Boge 510 - The art of knowing how many holes to punch

[tom79]

Hi,

I have a quick question for you more experienced vapers.What would be the general guide for punching the carto's?

My very first tank was this TW smoketech one with a minuscule hole in the cartomizer. It gave me the impression that one hole should be enough. I soon found out that the tiny hole didn't do the trick, so, I made it bigger.

Moving on, I have number of tanks now and I have the Boges with one hole punched in them. I am a bit torn about this subject as I experienced some flooding, albeit small, even with a single hole.

I vape 50/50 mix mostly but that being said some juices seem to be runnier then others. I find that some of the thicker juices don't wick as well and I get the occasional dryish hit.

This brings me to the main question. How many holes does one need to punch in for a regular 50/50 juice. Whilst I understand there will be exception to this rule there should also be the happy medium.

I guess it should look something like this but please chime in and help to educate me. This is why I am writing this in the first place.

PG - 1 hole should do
PG/VG - 2 holes should do
VG - 3 holes???

Just to add, I use both 2.0 & 3.0 ohm Boges on my ProVari at 4.0-4.3V & 5.0-5.3 respectively.

Many thanks

 

[invididual]

this is a good question, although i havent ventured into the DIY carto punching yet and im still using the pre drilled flanged ones, this is a direction i will be heading once i get my phiniac (if the wife ever lets me order it lol)

 

[Darkstarncw]

I generally just punch a slightly larger hole for 50/50. If I find it running dry, I pull the carto out and punch a 2nd hole in it. 2 holes seem to cause me problems more often than not, so I try to avoid them if possible.

 

[TravTech]

Unfortunately the 70/30, 50/50, etc designations aren't always a lot of help. It seems that though while these ratios may accurately represent the true PG/VG ratio, they don't always tell the whole story.

Some vendors and even DiY'ers will also add some grain aclohol or distilled water to thicker juices to make them more easily vape-able and useable by those with lower voltage systems. While this is taken into account when mixing, in order to maintain desired flavor level and an accurate nic level, it only confuses things when trying to determine the ultimate tank punching.

Short of using a viscometer on all of our juices, I think we're going to have to learn to just go by eye. Disregarding the advertised PG/VG ratio and rather just guesstimating based on the appearance of thickness. At least when starting a new carto.

Better safe than sorry I guess. You can always increase a hole size or add another. Reducing or removing a hole is a little more tricky.

 

[ynzr]

I've only been using a tank for two weeks so my experience is limited. But, I punched two holes in the first Boge carto I used and I got some flooding. I figured two holes would be the way to go since I vape 100% VG and it's pretty darn thick. Now, I've just been punching a single hole and it works fine.

So, as you've already implied, there doesn't seem to be a concrete guideline on how many holes based on viscosity. IMO how tightly packed the polyfill is probably plays more of a factor than viscosity.

As TravTech said:

Better safe than sorry I guess. You can always increase a hole size or add another. Reducing or removing a hole is a little more tricky.

 

[RayN]

In my (limited) experience, I'm finding 3 holes and occasionally 4 holes do the trick for me. BUT I am a very heavy vapor and take a draw about every other breath or so.

So, I'm guessing it has alot to do with how often you take a draw.

 

[Urge]

You also need to take into account how large a hole you are punching or drilling. If you are using a carto with filler inside and you rebuild them you might want to drill instead of punch so you don't have metal sticking into the carto that will snag your filler when you try to replace it after cleaning. A 1/16th" or so hole or two might be all you need.

Urge

 

[tom79]

I kind of expected that there won't be a straight answer to my question. Nevertheless, your feedback was helpful. I now understand that I will have to experiment. Thank you for taking the time to help.

