a question about Vision V3 rebuildable Clearo (maintenance)

[Rypp]

Hi,

I have had my V3 for about 5 days, it's 1.8ohm and I have an ego-t battery. Yesterday I started to notice the dreaded plastic taste, I know this can be caused by a number of things, but being new to using a tank system my knowledge of how to fix this sort of thing is fairly limited.

I'm vaping a 30/70 Peach juice, and at first I thought maybe the juice had affected the plastic as I heard that can happen with more "citrus'" kinds, but being a rebuildable I decided to strip it down this morning and give it a little wash.

Now I have seen inside I think I understand better how these things work, after I removed the silicone cap and could see the wick and the coil I noticed that the wick was a bit blackened underneath, not really bad but a little bit burnt. I assume that is where the plastic taste is coming from, so I repositioned the wick so the burnt bit wasn't near the coil, I dripped juice onto it directly, refilled, and it seems fine now but I have a couple of questions.

Did the wick get burnt because not enough juice was getting to the coil? Maybe this was due to me holding the button too long and over-heating it?

I still had about 0.5ml in the clearomizer so it wasn't running dry but I want to know how to avoid this happening again (if it was the cause of the plastic taste)

Also, if the head is fine and the coil has not burnt out, is it worth me re-wicking it at some point? The V3 is cheap enough but re-wicking would save me some pennies for sure.

Oh, and do I need to remove the wick if and when I dry burn the coil to remove any buildup of gunk? I didn't want to pull the wick out this morning because I was worried I would break it and not be able to put it back in. Next to the coil there is a little C shaped bit of material, I read this might be there to stop the heat from reaching the outer metal casing but as I said, I don't know enough about what all the bits are for just yet.

I love my little V3, and want to make it last as long as possible, I will be getting a Vivi Mini next month, but I assume the priniciple for cleaning and maintenance will be the same so it's best I start learning now.

Many thanks for the help, I really appreciate your time, and sorry for asking you what has probably been asked millions of times before.

 

[pms5]

The wick isn't actually burnt. It's able to withstand really extreme temperatures. What happens is that the juice gets burnt onto the wick and builds up on the coil itself. If the coil isn't too bad you could try soaking the whole head without the plastic cap in vodka overnight. Give it a good rinse, dry thoroughly and you could get another week out of it.
If not, you could try a dry burn. Empty the juice and leave off the tank and rubber part of the head. Don't remove the wick. There's no reason to move it either. Give a good rinse under the tap. Re-attach to the battery/mod and power-up in around 4 second bursts, leaving a couple of seconds between, until the coil glows red - don't carry on too much after this. Once you've got this far, remove the head again and give it a really good rinse once more to get rid of the burnt flavour you've just created and some of the crud that's been burnt off.
Leave to dry or break out a hair-dryer, then re-assemble.
It's a fairly quick and easy process once you get the hang of it.
To be honest though, if you've got a plastic taste, it might be that the legs of the coil have started to melt the rubber grommet that seperates the positive and negative legs at the base of the head. Some heads suffer from this, and some don't. The heads vary a lot in quality. The best option here is just to chuck it and fit a new one.
The piece of material around the coil serves a few purposes depending on who you ask. It helps to keep the sides and legs of the coil from touching the outside of the metal post and shorting out. Some consider that it also serves as a heat shield, and others that it absorbs some of the e-liquid helping with wicking. Not too sure about the last theory though.
Re-wicking is fairly easy too, though I'd suggest you check out some of the videos on YouTube for that. It's another fairly easy technique to pick up - I find that 2mm wick and 0.17 (or thereabouts) nichrome works well for the V3. Around 4 or 5 turns gives you an ego-friendly 2 ohms. Doubling-up on the legs helps with the burnt grommet issue too.

On your last point - you'll probably find that the Mini Novas are a lot better in use. They have a more airy draw and the heads seem to last even longer. I use them in preference to the V3s now, just saving the V3s for sampling new flavours.

Hope that helps!

 

[andy5and]

Thanks pms5 just tried out your advice on dry burning and its worked a treat.

 

[pms5]

Thanks pms5 just tried out your advice on dry burning and its worked a treat.

No worries mate. There's a lot of different advice about this kind of thing out there, but this method is cobbled together from the bits that worked for me. I've still got a few original style ego Visions that have been knocking around for around six months and still work great after around 10 dry burns. Works just as well for Novas too, but to be honest I've got a bit more disposable income at the moment so I buy a few more new heads every payday. The used ones are still being saved in a big ziplock bag though. If money starts to get a bit tight again, I'll start re-coiling them again. It's just as easy as dry burning once you've got the knack.

 

[Deep Blue Witch]

Pms5 - great post!