I've been vaping root beer float in my cartz which is a very dark liquid and it seems to clog the cartz after less than a day. Obviously the solution is to burn lighter liquids but am wondering what I can do to resurrect the clogged cartz I have. I tried plain boiling water and that doesn't seem to help. Is it safe to use rubbing alcohol on these?
510 Cartomizers and Alcohol
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So you soak them in vodka arjay55? I am wondering the best way to clean a carto, not E2 style, the kind with filler. Running hot water ruined one carto, and we're unsure how to clean the remaining four. Vodka sounds good if it works well. Any advice for a newbie?
I rinse mine under running hot water, then blow through them, then put them in a container with vodka for an over night soak. Re-rinse and blow through each one. Let them dry for 2 or 3 days. Works really good for me. I have noticed that when I take them out of the vodka and rinse and blow, if I can still smell any sign of juice I put them back in clean vodka to soak again.
I more recently started using white vinegar as its much much cheaper, works as good as the vodka, and you know when your carto has been rinsed out enough once the vinegar smell is gone.
I've actually done a pretty much 'Cinjay' said above but now use the vinegar.
I'll see if I can find my other post where I explain my cleaning process in more detail.
Thanks arjay55, any help is appreciated. 
Huh, y ou use running water Cinjay? I did that and it ruined the carto, I don't know why, but it wouldn't fire after it dried (overnight) thanks for the reply!
Huh, y ou use running water Cinjay? I did that and it ruined the carto, I don't know why, but it wouldn't fire after it dried (overnight) thanks for the reply!
OK Pamster. I kinda found it. It was on a different topic so I'll adjust it to suit (the original was on how to get juice OUT of a carto).
If your carto's have a removable plug at the mouthpiece you can get most of the water out of them quite easily using the "Reverse Taryn Spin". It's also fun.
I use one of those pencil grips that the kids have ( the soft slightly gooey feeling one at the moment) and a lanyard for my spinner. I stick the lanyard's clip through one end about a 1/4" from the end.
* Pull the white plug out of the mouthpiece end using a paperclip or dentist's pick (or equivalent). (I use the 510 cartos)
* Take a long plastic end-cover (condom) and put it on the mouthpiece end about half way
* Put your Taryn spinner on the threaded end. No condom here. I push it down about a 1/2"
* Spin your lanyard round and round quite briskly for about 10 to 20 seconds and check out the condom. It should now have extracted some of the water. Pour it out.
* Put the condom back on and start spinning it again for 10 to 15 seconds. Empty water. Continue doing this until no more water pools in the condom.
* Your carto's filler material should look pretty dry by now. And fluffy too.
* Put them out in the sun to finish drying them off.
**** I use the "Regular Taryn Spin" when filling my carto's. On my regular 510 cartos I get around 40 drops of PG and only 30 of VG in each one when new.
Hope this helps.
If your carto's have a removable plug at the mouthpiece you can get most of the water out of them quite easily using the "Reverse Taryn Spin". It's also fun.
I use one of those pencil grips that the kids have ( the soft slightly gooey feeling one at the moment) and a lanyard for my spinner. I stick the lanyard's clip through one end about a 1/4" from the end.
* Pull the white plug out of the mouthpiece end using a paperclip or dentist's pick (or equivalent). (I use the 510 cartos)
* Take a long plastic end-cover (condom) and put it on the mouthpiece end about half way
* Put your Taryn spinner on the threaded end. No condom here. I push it down about a 1/2"
* Spin your lanyard round and round quite briskly for about 10 to 20 seconds and check out the condom. It should now have extracted some of the water. Pour it out.
* Put the condom back on and start spinning it again for 10 to 15 seconds. Empty water. Continue doing this until no more water pools in the condom.
* Your carto's filler material should look pretty dry by now. And fluffy too.
* Put them out in the sun to finish drying them off.
**** I use the "Regular Taryn Spin" when filling my carto's. On my regular 510 cartos I get around 40 drops of PG and only 30 of VG in each one when new.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks for the great info! Much appreciated, hadn't heard about the spin technique before, but I will give it a try.
Thanks arjay55, any help is appreciated.
Huh, y ou use running water Cinjay? I did that and it ruined the carto, I don't know why, but it wouldn't fire after it dried (overnight) thanks for the reply!
That might be because a carto that's been soaked with water needs more than overnight to fully dry. If it's still soggy wet or damp inside (usually from the middle down to the threaded end where air can't get to the rolled filler good), it won't work properly (very little vapor, hard draws, etc). Or if a wire is broken inside, it won't work at all.
I did a test on a defective carto, took out the filler, got it real wet, squeezed it a little, put it back into the carto, and placed the carto in front of a fan. After two full days, the filler was not dry yet. I believe that cartos need about 3 to 4 days to be completely dry.
Also, when cartos are soaked in water for any length of time (in my case, the 2nd time I cleaned some cartos, soaking all afternoon and all night), it pretty much ruins the carto. Draws will be hard, little vapor, and pretty worthless. So if I ever clean cartos again, it will be just a quick flush, without soaking, and using the syringe and rubber cone that's shown in one of my blogs about cleaning cartos (to flush out all the excess water).