As a side note, a good postie just brought me the Pila charger and yet another VPX tank. It is no.5 already. I really like them, the quality and the look on my ProVari. Loaded it with a piña colada and wow, what a wonderful taste. I feel like a spoiled kid. Hehe

 

[mas924]

Like others have already said its very hard to give a general rule. It will come down to the specific juice regardless of pg/vg %, and how often you vape. I've found that one of the biggest factors is the size of the hole, and the easiest way I've found to help control the hole size is with a saddle valve. You can buy one of these from almost any hardware store for 5-7 bucks (I got one from lowes). When you first pierce the carto it's a small hole about the size of the pre punched
Cartos, and the more you screw the pin down the bigger the hole gets. As with most things it's just trial and error with some experimenting.

One more tip:
Start with one small hole, fill the tank and assemble as normal. Take a couple quick hard draws without activating the battery. Look for bubbles coming out of the hole in the cartomizer. If you don't see small bubbles coming up, the hole isn't big enough and it's not feeding the carto correctly. Try making the hole a bit wider, or add another small hole. Continue this until you fell the carto is feeding well. Like I said its a matter of
Trial and error.


Good luck!

 

[<---cop]

100% VG here.

One top punch, one bottom punch. Its all about airflow. Never had any sort of issue and never needed a primer puff since.

 

[RayN]

100% VG here.

One top punch, one bottom punch. Its all about airflow. Never had any sort of issue and never needed a primer puff since.

Interesting idea, never thought to try a top hole.

 

[tom79]

100% VG here.

One top punch, one bottom punch. Its all about airflow. Never had any sort of issue and never needed a primer puff since.

I like this solution a lot. It makes so much sense. I guess it is the negative pressure which is our enemy and this should deal with it nicely. I will follow your example when replacing a carto next time. Thank you very much.

 

[r77r7r]

Great idea. If someone were to use multiple small holes from a drill, 3 or 4 vertically, I think you could cut strips from a carto condom to slide over the holes you ended up not needing.

 

[invididual]

Be a little tough to get in the tank though wouldn't it?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

 

[BOREMAN]

I slot my cartos with a dremel. I do two slots, one on each side of the carto, with one slot about a 1/4" above the bottom one on the opposite side. It has worked so much better for me than punched ones. I use boge 3.0 on a Provari w/various style tanks.

 

[tom79]

So, a bit of a misfortune on my side... The lovely tasting cartomizer from this morning decided to get flooded. I took the advice on punching another hole at the top on a new one. Mistake, mistake... Well, the idea is great but the cartomizer bent a lot at the top rendering it useless. I used the slapyourmama tool on the second go as a support for the barrel whilst punching it. It has done the trick. I will let you know how it goes.

 

[r77r7r]

--Invididual;

Yeah, you're right. I guess I was thinking about Momnpop's tanks w/ the removable ends. I was just throwing things out there......so, most other tanks have sealed ends that you have to slide the carto into?

 

[r77r7r]

So, a bit of a misfortune on my side... The lovely tasting cartomizer from this morning decided to get flooded. I took the advice on punching another hole at the top on a new one. Mistake, mistake... Well, the idea is great but the cartomizer bent a lot at the top rendering it useless. I used the slapyourmama tool on the second go as a support for the barrel whilst punching it. It has done the trick. I will let you know how it goes.

If you're punching w/a saddle valve you can sharpen the tip and it won't bend much. Last one I've done to mine this way, it was close to the holes from the laser-drilled, or hand drilled.

 

[tom79]

If you're punching w/a saddle valve you can sharpen the tip and it won't bend much. Last one I've done to mine this way, it was close to the holes from the laser-drilled, or hand drilled.

Yet another great idea. Cheers. I will do this! I have a Dremel and discs too but don't like the idea of burning the filler material by the heat generated. I could be wrong but that is just me, I tend to overcomplicate things

 

[Rttch]

I am under the impression, as a new saddle valve user, that the size of the hole matters the most with pg vs vg and not the number of holes. I'm intrigued about putting a small hole in the top of the carto. That makes sense, although I'm wondering if the bottom hole would need to be bigger or stay the same with the extra hole in the top (with 100% vg liquid, which I use the most). Thoughts?