To Carto or not to Carto that is the question...

Rocketpunk;10871391 said:

Paging Baditude!! Paging Baditude!!

Cartos take a little trial and error before you get them down. No where NEAR as insane as far as research goes like rebuildables. But once you get it down, the flavor and the vapor production and the consistency of the hit are phenomenal.

My favorite tanks are the cheap, piddly, affordable polypropylene Smok DCT tanks. I have a few glass Smok tanks, but I dislike the aluminium shell and you almost HAVE to have a Slap Yo Mama or Tank Refilling Drip Tip Tool with those (but even so, if you're dabbling into carto tanks, a tank refilling tool is one of the best investments you could possibly make). I have an IBTanked on the way. Pumped. But those piddly cheap ones will suffice. I have almost twenty of them, both the slim and the fat versions.

Most "dct cartos" will come with either a single or double-hole, laser punched. The holes are small. I prefer the single hole. I've found that they are just fine with any pg/vg ratio up to 50/50. Anything over that, I suggest either two holes or punching a second hole yourself. There are many tools out there that will do this for you. All are relatively cheap. NOTE: The more holes, the likelier it is to "flood". Especially if you're using low-vg juice (a popular example would be MBV -- they automatically do 80/20 pg/vg unless you select otherwise, and it WILL flood a carto with more than one hole. 60/40 pg/vg is a pretty good ratio as far as "flavor" and "vapor production" goes.)

I prefer single coil. If you're using a fixed battery (one that only fires at 3.7 volts -- i.e., anything NOT variable voltage) you might want to choose single coil. Dual coils will allow you to up the voltage on your VV device, but it will most definitely drain your battery faster and could possibly consume more of your juice than you're used to. Otherwise, there aren't many other differences between the two.

There is a difference in carto brands. Boge and Ikenvapes seem to have a much more tightly-wrapped polyfill than, say, Smoktech cartos. The tighter the wrap, the more difficult it is to use with thicker juices, such as Boba's Bounty, which is 100% vg. I've found Smok cartos have a "looser" polyfill wrap than Boge and Ikenvape. They allow quicker and more thorough saturation with thick, viscous juices. But choosing a brand of cartos is PURELY preferential. No one can definitively say, "[X] brand is superior to [Y] brand" as far as cartos go.

Yes, 199% carto over clearo. You can chain vape a carto like a mad man, and if it's submerged in a tank, the hit will be consistent almost 100% of the time. I can vape faster than clearo wicks can wick, and this leads to many burnt or dry hits. I'm over those. No longer have the patience for most of them. I ditched clearos the moment I figured out carto tanks (however, the new iClear series of clearos has changed my opinion on clearomizers).

The biggest issue you will encounter will be properly priming the carto first. There are all sorts of ways to prime a carto, but the easiest and least hassle free (to me) is the drip/flick method. Hold the carto at an angle and drip about ten to fifteen drops into the polyfill, avoiding the center hole, and rotating the carto N E S W with each drop. DON'T rush the process. Give each drop a second or two to soak in. When it starts to pool up a little bit, flick it hard like a thermometer. I mean HARD. Then continue dripping ten to fifteen drops. Flick hard. When you finally see juice come out of the little hole on the side of the carto (if it is a flanged replacement carto with a hole), then the carto is sufficiently primed.

If you encounter flooding, there is a way to fix this. Take the carto completely out of the tank (if the tank is full with juice, pour the juice out of the tank and back into the bottle.) Take the flooded carto, cover the hole with your finger, stick the connector end into a paper towel, and BLOW through the top of the carto. This will force out excess juice. Hold the carto up to a light like a telescope. If you can see clearly through the air-channel, it's not flooded anymore. If you hold it up to a light like a telescope and the air-channel is clear, but becomes dark and you can't see through it anymore, continue blowing into the paper towel. You should always be able to hold a carto up to the light and see directly through it (until it's toast and dead).

Hope this helps, but I understand if it confuses you even more.

Baditude, peer review this. If I got anything wrong, please correct it.

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