Atty FAIL, why?

[Theophage]

I'm a noobie to vaping, but rather techie.

I've noticed that atomizer death is a VERY common problem.
After reading a bunch of posts and looking at several pictures
of atomizers, I'll be so bold as to comment on heater failure.

The heater in an atomizer is a very small coil of
heating-element wire. The wire is made of metal similar
to that in an electric toaster. e-liquid boils and is vaporized
when electrical power is supplied to the heater wire.

We've probably all read by now that it is really important to make
sure that the atomizer is not operated except when it is well
supplied with liquid. It may be useful to understand the reason.

E-liquid, in contact with the heater, is vaporized when power is supplied to the coil.
The coil gets quite hot and vaporizes the liquid.

If the heater coil is covered with liquid, it will not get much hotter than the boiling
temperature of the liquid. If the coil does not have a sufficient supply of liquid, several
things will happen, all of them undesirable.

1) The vapor will get hotter than necessary, this causes oxygen in the air to
react with the some of the nicotine making it inactive. The carrier liquid can
also be affected, causing it to taste bad. This is wasteful, at best.

2) Severely overheated liquid can break down and leave behind nasty deposits
on the coil which will prevent efficient heating of the liquid.

3) In addition to preventing good vaping, deposits of black junk will cause the
heater to get too hot and can cause the heater to burn out.

This nasty stuff is really hard to get rid of. It's kind of like the junk let behind
when something boils over inside your oven. Alcohol, vinegar, or other things
you might try will probably be ineffective at removing the crusty, carbonized
junk. Oven cleaner might work, but it is also likely to eat the aluminum tube.
Some of the black stuff may also run down into the tiny air passages under
the heater and obstruct them. This will make your e-cig hard to draw.

While it might be possible to clean the air passages with water and/or a pin,
deposits baked onto the heater coil are very difficult to remove. Sometimes
it may be possible to burn the deposits from the coil by rinsing the atty
under water and drying it, then heating it with a push-button type
battery. This has a good chance of causing the heater to burn out, however.

I could go on ... but I won't, for now.

 

[Xanax]

Honestly- atomizer death is something that SHOULD be very rare in this community. It's so easy to keep an atomizer going if you just treat it right and learn to use it correctly. Dry burning is terrible for atomizers as I've learned. I always brag about my healthy atomizers because I haven't had one die in my 5 months vaping. I don't think an atomizer should ever die too soon if it wasn't mis-assembled or damaged from the start. If you've got a perfectly healthy atomizer from the start and you take good care of it there is no reason it shouldn't last a long time.

PS: Nice first post heh.

 

[Theophage]

Thanx Xanax,

I agree, there is no reason that an atomizer shouldn't last a long time. The 501 kit I got was enough to get me started. As I experienced various common difficulties, I tried to figure out what caused the problems. Within a few days, I had torn the battery unit apart entirely. This was all before I found ECF, it seems quite squared away. I'm impressed that even folks with hundreds, or thousands of posts check out and respond to newbie forums.

 

[Xanax]

Thanx Xanax,

I agree, there is no reason that an atomizer shouldn't last a long time. The 501 kit I got was enough to get me started. As I experienced various common difficulties, I tried to figure out what caused the problems. Within a few days, I had torn the battery unit apart entirely. This was all before I found ECF, it seems quite squared away. I'm impressed that even folks with hundreds, or thousands of posts check out and respond to newbie forums.

Hahah I still feel like a newbie here. Although I'm not allowed to post threads in here I still lurk it quite a bit.

Back on topic- I've seen YouTube videos on "how to clean an atomizer" where the people hold down the manual buttons and dry burn their atty's for 5 minutes! WTF! In one video the guy's atty actually died in process and he tried to turn it around and say "this is what happens if you don't do it right, I did that on purpose to show you how NOT to dry burn". I died laughing.

 

[AttyPops]

LOL you guys.

Yeah, I did that ... NOT on purpose either. Just pushed it a liiiiittle too far. Swore a lot. Gave up on dry burns after that. Now I use Cozzicon's (and I suppose others) alcohol soak. Sometimes, vinegar and/or water rinse. Have not had a heating coil fail since. I make sure to keep it wet, blowing out "cooked" juice frequently.

Have had atties fail due to connector-side issues. But that was due to a spot of solder on the battery-side connector. The center pin on these things can get pushed in. If you can't pull it back out, or the insulator ring breaks, you may not be able to (easily) fix the issue. Killed 2 of em that way. Wised up after that. Oh well.

