I've been almost exclusively vaping on clearos since graduating from prefilled cartomizers- and recently bottom coils clearos only. The ease of use vs performance on them has been pretty good, but I'd like to know if anyone could give some ideas what I'm 'doing wrong' with carto tank setups, as I've just given them a 5th or 7th try while I wait for new coils for my clearomizers to come in.
Here's my experiences so far, open to any ideas about what I'm missing. (A detailed account- I initially scoffed at the suggestions that tanks have a 'learning curve' but clearly I must be messing something up!):
First carto tank I got was a Valley View Vapes polypropylene tank with thumb screw hole, and a pack of pre-punched and tested Boge LRs from the same vendor. I also got a tank fill tool / 'slap yo mama' whatever you'd like to call it.
Attempt one, I dripped a few drops at a time into the carto top, and waited for it to seep in, but it never did (tank was preassembled and vendor suggested doing it this way since there was a fill hole.) After an hour still had a juice pool from just a few drops, so I removed the carto to do the 'condom method'. (this is an all vg+ distilled water, but nowhere near as 'thick' as some of the really thick juices out there.) Even the condom fill method on this first carto, was really hard to get it into the poly fill at all. It seemed the stuffing was super tight. I lubricated the edges and O-rings with juice before sliding it back in, and used the tank tool- but the fit was incredibly tight. Took a lot of strength to get in and out, and spilled about 6 mls of juice on myself in the process of fighting with it. End result was very little vapor, and still no saturation, even after sitting overnight.
I retried these process with a few other juices, on the other 4 cartos in the box before giving up on the whole thing. I also tried syringe filling, but even then, 3 out of 5 cartos were nearly impossible to saturate. I got one decent vape out of the box, on a carto that seemed to saturate more easily with the same juice. I don't know if they're just inconsistent or I'm doing something stupid. The hassle of the syringe method (cumbersome and messy, maybe the gauage wasn't big enough?) and the incredibly tight fit for the o-rings and all the juice spilling, made me swear off carto tanks as not worth it for awhile. I had some smoktech cartos and smoktech locking dct tanks already on the way, but just threw them in the drawer expecting the same or worse experience.
I finally got around to trying the smoktech setup this week. I had 2 hole laser punched dual coils, in the locking tank. Compared to the boges, these saturated really well- I was able to drop, shake, wait, drip until it looked like a 'slushy drink', which seemed consistent with all I've read (no saturation issues like the Boges.) They're flanged, so couldn't be condom filled. Before inserting in tank, airflow was good with no gurgling, and the fill looked wet. I was pleasantly surprised to find that these cartos slid into the smoktech tank much more easily, and then locked down tight. I thought I had it right, but the second I took a draw, it began flooding, badly. I repeated the process, this time undersaturating the carto, but again, instant floodsville once it was in the tank. I even tried removing the carto, blowing it out, and reinserting, but that didn't help.
I finally picked up the old valley view tank and boge carto, topped it off, and was surprised to find it was now vaping great. However, it had been a nightmare to fill and it had to sit in the drawer for almost a month to get properly saturated, a process I don't want to repeat.
--
Obviously, I'm doing something painfully stupid here, any suggestions on what? And some follow up questions if you've been kind enough to read all that:
-I like the size, locking mechanism, and ease of filling of the smoktech tank quite a bit. But the cartos just flood. I also don't really want dual coils, too much power drain. Should I try to find some 1 hole LR smoktechs and assume it will be better (these are always out of stock too.)?
-is it worth getting some boge flanged ('f16') pre punched cartos and putting them in the smoktech locking tank? Maybe they'll saturate better than the box of boges I got before? Maybe the problem with the first box was they were manually punched by the vendor and it tightened them up / made them so hard to fit?
Here's my experiences so far, open to any ideas about what I'm missing. (A detailed account- I initially scoffed at the suggestions that tanks have a 'learning curve' but clearly I must be messing something up!):
First carto tank I got was a Valley View Vapes polypropylene tank with thumb screw hole, and a pack of pre-punched and tested Boge LRs from the same vendor. I also got a tank fill tool / 'slap yo mama' whatever you'd like to call it.
Attempt one, I dripped a few drops at a time into the carto top, and waited for it to seep in, but it never did (tank was preassembled and vendor suggested doing it this way since there was a fill hole.) After an hour still had a juice pool from just a few drops, so I removed the carto to do the 'condom method'. (this is an all vg+ distilled water, but nowhere near as 'thick' as some of the really thick juices out there.) Even the condom fill method on this first carto, was really hard to get it into the poly fill at all. It seemed the stuffing was super tight. I lubricated the edges and O-rings with juice before sliding it back in, and used the tank tool- but the fit was incredibly tight. Took a lot of strength to get in and out, and spilled about 6 mls of juice on myself in the process of fighting with it. End result was very little vapor, and still no saturation, even after sitting overnight.
I retried these process with a few other juices, on the other 4 cartos in the box before giving up on the whole thing. I also tried syringe filling, but even then, 3 out of 5 cartos were nearly impossible to saturate. I got one decent vape out of the box, on a carto that seemed to saturate more easily with the same juice. I don't know if they're just inconsistent or I'm doing something stupid. The hassle of the syringe method (cumbersome and messy, maybe the gauage wasn't big enough?) and the incredibly tight fit for the o-rings and all the juice spilling, made me swear off carto tanks as not worth it for awhile. I had some smoktech cartos and smoktech locking dct tanks already on the way, but just threw them in the drawer expecting the same or worse experience.
I finally got around to trying the smoktech setup this week. I had 2 hole laser punched dual coils, in the locking tank. Compared to the boges, these saturated really well- I was able to drop, shake, wait, drip until it looked like a 'slushy drink', which seemed consistent with all I've read (no saturation issues like the Boges.) They're flanged, so couldn't be condom filled. Before inserting in tank, airflow was good with no gurgling, and the fill looked wet. I was pleasantly surprised to find that these cartos slid into the smoktech tank much more easily, and then locked down tight. I thought I had it right, but the second I took a draw, it began flooding, badly. I repeated the process, this time undersaturating the carto, but again, instant floodsville once it was in the tank. I even tried removing the carto, blowing it out, and reinserting, but that didn't help.
I finally picked up the old valley view tank and boge carto, topped it off, and was surprised to find it was now vaping great. However, it had been a nightmare to fill and it had to sit in the drawer for almost a month to get properly saturated, a process I don't want to repeat.
--
Obviously, I'm doing something painfully stupid here, any suggestions on what? And some follow up questions if you've been kind enough to read all that:
-I like the size, locking mechanism, and ease of filling of the smoktech tank quite a bit. But the cartos just flood. I also don't really want dual coils, too much power drain. Should I try to find some 1 hole LR smoktechs and assume it will be better (these are always out of stock too.)?
-is it worth getting some boge flanged ('f16') pre punched cartos and putting them in the smoktech locking tank? Maybe they'll saturate better than the box of boges I got before? Maybe the problem with the first box was they were manually punched by the vendor and it tightened them up / made them so hard to fit?
