Kanger protanks are a really really bad product or am I missing something?

[NiNi]

+1

Had occasional "issues" with the PT's.

My PT's and PT2's (6 months of usage) got me into making my own coils, micro both horizontal and vertical. A few weeks later, I found myself ordering a Kayfun Lt, RBA, just for S's & Grin's. Easier than the Protanks to coil. Going to give all my Protanks to the BF, who I might add was an 'Nam airplane mechanic, who WON'T recoil, so he can just buy the stock heads and deal with it. give a man a fish, etc., not going there.
......have 3 more KF Lt's ordered......for myself

Trouble shoot the PT's and look at it as part of the "learning curve".

1. Ditch the wicks and stock coil
2. Use COTTON (a little goes a long way)
3. 30 ga wire/6-7 wraps on a 1/16 bit or 18 gauge needle makes a great coil at 1.6-1.8 ohms. (vertical)
4. Prime your wick with a few drops of e juice.
5. If you still get flooding, it may be from juice coming up between the stack and chimney that just one gasket doesn't stop, try doing a double gasket:
one with the cup facing downward, the other facing upward.
6. And double check ALL of the o-rings, they have a tendency to "fly off" when you take the ProTanks apart for cleaning. Been there, done that. Similar to the notorious "sock monster" in the dryer, the o-rings just disappear.
7. Stock heads MAY have a "hot leg", one of the ends of the coil are not properly set between the bottom tip and the white grommet. It WON'T fire. Check the bottom of the head, and if you see a wire sticking out, trim it back flush with a pair of toenail clippers.
8. Stock heads MAY not have the air flow port etch in it. Yes, I had one, just a circular doughnut ring going on.
9. Airflow issue? Get the Aspire base. I never needed one, but the consensus is that it helps tremendously if that's a problem.

And then you can always just go with the Aspire or Davide and skip it all...........haven't heard much about issues with them.

My PT's and replacement heads were all KangerTech, BTW.

 

[Alter]

My learning curve for protanks was steep and fast. I maintain my wifes gear so it has to work properly(Happy Wife, Happy Life). Once I figured out the DIY part of the stock heads, rebuilding came easy and I've tried several different builds in my protanks...
---microcoils with 28, 30, 32, 34 guage kanthal...like microcoils but they are juice hogs and clog up quickly inside the coil, not outside thus changing the ohm rating constantly.
---vertical coil..maybe I just couldn't get the right amount of cotton in there but it didn't make me happy so it was short lived.
---dual side by side microcoils..they were a challenge to get in there and IMO I didn't have enough wicking in the coil, they fired nice but still got slight burnt taste and then went downhill since the coils musta moved too close together and YUK. I made a 1.0 and a 1.6ohm dual side by side and the 1.0 worked nice but either not enough juice or air and got burnt taste quickly, the 1.6 went for several days of nice vape and must of moved and began to get metallicily taste.
---subohm... I made a .3 microcoil and IMO the protank can't feed enough air to supply a good hungry subohm build. Burn't taste super fast.


After building all kinds of different coils in my protanks I still ended up using the standard 6 wrap 32 guage coil builds for our regular vape needs but I went past the cotton and hemp fiber to unbraid my ekowool and insert several strand with a bead threader into my builds and now I have dryburn ability along with convience of wick changing like cotton/hemp. I go a lot longer than the usual 3-4 day window you have with cotton before wick replacement. I didn't torch my ekowool cause once you torch it, it becomes crispy and harder to use, I give it a few good red hot blasts after its all installed to kinda torch the wool and have had no funky taste from the wool.

Just take a "brand new" head, remove the flavor wicks, align the coil wraps so they are all the same width apart( check with PV to make sure it fires from the center outward and fiddle with it till it does), remove the silica wicking kanger supplies, twist a unboiled Qtip swab into the naked coil (don't be cheap on the trim you can hide excess in the base after its all together), use the origional silica from the coil as flavor wick or offset the 2 others so each stick out the side slits some. Put the head back into the base--remove the stem and prime the coil with few drops of juice--put stem back on and tuck excess cotton with a pin into the base.
Put her all back together, fill with juice and have a vape. You'll amaze yourself how easy this is and your new AWESOME vape quality after you get your eyes back to normal from rolling into the back of your head.
This was my first rebuild attempt along with my first taste of cotton and never looked back until I unbraided my ekowool.

