Trying to refine my experience

[B1ue52]

Hi and thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

A bit of context:

Been a 20 a day smoker for 28 years.
Been vaping properly for around 2 months, combined with smoking at a vastly reduced level.
Just made the switch to 100% vaping in past couple of days but looking to refine my experience as I am having a few issues and I don't want them to undermine my weak will power.

Current gear is as follows:
Innokin Coolfire IV Plus x3
Innokin iSub G Tank x1
Innokin iSub A Tank x2
0.5 Standard Coils

vaping Behaviour:
Circa 300 puffs per day
70 to 80% VG 6 mg Liquids
20 to 25 Watts
2 to 4 second puffs
Max airflow

So I'm getting on really well with the Coolfire Mod, no complaints there whatsoever. However, I am looking to get a better experience from my tanks and am on the lookout for some new ones that offer me what I want. The iSub tanks offer me some of these things, but not all. Being able to achieve this would really help with my experience and I am sure keep me on the road to giving up smoking.

iSub A Tank:
This is what I started with.
Love the build quality
Love the top fill
Love the airflow
Hate the fact I cant see how much juice I have left
Hate the spitting (I clean every refill)
Hate how quick I burn through coils... two days is the longest so far
Not impressed at all with flavour

iSub G Tank:
Poor build quality
Dont mind the bottom fill
Hate how noisy it is
Don't like the drip tip fitment
Love how I can see how much juice I have left
Hate the spitting (I clean every refill)
Hate how quick I burn through coils... two days is the longest so far
Not impressed at all with flavour

I've tried switching to SS coils, but these are terrible in my experience. Within a tank or two they act like they are blocked and drawing becomes extremely laboured. Tried sticking a pin in the wick as recommended by my B&M, but this makes no difference.

However, my main issue is with the lack of flavour produced by these tanks. Especially sweet/fruit flavours that taste incredible in my B&M, but of nothing in my own tanks.

So... I would like to find some new tanks. Preferably ones that excel in these areas, in order of priority:

1. Flavour at lower wattages, 20 to 25w range
2. Build quality
3. Visibility of liquid level
4. Cost of running, coil turnover/price etc

Any help would really be appreciated as there are so many to choose from and I don't want to have to trial and error it if at all possible.

Considering the SmokTFV4 but looks like you have to run these at really high watts?
Considering the Cumulous, but worried not mainstream and coils parts are hard to come by or expensive
Considering the Vapeston Ceramikas but can't find much info on it.

Happy to consider anything else you think fits my requirements.

Thanks

Andy

 

[GranFumador]

Congratulations on the progress so far.

Haven't used the gear you have, so cannot offer any direct comparisons.

That said, you appear to be looking for good flavor from a trouble-free tank, with good coil behavior and economics.

Here's a synopsis of my experience- Smoked a pack or more a day from age 20 to 66.
Started with garbage cigalikes, quickly moved to ego/vision spinner batteries and kanger protanks. Graduated to isticks and GS-air family of clearomizers. Was happily there for about a year. Recently moved up—in terms of quality, though not cost— to
Ego One Mega VT, Tron-s, and Ego one xl, and the newer ego one mega v 2.
All perform very nicely with the CLR coils, both kantal and titanium for temp. control.

Key points for these tanks and ClR coils:

Fine flavor and lots of vapor at low wattage.
No spitting.
No gurgling.
No leaks.
Not noisy.
Ridiculously easy to rewick.
Fairly easy to re-coil, even with only one hand working at the moment.

Coils last and last and last. Flavor and copious amounts of vapor stay good for at least
three or four days, and when the pull gets a little constricted, I recoil with rayon. Takes a minute or so to pull the old wick, dry burn, rinse, and put a new wick in. If I run everything through the ultra sonic cleaner (I do this every other recoil), that adds another five or six minutes.

I am brand new to recoiling and building wicks, and it has gone well, thanks to guidance from Cheechako and IMRs. Have done both kanthal and titanium wicks with no problems.

I use high vg juice, ~6-8 mg nic, mostly citrus and tropical fruits.

There is a thread about these tanks and coils:

eGo ONE tank series – CLR coil

 

[Ed_C]

Since you said, "flavors that taste incredible in my B&M, but of nothing in my own tanks", why don't you find out what they are using? It's been a while since I've been to a B&M, but most used to use cheap mouth-to-lung type clearomizers. This may not be relevant to you, or it may be, so I'll throw it out there. The new style direct lung, sub-ohm tanks are really less like smoking than the mouth-to-lung tanks. I've been using carto tanks for 2 years and just purchased my first sub-ohm tank and I'm really not sure if it's for me or not. While sub-ohm direct lung vaping is all the rage, it's still not for everyone.

 

[CagedSpam]

Both of the above comments are really spot on. I'll be that guy and recommend the old Nautilus mini if your doing MTL hits.
I would try dropping the wattage bit by bit, see if you can "tune" your vape a bit. Higher wattage kills some delicate flavors iirc.
Example, running GS air at 3.7v+ in the Istick basic seemed a bit dry and meh. Turned the wattage down 11w/3.1v much better for me.

Good luck!

 

[Bonskibon]

I've been having good success with my Toptank mini's and use them for MTL. Having the added RBA is nice too.

 

[B1ue52]

Hi

Thanks for the replies.

@Ed_C - Yep, same occurred to me and called the B&M a couple of days ago to find out what the tanks are that they use for testers for the flavours I use. It is the Cumulous tank I mentioned above and why I was considering it.

@CagedSpam and Bonskibon - No MTL hits, I'm happy with the direct lung approach. Took some fine tuning of my technique but once I worked a few things out I don't miss MTL of analogues too much.

So the situation has evolved somewhat. I did a lot of research on tanks that produce good flavour and offer me the features I mentioned above and settled on the Uwell Crown. Went and got two yesterday and all my issues except one have been solved. Flavour is amazing, lots of vapour, no spitting, can see juice in tank clearly.

However, I am still burning through a coil per day!! I got three tanks of juice out of the Crown yesterday before the coil burnt out and I have no idea what I am doing wrong. Research suggests that even heavy users can expect to get a week out of a coil, but not me.

I prime the coils properly with at least a full dropper of juice.

I let the new coil wick in the tank for 15 mins or so before vaping it.

I then break them in slowly, starting at 20w, then slowly working up to what I found the sweet spot to be on the crown of 45w.

I don't hammer the hits either. Long gentle direct lung hits of around 3 to 4 seconds, but 2 to 3 tanks later and all I get is burnt cotton!

Ive tried re-priming etc, but makes no difference. Would really appreciate some guidance on this subject alone as I am getting to my wits end!

Thanks for the responses so far.

Andy

 

[CagedSpam]

Probably should take apart one of your burned coils and see whats going on in there. Either crud build up or burnt cotton?
If its burnt maybe vapor lock on your tank, sometimes exhaling into it(the driptip) makes bubbles appear and feeds a bit of liquid to the coil.