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I prolly would've reacted in the exact same way and you have nothing to apologize for...that's all from my end. Thank you very much for accepting my apology Scarey. You're a classy dude and I'm grateful and lucky because of that.
P.S. if it helps any it took me about 2 hrs to fall asleep last nite cuz of my guilt
and you taught me a valuable lesson- next time I'll just shut my big mouth and turn off the pc.
Thanks for the links Vapoor eyes er. Already have some stuff in my cart.
I pulled out my digital camera but can't seem to get the same color in the photo of what i'm seeing with my own eyes. The color to my eye is deeper, but here it is.
It is only at the base of the pin and goes all the way around.
I pulled out my digital camera but can't seem to get the same color in the photo of what i'm seeing with my own eyes. The color to my eye is deeper, but here it is.
It is only at the base of the pin and goes all the way around.
You're welcome and thank you for the pic.
I'm just guessing but it's either a calcium buildup from your water (outer white ring) and the calcium has been stained by the juice or the plating has failed. I'm leaning towards the former with calcium being the cause. Do you have hard water and are you on well or spring fed water?- private or Municipal doesn't matter
I would try and soak it in vinegar for 2 days and see if that helps.
I'm just guessing but it's either a calcium buildup from your water (outer white ring) and the calcium has been stained by the juice or the plating has failed. I'm leaning towards the former with calcium being the cause. Do you have hard water and are you on well or spring fed water?- private or Municipal doesn't matter
I would try and soak it in vinegar for 2 days and see if that helps.
I have hard water. It's municipal. I don't currently have any other working tanks at the moment. Well, I have the iClear30 that came with the MVP I just got from 101Vape but alas, we are not the best of friends nor do I wish to pursue the relationship due to dry, burnt hits. 
I'll have to continue with this protank until my next 101 order comes in with some more protanks. I'll comment here as to whether the vinegar works or no.
I'll have to continue with this protank until my next 101 order comes in with some more protanks. I'll comment here as to whether the vinegar works or no.
There are chem cleaners that I use to remove calcium and lime/ hard water stains but hesitate to mention them as they are caustic and not safe to vape or ingest. Vinegar is a weaker acid and is food safe.
Haven't used the iClears but have a bunch being delivered/ included with kits I bought for friends this Christmas. They all like top coil clearos and not the BCC so hopefully...
Haven't used the iClears but have a bunch being delivered/ included with kits I bought for friends this Christmas. They all like top coil clearos and not the BCC so hopefully...
I have hard water. It's municipal. I don't currently have any other working tanks at the moment. Well, I have the iClear30 that came with the MVP I just got from 101Vape but alas, we are not the best of friends nor do I wish to pursue the relationship due to dry, burnt hits.
Wow, sorry to hear you're having so many issues with these tanks. I've never had any such issues with my mini-protank or my i30, for that matter.
Hope you get it all sorted out.
Hope you get it all sorted out.
I'm not having the best of luck of late and so will not tempt fate by asking for the names. As for the iClear, I'm guessing the tank must remain at full capacity for it to work properly (?). Also, I'm a chain vaper and I'm thinking this is affecting it somewhat as well. At least that's my observation based on a single use of the product.
That's correct. All of these devices with factory heads have a limit on how fast they can wick the liquid. A protank is theoretically in a better position since the wick is always covered. Any top coil device requires you to "tilt and twirl" to sure the wicks stay saturated.
One of the main problems with the Protank in this scenario is that the heat can build up since it's at the bottom of the tank. While not specifically designed to deal with issues of chain vaping, have a look at my blog on BCCs:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/blogs/fabricator4/5045-bottom-coil-clearomizers.html
Your blog post was informative and helpful, thanks for pointing me there.
Fwiw, I use the term "chain vape" though in fact, I wasn't really sure what it meant exactly i.e.; how many vapes a minute constitutes "chaining". I knew I must be vaping with more frequency than the heads were meant to run at though because I 1) the top coils were not my friends at all and 2) the BCC were also starting to give me some back-talk, though this may be related to wattage after reading your post.
I also wondered if I was drawing too hard. I still wonder that actually.
Finally... popping. From what I can observe, the popping is caused by some juice slipping its way onto the contact. (?) How is that occurring?
No, the juice popping is happening on the coil. It occurs because the juice inside the wick heats up and blows some of the juice off the wick with a 'pop'. An occasional pop actually gives you a good idea that you are in the optimal zone for a factory wick. Excessive popping would indicate the voltage is too high and this may indeed contribute to juice dropping down and getting on the contact. Usually I don't see anything much except for a bit of condensation on the contacts at the end of the day. A wick that is quiet and never pops means it's a little on the cool side for maximum vapour production. Nothing wrong with this if you are happy with the way it is running though - It won't burn and the coil head will last longer. I will run it this way if I'm out and don't want to be making huge clouds - it makes stealth vaping a little easier without sacrificing much of anything else.