 

[gando_salo]

I rarely ever hear anyone complain about the protanks.. Ususally very reliable and easy to use...

I have about 10 of these things with my Provari. v1 & v2. Got em all.

I can't believe people use these products without hiccups because it is about as unstable as a product has ever been. Let me outline some of the problems :

1. Whether it vapes or not is an entirely random event. You may have screwed it too tight or not tight enough or there may be a bubble etc etc. You have to have it just right and NEVER open it again while it's working right to keep the situation under control.

2. If it's vaping at all there is a HIGH likelihood of getting e-liquid squirting out the front as you vape. Enjoy that. If you use highly potent 36 mg e-juice like me that could land you in the emergency room if you end up drinking enough of it.

3. If it ever falls over there is a 50-50 chance of it breaking off in your provari in which case you'll have to unscrew the broken part in the provari using a screwdriver. An exercise not up to everyone's speed.

Right now, I got 2 v2s in the mail. One worked after fiddling around with it quite a bit. The other one WILL-NOT-WORK. No matter what you do with it. A fellow vaper in my office has done everything he can with it too. Nothing. All we have right now if you screw it on and press the button on the Provari while it's upside down is it will squirt out lots of e-juice from the front onto your hand or whatever you got in front of it. We dare not try to vape off it but if we did we likely wouldn't get any vapor anyway.

Can people tell me what it is we're doing wrong and if nothing, then can someone recommend a better and more stable tank product for the provari that isn't $100+ since I'd like to buy like 5 and fill em up with different juice.

 

[jay_deranged]

My wife has had no issues with her Protank mini although the draw is too airy for my taste therefore I opted for the Protank 2. I was initially having problems with my Protank 2 flooding and allowing warm juice to "spit" out my Drip Tip. Thinking it was defective and about to give up on the product my local vendor keyed me in to the fact that I was tightening the tank to the base too much which was compressing the gasket on the atomizer to the point that it was not creating an effective seal. I was skeptical at first but gently tightening to the base solved my issues and I have not lost any of my precious juice from leakage even though it is not completely "cranked" on there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Alter]

My wife has had no issues with her Protank mini although the draw is too airy for my taste therefore I opted for the Protank 2. I was initially having problems with my Protank 2 flooding and allowing warm juice to "spit" out my Drip Tip. Thinking it was defective and about to give up on the product my local vendor keyed me in to the fact that I was tightening the tank to the base too much which was compressing the gasket on the atomizer to the point that it was not creating an effective seal. I was skeptical at first but gently tightening to the base solved my issues and I have not lost any of my precious juice from leakage even though it is not completely "cranked" on there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You can swap the PT bases around like a PTmini base on a PT1 or 2 and visa veras. Different bases have different air flows and I have several bases I bought onhand and swap them around to get the right airflow. It may look a but odd to have a PT2 with a mini base but as long as it works..who cares. lol
...and yes those opaque clearish insulators are too soft and lousy to use and squish super easy especially when wet from juice.

 

[retired1]

Moved to Clearomizers

 

[edyle]

I have about 10 of these things with my Provari. v1 & v2. Got em all.

I can't believe people use these products without hiccups because it is about as unstable as a product has ever been. Let me outline some of the problems :

1. Whether it vapes or not is an entirely random event. You may have screwed it too tight or not tight enough or there may be a bubble etc etc. You have to have it just right and NEVER open it again while it's working right to keep the situation under control.

2. If it's vaping at all there is a HIGH likelihood of getting e-liquid squirting out the front as you vape. Enjoy that. If you use highly potent 36 mg e-juice like me that could land you in the emergency room if you end up drinking enough of it.

3. If it ever falls over there is a 50-50 chance of it breaking off in your provari in which case you'll have to unscrew the broken part in the provari using a screwdriver. An exercise not up to everyone's speed.

