510 Carts: Hard tips vs. Soft tips / Please advise

[Mudflap]

I'm still new to vaping and haven't had a lot of success with separate attys and carts, so I thought I'd give carts a try. I just got my most recent order in and I have 10 brand new carts for the Joye 510. Five are soft tip and five are hard tip. I did some searching and browsing on the Cartomizer Issues subforum, but I couldn't find any of the basic info I'm looking for. I'm sure it's out there, but man, is there a lot of info to comb thru.

Anyway, please direct me to helpful threads or give me a run down on what a newbie needs to know about carts. I haven't attempted to use either yet. (I received a drip tip in the same order, so I'm happily sampling new flavors at the moment. AND charging my new USB passthrough. )

P.S. - Why does my USB passthrough have a rechargeable battery? I had assumed it was meant to be used solely when plugged into a powered up USB port.

 

[markfm]

Combined cartridge + atomizer = cartomizer, often abbreviated to "carto"

With a hard cap you pretty much fill from the bottom, the condom method. Put juice in a rubber end cap (without a spire in it, sometimes called a .... plug), slowly push the carto down into it, battery side down. A little juice will bubble out the mouthpiece due to any air pockets. Keep pushing, slowly, until it really is just juice coming out, then remove the carto, wipe with a tissue, blow through the mouth end with a tissue over the battery terminals (to catch excess juice), and wipe the battery end before putting it on the battery.

With a soft cap, there's a rubber plug at the mouth end, rather than a glued in plastic cap. You can pop the rubber plug out with a paperclip or any other handy item, and fill from the top, rolling the carto slightly to help the juice get absorbed evenly. Again, recommend blowing through it when you're done, to dump excess juice, and wipe the bottom contacts before putting it on the battery.

The big difference, to me, is cleaning (I view condom and top fill as equally painless). I like to soak in isopropyl alcohol, rinse thoroughly under running tap water, then bake in the oven on a paper towel at 200 - 250F for 40 or so minutes (not much higher than 250, or the carto wrapper may shrink). With a hard cap I first have to pop the cap off -- soak in very hot water for about 30 seconds to loosen the glue, then pop the cap out with a fork tine. (holding the carto in a paper towel since I do mean hot water)

Your passthrough (PT) is a sit-and-go type, lets you use it both ways, keeping the inline battery constantly topped off. It likely is also only outputting 3.1V or so. A "classic" normal passthrough just runs the incoming USB 4.5 - 5V through to the connector, so it provides higher voltage vaping (you can't use an LR atty on a normal PT, too high a voltage).

 

[Mudflap]

Thanks markfm! One more quick question: Will the battery in my passthrough eventually have to be replaced? I thought the whole point of a passthrough was to conserve your portable batteries for on-the-go use only.