate numbers.

2. Coil coated with carbon. This is hard to correct due to the toughness of carbon. It is extremely difficult to get rid of carbon build-up. Some try dry burn, hydrogen peroxide burn and other different ways to clean this carbon off. This is the leading cause of atomizer failure.

3. Wicking problems due to juice clogs. This problem is usually easy to correct by soaking in alcohol or other "safe" solvents.

I hope this helps.

Kevin

Here is a post that really says it all:

Why do atty's fail?

Kevin