 

[Java_Az]

When it comes to atty cleaning i pretty much tried every way i have heard about. I killed quite a few atomizers when i started. But something that wasnt brought up is Juice. I have a bottle of e liquid sitting here that is bad. It will clog a atomizer with a quickness which was causing me to clean them a lot. In turn i killed a lot of them. After cutting a few open they were encased in the black shell of hell i call it. Since i quit buying that vendors fluid i dont get that anymore. So bad juice can for sure kill your atomizers. Also have only lost one atomizer since then and it was one i was dry burning. Don't recommend doing that either. But just thought i would bring that up cause in my case this juice was for sure causing my problems.

 

[Theophage]

Wow, cleaning gurus!
Now I'll have to admit that I've given some thought to zany cleaning methods as well as better atty heater designs.
With a current controlled power supply, one could easily heat an atty to, say, 750°F, and avoid vaporizing the nichrome.
It's a feature which could easily be added to one of them zany battery mod units. It would work sort of like a self cleaning oven.
I rather doubt that the feed-through insulation would do well, however.
Supplying a bottom fed cooling gas might solve the problem although a phase-change chilled power socket sounds more effective.

If one wanted to try removing deposits more aggressively, the atty could be fed with hydrogen, I suppose. Reduction cleaning seems more workable than feeding oxygen or chlorine pentafluoride, although any of these would probably yield a result that would be spectacular and not result in a functioning atty.

Don't try this at home.

 

[Rosa]

...Don't try this at home.

LOL! Even if I had the slightest clue what the heck you were talking about I wouldn't try it at home. LOL!

 

[AttyPops]

LOL! Even if I had the slightest clue what the heck you were talking about I wouldn't try it at home. LOL!

+1 Rosa.

Although, I'm currently in the camp that it's the (fairly) low heat of the atty that keeps the juice safe to vape. You want enough heat to do the job, but not over-cook it. I don't really know. I always washed out the atty after attempting a dry-burn. So cleaning by heat doesn't seem like a direction I wish to go in anymore. Not saying it was bad, mind you. But... why blow up another atty anyway? Something about nasty compounds being formed at extremely high heat. Check the safety section discussions in PG/VG for more info.

P.S. Not an atty expert, nor cleaning guru. Rinsing the stuff out just seems to work well for me. Good point about the juices too, Java_Az. Some just clog more than others.

EDIT: P.P.S. Some people swear by the dry-burn method. If it works for em, cool (or should I say HOT). For me, I tended to pop em. And before you ask, NO that's not where the user-name came from. That was from one of my 1st newb questions on the popping sounds a particular atty made when new.

 

[breaktru]

I agree, take care of your atty and it will last. I vaped continuous on one 510 atty for two months straight. Now I switch off with my mega atty in the day and 510 in the evening. All I do is rinse it with warm tap water and blow it out every 3 days. Occasionally I use dish-washing liquid, rinse and blow out. I would NOT dry burn until the element glows as shown on some videos.

 

[Theophage]

+1 Rosa.

Although, I'm currently in the camp that it's the (fairly) low heat of the atty that keeps the juice safe to vape. You want enough heat to do the job, but not over-cook it. I don't really know. I always washed out the atty after attempting a dry-burn. So cleaning by heat doesn't seem like a direction I wish to go in anymore. Not saying it was bad, mind you. But... why blow up another atty anyway? Something about nasty compounds being formed at extremely high heat. Check the safety section discussions in PG/VG for more info.

P.S. Not an atty expert, nor cleaning guru. Rinsing the stuff out just seems to work well for me. Good point about the juices too, Java_Az. Some just clog more than others.

Yes.

Here's the deal: If the heater is well supplied with fluid, the heater cannot much exceed the boiling point of the fluid. If too much power is supplied to the heater, the liquid will bubble so vigorously that it will be displaced by the bubbles and there will very little liquid in contact with the heater. This will cause the temperature of the heater to rise rapidly and the liquid will absorb so much heat that it begins to break down and char. When the char covers the heater, there will be no liquid in direct contact with the heater to cool it effectively and it's temperature will rise fast, and it may get hot enough to melt the heater if the power remains on.

The liquid will vaporize at somewhere around 500°F normally. The heater will probably remain intact unless it exceeds about 1000°F. This can happen very quickly, however, particularly if too much voltage is supplied to the heater.

A more sophisticated design could eliminate this issue, but not inexpensively.