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Deback- will you just "take one for the team" and try the oven drying thing already lol??? I took one when I tried to boil them on the stove, now c'mon
lol - Yea, I know I could give it a try, but sometimes I just won't stray from common sense, especially when something makes no sense at all.
I can tell you, tho, that I'll NEVER soak cartos in tap water again (or any other liquid, including isopropyl alcohol, vinegar, pure grain alcohol, etc). After letting several cartos soak in tap water all afternoon and all night, flushing out all the excess water, and letting them dry thoroughly in front of a fan (about two weeks ago), they now have that funky taste of minerals from tap water.
However, when I've quickly flushed out old juice using the syringe and rubber cone, I didn't get any funky taste, and those cartos worked fine.
Also, yesterday, I was getting a rubbing alcohol taste and discovered there was residue inside the drip tip I was using from soaking it in rubbing alcohol for a few minutes a few days earlier. Yup, after using a q-tip to remove the alcohol residue, that taste was gone. This particular drip tip is the type that a q-tip won't go all the way through, so I guess I never swiped the inside of that particular drip tip after soaking it in IA.
So, what have we learned?
1. Don't boil cartos. Shrinks the fillers by at least 33% and might not work again.
2. Don't soak cartos in tap water. Leaves a funky mineral taste and might not work again.
3. If you must clean a carto (like to remove old or bad-tasting juice), just flush it out quickly using tap water and dry by a fan for about 3 days.
4. It's best to refill cartos for about a month and then discard them. That's if you refill each carto once a day. So, refill them about 30 times, if they don't get clogged or die before then. If you're only refilling and rotating two cartos each day, they should last for two weeks and possibly longer.
5. Don't buy distilled water, isopropyl alcohol, white vinegar, or pure grain alcohol to clean cartos. Cartos are only $1.59 each. It's not worth spending too much time or spending money on cleaning liquids to clean cartos.
6. Allow flushed-out cartos to dry for more than overnight. It takes about 3 days for the filler inside to dry completely, if the excess water has been flushed out using a syringe and rubber cone. The filler is rolled up inside the carto and is fairly tight, so it will still be damp after two days sitting in front of a fan. And if you only blew out the excess water and didn't flush out the excess water, it will take longer than 3 days for the filler to dry completely.
7. If you want to ignore common sense and risk ruining the carto, you can use an oven (set at low heat) or a dryer (inside a sock, scratching other cartos that are inside the same sock).
8. Clean drip tips (those with smaller holes) with hot water only, or if soaked in IA, swipe out the inside with a q-tip. Isopropyl alcohol can leave a funky-tasting residue inside that will remain there until it's wiped out with a q-tip.
Did I leave out anything?
Thanks deback, I think that might have been the case now since it had rolled up filler, that might not have been dried totally. Good call. Great informative post too, thanks!
Thanks, Pam! Also, I posted a thread about what happens to me when the fillers aren't dry enough - and why I made the decision to NOT clean cartos anymore.
It's in the Cartomizer Issues section:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...mizers-salivation-no-throat-hit-problems.html
It's in the Cartomizer Issues section:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...mizers-salivation-no-throat-hit-problems.html
Ok!
I dug out three KR808D-1 cartos from the discard bag and decided to give the oven drying thing and the dryer drying thing a try.
I quickly flushed out the three cartos (using my method described in my blog) and put them on a pizza pan in the oven at 200 degrees for 17 minutes (that included the preheating time), and then rubberbanded the three cartos, and threw them into an old sock, tied the sock near the bottom, and threw the sock into the dryer with the towels and sweats I was drying (for the last 20 minutes or so of the total drying time).
The three carto fillers seemed to be dry, but I had no way to tell for sure that the fillers were dry down by the atomizers.
I filled them with my liquid and did test vapes of all three. Two of them seemed to be clogged before I flushed them. They still seem to be clogged, so I'll put them back into the discard bag. The third one seems to vape okay, and I'm not sure why it was in the discard bag. I'll put that one back in rotation.
So, since it didn't seem like I was vaping any water (there was no water on my tongue when doing the test vapes), I'll quit using a fan to blow dry flushed-out cartos for 3+ days and use the dryer instead (still not sure if I want to bake them in the oven, but the dryer seemed to work fine the way I rubberbanded them and placed them into a sock, so they couldn't fly around).
(
Deb- do you think this would damage the tiny wires and stuff inside the cartos (banging around in the dryer)? I'm thinking that the oven, set on low temp, maybe even with the oven door cracked open or blow dry with a hair dryer?
Oven drying is safe, quick and it works. Just preaheat your oven to 225 degrees (if you cleaned with water). Turn the heat off after 15 minutes and let the cartos sit in the oven overnight. Done.
Hair dryers work very well and refluff your filler, too. I used my hair dryer, low setting, on alcohol-cleaned cartos (use vodka or PGA). Alcohol evaporates quickly. I wouldn't put alcohol-soaked cartos in the oven, though. Turn the heat off first if you want to use your oven. Better be safe than sorry, especially if you have a gas oven....
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