My Atty Resurrection Method

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highping

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This is the only method I use, and I have attys that are 4-5 months old and still going strong. One in particular, I have vaped well over 300ml through and it hits like the day (after) I got it.

1. Blow out any excess juice.
2. Rinse with hot water and blow out thoroughly. (no need to dry over night, or anything. They have a built in dryer ;))
3. Connect to battery...preferably something higher voltage than stock. I use my variable voltage power supply that's connected to a PS passthrough and set it to about 5.2V for a 510 (6.5ish for an 801), but if all you have is stock, then that will work too.
4. Push button until you see orange hot...carefully...not super bright (white hot).
5. Let off button and blow down the barrel (from a distance, not with your mouth actually on it), this kind of flash cools it and also gets some of the moist air out to speed the drying process.
6. Repeat (steps 4 and 5) 5-10 times... you will see that gradually (once you've got it dry) the glow will occur much quicker.
7. Once you have it to this point, press and release the button at a rate that just holds the orange glow (kind of a manual 'pulse width modulate'). Keep this glow going for 20-30 seconds, being very careful to maintain the glow at low orange (not bright red/white) or you'll pop it.
8. Once you have done that, repeat steps 2-7 one more time.

At this point you will have an atty that performs like (or better than) brand new. I have used this technique with 510, 801, 901, 401, and 4081 attys and it always works for me. I like this method because it is quick and simple. No need for any cleaners or overnight soaking. Takes 2-3 minutes and you're back in business.

** You do have to use some caution, as you can pop an atty pretty easily until you have the method down. I haven't popped one in quite some time though.

**Also, no need to remove the wick (that's in there for a reason), as you are baking all the gunk out when you do this. This is the reason for the second rinse in the middle of the process. You basically turn the gunk to ash with the sustained orange glow, then rinse the ash out.

If anyone tries this, give some feedback and let me know if you find any ways to perfect this method. Seems to work great, but there are always ways to improve ;)

Edit: (some tips on the "rinse, dry and burn" stages of the process)

**Tips on the 'rinse' stage (step 2)
Step 2 is meant to get as much juice out of the atty as possible. The more juice you can get out with the water rinse, the faster you will get the atty dry in steps 4&5. (The water will evaporate off much quicker than juice.)
- Rinse by just running hot water from the tap first. Then once you have it somewhat clean, fill the atty barrel with water then (before all the water runs out), put it in your lips and blow the water through really hard. This will give all the nickel foam that's in the atty a kind of "power wash" and get most of any remaining juice out.

**Tips on the 'dry' stage (steps 4 & 5):
Steps 4 and 5 are meant to get the atty 'bone dry', before you move on to step 6 and the button pulsing.
-The more water you can blow out before connecting to the batt, the better. Blow through the atty really hard from both ends (not at the same time:rolleyes:)
- You can also blow gently down the barrel (from a distance), while holding the button in step 4 to speed the drying process. This will clear the hot moist air out of the atty and allow for a quicker drying time. The key in these steps is to get the atty dried out.

Tips on the 'Burn' stage (step 7)
The whole key to not popping the atty is keeping a good visual on the coil, and watching the hottest part while pulsing the button. I have had a few attys that will get bright hot on one end of the coil and nothing on the other end of the coil. The way to make this method the most effective is to maintain that orange glow at the hottest end while pulsing the button. If you keep it up long enough you will see the glow slowly migrate across the coil. When you are all done the entire coil should glow when the button is pressed.
Once you are past the drying step, you should not hold the button for more than one second. It should really be much shorter than that. More like a button pulse of 2-3 times a second.
 
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Lab

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this is how i do mine.. but i do a 10 min alcohol soak before hand. and a hot water rinse then a alcohol dip after the burn to get the ash out.. this is the problem i think ppl are getting that say they have a burnt taste.. either they did not burn all the residue to ash or just did not rinse it out..

another if the atty is giving a hard drag.. a needle pushed up the atty fixes that for me..

I only do this on attys that a simple cleaning will not fix.. because at that point if i break it then its no loss since i was going to throw it out if that did not work
 

highping

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...I only do this on attys that a simple cleaning will not fix.. because at that point if i break it then its no loss since i was going to throw it out if that did not work

That's one of the main reasons I use this method. It's as simple as it gets. No soaking, no drying time, no need to keep alcohol and cleaners around, etc. It only requires water, and it's 5 minutes start to finish.
Dirty, clogged atty that's not hitting worth a **** at 8pm; brand new hitting atty that's vaping clouds at 8:05pm ;)
 

southwestern vapor

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Thanks highping! I am new to vaping and appreciate the info very much. I only own 4 attys and two of them were already down for the count after only about a month of use. These two bad attys were the first two I purchased and started getting weak after just about a week of vaping Rath's 100% VG juices. Since then I have been using the two newer attys and wondering if I could get the other two to work again. I even tried boiling them as well as an overnight iso soak. Still no dice.

