Atomizer maintenance

[deback]

There are only 3 possibilities.
1. The water used in your IA was not properly distilled.
2. Something contaminated it.
3. There was something on the drip tip that won't dissolve in IA.

Choose whichever one you want. Doesn't matter to me. lol (really, not trying to argue with you...but I didn't imagine the alcohol taste, for whatever reason it was still on the drip tip four days later).

Next time, I'll use only hot water to rinse out drip tips, so I won't get any rubbing alcohol in my mouth when I use them in the future. Heck, I wash my dishes with hot water, so it should be fine for washing drip tips -- and hot water will dissolve whatever might be inside the drip tip.

 

[cskalash]

I've never used 91% IA, only 97%+ and never had a problem (except plastic drip tips getting a strange color and some ink getting out of the atomizer). But when it's out i use hot water too, i even used dish washing shampoo lol, and it works. Whatever works for you is fine, but it's still weird

 

[Kerig3]

For cleaning atomizers I've used the Bulb Syringe method as shown here:
YouTube - VaporScoop.com Atomizer Cleaning With A Bulb Syringe
It works perfectly for me and only takes a few minutes per atty. The bulb itself only cost about $5 at your local pharmacy.

Anyone else use this method?

 

[cskalash]

That's a great idea, i've never saw that, but if i find a bulb syringe i will definitely give it a try. Thanks for sharing

 

[deback]

There are only 3 possibilities.
1. The water used in your IA was not properly distilled.
2. Something contaminated it.
3. There was something on the drip tip that won't dissolve in IA.

What point does it prove to site people who don't know anything about the chemistry of IA?

My original and only point was that rubbing alcohol can leave a residue. It happened to me. I tasted rubbing alcohol three or four days after soaking drip tips in rubbing alcohol. I got rid of that taste by rinsing the drip tip in hot water and using a q-tip to wipe out whatever was still inside that the rubbing alcohol hadn't dissolved and caused the rubbing alcohol to leave a residue. This problem also proved to me that hot water works better than rubbing alcohol to dissolve old e-liquid and saliva from the inside of drip tips, and q-tips should be used to wipe out any gunk inside the drip tips before doing a final rinse.

I supplied the who, what, when, and where -- just so people would know it was possible that rubbing alcohol (91% isopropyl alcohol in this case) can leave a residue.

You supplied the why.

Thank you!

 

[Automaton]

It's just that you calling it residue when it isn't is misleading, and if it were true that IA can leave residue, people would be dying from soaking their atties in it. It's simply a scientific truth that it does not leave residue.

My point is that there is most likely some other chemical reaction going on here, and certainly is not residue. IA can't dissolve some partially hardened substances, but the IA itself will evaporate anyway, and it may change the taste and smell of whatever it came into contact with and couldn't dissolve due to chemical reactions with whatever it could dissolve.

I had such a thing happen where afterwards it smelled a bit like nail polish. This was not the IA, and isn't really what IA smells like - this was the chemical result of the IA coming into contact with the substance.

I'm curious as to what you think IA tastes like.

 

[Shan B]

Trust me when I say I've vaped IA, yep, burnt the shat out of my lungs. And believe me when I say it tastes EXACTLY like it smells X 10,000.

I agree with nomad on this. I use AI for ALL of my atty cleaning, have had 1 reaction and it was because I decided to try someone's Crest toothpaste idea and it left this nasty residue behind, and upon using IA to clean that out, it left this harsh chemical taste in it for days. I had to wind up soaking it for 4 hours in IA and doing multi dry burns to get it cleared of the toothpaste reaction.

*EDIT* In the 7 weeks I've been using IA, I have never had a reaction or build up from using 91% alone.

 

[Automaton]

Yup, IA needs to either be on a fully solid substance (like metal) or a fully liquid substance that it can dissolve (like juice) to evaporate. It may react with a substance if it can't dissolve it, which can result in a nasty taste/smell, or which can make the IA take much longer to evaporate. But this isn't residue. It's a result of the substance you put it on, which either caused a chemical reaction, or diluted the IA with other chemicals that wouldn't allow it to evaporate.

This is why atty cleaning with IA works best if done regularly - at least a couple times a week. It is less likely that semi-burnt juice and other crap has built up on the atty, which means that the IA will dissolve it effectively, and evaporate quickly.

 

[Shan B]

I concur

 

[Strigoi]

i just checked my bottle of cheap (CVS brand) 91% and it says it has purified water as the inactive ingredient. i don't care enough to research it but maybe that could cause an issue.

i rinse all my stuff off with hot tap water after soaking it in the 91%. i let some attys sit in some yesterday for about 4 hours (had been used for over a month and were nasty), rinsed them with hot water and let them dry overnight. i'm using one right now and have had no strange flavor from it at all.

 

[Automaton]

The higher the purified water content, the longer the IA will take to dry. But, the purpose of purifying water is to remove all particles and impurities from the water.

This is why it is preferable to tap water, especially in something you're vaping. Tab water has minerals and other impurities which are fine to drink, but not great for your lungs.

Cleaning with only purified water takes longer to dry, but works fairly well, if you are worried about using IA.

 

[rogerdugans]

Just started cleaning attys in alcohol today.
I didn't really use my DSE801 long enough to NEED to clean any...

But the 901s I use with the mod seem to be... erratic due to clogging or something.

I expect that tomorrow they will be much better.

Thanks for asking the question, and the answers.

 

[frnkj74]

Not sure whom you were replying to or what you meant by, "No, they don't," but there was definitely alcohol residue inside one of my drip tips. This happened a few days after I soaked them all in IA. I tasted it several times before using a q-tip to wipe it all out from the inside of the drip tip. The alcohol taste was gone after I did that. I used 91% isopropyl alcohol when I soaked several drip tips a few days earlier -- and they were all definitely dry when I tasted the IA.

I have 1 stainless steel drip tip from super T manufacturing & 2 black delrin drip tips & I clean them exactly as MistressNomad has explained, her & Cozzicon is where I got the idea to clean them this way...I also clean my attys in the same fashion & have never had any issues with "tasting" the isopropyl alcohol. My attys have lasted for quite some time using this method.

 

[frnkj74]

My only point was that I could taste IA when putting one of the drip tips into my mouth, about 3 or 4 days after I had soaked all of my drip tips in IA, and that I was able to get rid of the IA taste by wiping out the inside of that drip tip.

Just did a search at Google for "isopropyl alcohol residue" and found several pages where people think there's such a thing. The first page came to a thread here, if anyone's interested.

Anyway, I'm bored with this subject, so I'm movin' on.

"think" hmmmmm, maybe those same people are sniffing it too hard & thinking about it too hard & they're coming up with the illusion that isopropyl does leave a residue behind hmmmmm?

 

[deback]

I'll concede that IA doesn't leave a residue. "Residue" was the wrong word to use when I mentioned that I tasted (and smelled) rubbing alcohol from a drip tip three or four days after soaking several drip tips in a cup of IA. Perhaps I imagined that smell and taste (that I smelled and tasted about three or four times before wiping out the inside of the drip tip). Perhaps I imagined that the smell and taste of rubbing alcohol went away after I wiped out the inside of that particular drip tip. I don't know what that smell and taste was from; it happened for only one drip tip and hasn't happened since then. It smelled like IA, the vapor tasted like the smell of IA, but obviously it couldn't have been IA.