Right now, I got 2 v2s in the mail. One worked after fiddling around with it quite a bit. The other one WILL-NOT-WORK. No matter what you do with it. A fellow vaper in my office has done everything he can with it too. Nothing. All we have right now if you screw it on and press the button on the Provari while it's upside down is it will squirt out lots of e-juice from the front onto your hand or whatever you got in front of it. We dare not try to vape off it but if we did we likely wouldn't get any vapor anyway.

Can people tell me what it is we're doing wrong and if nothing, then can someone recommend a better and more stable tank product for the provari that isn't $100+ since I'd like to buy like 5 and fill em up with different juice.

Well if you've got a provari, you might as well get something more upscale that the simple protank; probably a cartotank system.

The atomizer heads on the protanks need maintenance, otherwise they tend to leak after some usage; since you have some 10 or more heads, you should have enough to keep them on rotation, changing them once a day or two depending on how long they run before they start giving trouble; meanwhile you soak, dry burn and replace the topwicks on the used ones for recycling.

I did not understand the part about e-liquid squirting out the front; either theres too much power going to the coil, or perhaps you mean you are tilting it upwards and the eliquid that flooded the coil is coming down to your lips? I tilt mine if it floods, but I don't use high nicotine, so its not a problem for me.

 

[kk5000]

I knew unless I was missing something others would come forward with similar issues and you guys have. We've played around with the tanks today thanks to several excellent posts on the subject here (and thank you everyone for those). Appears to be a question of getting them set right and making sure they do align right with the holes.

I do wish there was a plug and play system though. This is a real weak point with e-cigs right now. You can buy the best device (provari) and get the tank they literally ship with it and continue to have issues unless you learn how everything works and be prepared to manually rebuild the whole tank which to a non mechanical guy like me is pure hell. Is there a tank product out there that just works out of the box?

 

[Hulamoon]

For what it's worth I use the T2's for HHV 100% purity liquids, Azure 100% VG and even Want2Vape's (gnarly but soooo gooood) without problem - just in case you're in the mood to retry the plug n play some time....

I tried to get into clearos but they just don't play nice with 100% VG enough for me to enjoy them. I love the fill and good to go aspect, but they just don't cut it for me.

Drip, drip, drip for me...

 

[TruSound]

Interesting...a horrible product you bought 10 of.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 

[edyle]

I knew unless I was missing something others would come forward with similar issues and you guys have. We've played around with the tanks today thanks to several excellent posts on the subject here (and thank you everyone for those). Appears to be a question of getting them set right and making sure they do align right with the holes.

I do wish there was a plug and play system though. This is a real weak point with e-cigs right now. You can buy the best device (provari) and get the tank they literally ship with it and continue to have issues unless you learn how everything works and be prepared to manually rebuild the whole tank which to a non mechanical guy like me is pure hell. Is there a tank product out there that just works out of the box?

Yes; one that is hardly ever mentioned seems to be the 510 connector; a new device will work for a few months, but down by the center pin you will eventually get problems; wouldnt surprise me if alot of ego type batteries fail earlier than they should because of problems caused down inside that connector:

1: liquid leaking past the center pin down into the electronics
2: insulator material breakdown (especially after being affected by liquid) (insulator being the material between the center pin and the 510 threading)

That insulator material takes alot of stressing from putting and taking off toppers, and eventually it's going to wear out.

 

[edyle]

The closest thing to a plug and play system would be a carto system.


With the protanks, I think if you changed the head everyday, you should be good; but if you're going to discard the head after then you might as well get a carto system; or you are going to save up the heads and clean or rebuild them.

Carto's themselves can't be rebuilt (yet), except for the Sophia system, which most people don't call a carto, because it uses a wick and not a big wad of filler; the Sophia is a rebuildable atomizer head built with the size and shape of a carto, so it just fits into a carto tank, instead of a special clearomizer; the predecessors to the Sophia are the Killer and the Diver; the Sophia has the ability to turn off or adjust the size of the holes (cartos have usually two holes for liquid to flow in; but the size cannot be adjusted bigger or smaller);