Anyhow after reading this thread I decided to give your method a shot. Now I don't have 5v or 6v capabilities yet so I had to use my in-line battery type PT. With this battery I could not achieve the "orange hot" status so it took a while longer but it worked. I just kept turning the battery on and off until I could barely hear any more sizzling. You can really smell this crap burning off. I then repeated steps 2-7 one more time, dried it again with the battery, primed it up and what do you know. It works great in fact I'm using it right now.

Since it took me about 20 mins to do this I am going to wait and clean my other dead atty when my 5v PT arrives next week. This way I will not kill my poor flimsy little battery PT. I'm even more excited to get the 5v now. Thanks again.
 
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Thyestean

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good thread highping. I've never once cleaned an atty as I usually just do a short dryburn process every couple of days to keep them clean. I did have one atty though that the dryburn had stopped working on and had been tossing it on the battery a few times the last few days and couldn't get it to glow at all. Hadn't gotten around to actually trying to clean it yet until reading this. Did it exactly this way and works great now. Thanks.
 

Lab

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That's one of the main reasons I use this method. It's as simple as it gets. No soaking, no drying time, no need to keep alcohol and cleaners around, etc. It only requires water, and it's 5 minutes start to finish.
Dirty, clogged atty that's not hitting worth a **** at 8pm; brand new hitting atty that's vaping clouds at 8:05pm ;)


yeah it is simple.. i just see so many ppl frying their attys doing this stuff.. I havnt so maybe it is just them doing something wrong.. but for simple light cleaning i just toss in alcohol for 5-15 mins depends if I am doing something else.. then run hot water through it.. then do a few dips in alcohol and put it up to dry
 

highping

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southwestern vapor: Great to see this helped. You usually won't get the 'orange glow' until after you stop hearing any sizzle. (see notes added to the OP)

Lab: I agree that this method is a tad risky if not done properly. I have added some notes to the OP that may help prevent popping.

Thy: Glad I could help out even an old expert :p
 

john doe

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last night i decided to clean most of my atties. i boiled some water in the microwave and dropped in the atties. swirled them around a little to get them completely wet. after about 5 mins i drained and did it again. then once more. after blowing them out i put them in the oven after cooking dinner, with the door open to dry them came back and applied a couple drops on the bridge. suddenly i was getting the best flavor and vapor than i've ever had.
 

Thyestean

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Thy: Glad I could help out even an old expert :p
lol ...

I think you actually cursed me with this posting as my 510 "disposable" atty suddenly stopped performing well and was producing almost no vapor today too. :?:

So I did this to that one too and I actually took and gave the atty a few hard shakes over the sink after blowing the water out. Got a bit more water out of it that way. Ended up getting to the orange glow stage a little quicker with that one but that could be because of the better drying or because it hasn't been in use as long as the other one had and therefore possibly not as gunked up.

One thing I did notice while doing this one though is that it was sizzling and gurgling quite a bit while doing the dryburn portion of the cleaning and when i kept the button held down and turned it upside down it drained out some more liquid. Each time i did the dry burn again I would get just a bit of sizzle at first but then more gurgling after about 20 - 30 seconds of burn. Not sure if this is due to something different about these attys or not but each time I was able to tip it upside down and dump more liquid out again that hadn't come out before reheating it even though I had tipped it multiple times.

And now it's working well again :thumb:
 

highping

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I must be doing something wrong. I popped two 901 attys this afternoon trying this, and I didn't think I was dry burning that long. It was orange, orange, orange, nuttin. :(

Doh!:oops:

I did pop a couple attys back when I first started doing this method, but anytime that happened it was because I let them get too bright by holding the button for 2-3 seconds when the atty was already dry. If you just let them get to a soft orange glow, they will not blow.
Once you are past the drying step, you should not hold the button for more than one second. It should really be much shorter than that. More like a button pulse of 2-3 times a second. (I will add this to the OP) I have never blown an atty using the button pulse method.

**again...use this method at your own risk. You may blow a couple figuring out how not to do it, but once you have the technique down it will work every time on any atty that is not "cold" (cold=dead, not cold=just dirty)

BTW: sorry for your loss Banjo:cry:
<moment of silence:sleep:>
 

highping

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Zurd. Welcome to the forum!

I usually do it once a week at the most. Sometimes every couple weeks. It just depends. I can tell when the atty isn't hitting up to par, and at this point, I have been doing it long enough to be able to tell if it is because it is dirty. (and not one of the many other reasons that it will stop hitting well like flooded, low batt, too dry, etc.)
Just be careful with this method especially if you don't have lots of extras to fall back on.
 

GregH

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I just wanted to add my thanks for this thread, highping.

I'd been throwing my old unusable attys in a zip-lock baggie just in case there came a day I would discover a way to revive them. And then I found your thread.

I took one out that's been in the atty graveyard for about 4 or 5 months and did your procedure. It's working like a new one now. Brilliant! :D
 
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