Why is my e-liquid turning dark?

[VegasSparky]

No stinkies for over a month now, but having a problem. During the day I vape w/a pen style 510(or CTwist), and clearo. For the past week I've noticed within a day my clearos get hard to draw on, and the e-juice I use turns from clear/orange to black. I don't taste burnt wick, and the experience isn't nearly as satisfying as when I started. I've tried washing the clearos, and replacing wicks/coils, without much change. Does this sound like a battery, or clearo problem?

 

[Evi|grin]

Are you using a extra sweet juice?

 

[xpl0it]

Oxidization and from the heating of the eliquid it begins to gunk things up a bit

 

[VegasSparky]

Pretty sweet. My favorite is Zeus Juice signature flavor.

 

[calico21]

It sounds to me like a carmelization problem. The sugars in your juice may be turning darker, it builds up on the wicks and coils which is really hard to just clean out. That's been the problem for me in the past.

 

[retired1]

What clearo are you using?

 

[bhswmc01]

I notice this on my evods if I refill it with the same sweet flavor over a period of a week or so. Just finish the tank, then give everything a good cleaning.

 

[VegasSparky]

Oxidization and from the heating of the eliquid it begins to gunk things up a bit

It goes bad so quickly now though. A day and the clearo is almost useless, and the flavor isn't the same. I hope my taste hasn't changed that much in a month. I loved the Zeus Juice.

As these small batteries get weak, will that change the vape characteristics? What would be the typical consequences of lower than normal voltages(<3.5V) on wicks/coils/juice?

 

[VegasSparky]

What clearo are you using?

Mostly just cheepie clearos with replaceable coils/wicks, and also a Kanger(2 ml or so) that fits on the small batteries, all from a local B&M store. The Kanger doesn't look quite right on the small batteries, so I don't carry that as often. I constantly drop my gear at work, so I don't want to always be breaking more expensive stuff. I have an EVic for at home and haven't seen the darkening of the juice happen in that yet, and it only gets refilled once every couple of weeks.

This seems to have only occurred recently, so I was wondering if the batteries I have are reaching EOL.

 

[savagemann]

How often are you changing out the atomizer head?

 

[Bkag]

Temperature and light also play into the oxidation process, if a clearo is left in a warm sunny place it will tend to go darker faster than in a cool dark climate

 

[WarHawk-AVG]

Pretty sweet. My favorite is Zeus Juice signature flavor.

sugars + heat = carmelization

If the taste isn't changing...just use what juice you have in the clearo up...then rinse the heck out of it, if it is..dump the browned juice, rinse the heck out of it..possible soak in alcohol overnight with another rinse and hopefully it will have knocked the burnt juice under the coil in the wick loose

 

[zapped]

My wife has this same problem with her juices.

Her and I use use the exact same carto tank setup.My juices never turn dark and the carto never gets a hard draw. I use sweet juices as well.

Her carto has the same hard draw at 2 days that mine only gets after a 2-3 weeks of high vg juice.

I think the problem stems from how hard she is pulling on it. Even though she is vaping strawberry and cream flavors it frequently smells like lightly burning wood

You may have experienced this when you smoked and people bummed cigarettes from you. Some people take such a hard drag the filter disintegrates a bit and turns dark brown almost immediately. This is why I never let someone take a drag of my cigarettes. That and getting the filter wet....ughhh!!!

Conversely some of us could smoke an entire cigarette and have the filter only turn a light-yellow-golden brown color.

Try taking a longer, much softer softer drag and see if it helps with this problem.

Harder draw means more air and more air=more heat= caramelization

 

[Nuuze]

Sweet juices and a hot coil (low ohms /1.5-1.8) causes caramelization of the sugars on my sweet juices. Plus I tend to take long draws as well so by the time I'm 2/3 done with my tank the juice tends to be really dark. Doesn't happen as much since I went back to higher 2.5 ohm coils. Hope this helps.

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

Caramelization is part of the issue. Another part is heat and light, which partially oxidizes the nicotine and possibly other ingredients as well. I see the OP is in the desert southwest. It gets rather warm out there, doesn't it?

The lower voltage from a battery that's 50% or less than it's rated voltage can also affect the performance of the system, contributing to a gunked up coil and even lower performance. Throw in a high VG liquid, and things can go downhill in a hurry.

Keep your device fully charged, keep it in your pocket and away from heat and direct sunlight, and make sure you clean on a frequent, regular basis.

You should also consider a better performing battery system. Any Ego variable voltage battery will be an improvement over what you're using, and advanced systems that monitor performance and adjust power as necessary would be an order of magnitude better in squeezing every bit of vapor out of your liquid.

The Vamo, the SVD, the MVP are all good entry level mod systems, and it seems like there are more options emerging daily.

 

[rexy]

I use a protank and my juice was turning very dark. I turned down my volts on my mod from 4 to 3.5 and now I don't have that problem. I think I was very lightly burning my juice so that I couldn't taste it-only see it.