Recently at work I only had a twist with a Protank on it. Instead of setting by ohms/voltage I just started at minimum volts and kept turning it up a little and vaping. As soon as I heard the wick start to give a little pop I left it there. Later when I had time to look at it I found it was indeed right in the Goldilocks zone - between 6 and 6.5 watts effectively for that resistance so you *can* set these by ear if you have to.
Chain vaping is not a set term so it will really depend on who you talk to. I define it as constantly taking a long puff with hardly a breath in between. Since the nicotine absorption from vaping is much slower than smoking it's possible and very easy to get too much nicotine if you do this for an extended period.
If the Protank is cold I will usually chain vape about four or five times to get it working like steam turbine (can no longer see the monitor in front of me for a moment), and then slow down to 2, 3, or 4 puffs a minute. Once I don't feel like I need nicotine any more I'll put it down. This is well within what the Protank is capable of.
If I'm chain vaping to fog up the room for the amusement value it is possible to go harder than what a factory head is capable of. I find a thick vapour almost as satisfying as throat hit, even though it's mostly psychological (but a thick vapour does deliver more nicotine and faster). If the base is quite hot to the touch I know I'm probably going a bit too hard.
As for sucking too hard: The original Protanks had an airy draw which was tightened up on the second generation devices (T3S, Protank 2 etc) and I believe that this is to their detriment. More airflow equates to more vapour and flavour in my opinion. For this reason I drill out the air holes on the newer devices to make it an easy draw and don't feel like I have to suck very hard at all. I prefer to regulate the airflow myself, same as I used to do on a rollie.
Sucking too hard on a bottom coil device creates more negative pressure at the coil, and can draw more liquid through the wick. If someone constantly has flooding problems on a tight draw, then this is something that might need to be looked at.
2 reasons "generally" in regards to dry hits that results in juice not getting to the head consistently:
-heavy VG juice when I say heavy anything more than 50/ 50 PG/ VG ratio.
-silicon cap is too tight on the wicks entering the coil area (compressing them) and not allowing the wicks to saturate the coil area quickly enuff.
The same as fabricator4 I've sometimes opened the air holes if the draw was too tight.
I've backed off the power level and the popping is reduced to a nice crinkle. Because the MVP2 is variable wattage I assumed that it would temper the voltage accordingly for this head but I see how may have been a poor assumption for this head. The meter is reading the head at 2.3 and using Batitude's Safe Vaping Chart, I thought that at 8 watts, I was within a safe power though admittedly I knew it was at the edge of the green line. I believe I initially ran that high because I thought it would draw more flavor and vapor out of the juice. Not sure where I got those ideas though.
Using your definition, I am chain vaping at times though not regularly. I normally do it after having set it down for a bit. The term throat hit is still somewhat foreign to me. But that may be because of the way I am drawing the vapor. I had read (I believe on the forum here) that the absorption of nicotine is primarily through the mouth and nose seeing as how it cannot get as deeply into the lung as smoke did. And so, seeing as how I don't normally draw in through my nose, I have made a habit of drawing harder into my mouth and only then do I shoot it up to my nose after it first makes a pass in my lungs. However, it's primary location is the mouth. Maybe this is why I'm not experiencing a "throat hit". I found I didn't care for it to hit the back of my throat. The cloud is what I prefer. I'm pretty much vaping like your turbine analogy though I don't believe I'm getting the same clouds you are. (but I want to!)
As an aside, I find this 2.2 rated head is lasting longer than the 1.8's I was using. I was blowing through those to my annoyance.
Regarding airflow, I have nothing for which to compare this protank 2. But interestingly, when I'm home I loosen the tank on the base because I prefer the draw that way and don't have to pull so hard.
I cannot tell what the VG rating is on the stuff I'm currently using since it is not listed on the bottles. But now that I have more liquids from other vendors, I can clearly see the liquid I'm using is much thicker and gunkier. I already knew it was gunky, but I didn't realize how much more until I saw the near clear liquids I purchased since. I had wondered at what ratio I should be ordering and so in those orders, I chose nothing over 40VG. Hope I went in the right direction.
I saw fabricator4's suggestion of turning the cap upside down. I haven't resorted to that as yet since I don't want to to many variables at a time.
However for the iClear specifically, surely that cannot matter since the wicks are encapsulated in the plastic cap. Correct?
I haven't used the iClears, but used to run Vivi Novas before I discovered the Protanks. The fix with the Vivi's to make sure there was no excess pressure on the wicks was to remove the rubber top cap and put a 1mm V notch in it where the wicks come out. Putting these 'V's in the cap kept it from pressing on the wicks and choking them a little. If you make the notch too big you can have flooding issues. I used to re-wrap the heads with some really soft 3mm silica and they used to wick really great. In the end I was way more impressed with the bottom coil devices because the flavour and vapour was great (as in much better!) right out of the box. Some people really love their iClears though.
Yes, 1.8 ohm heads only need about 3.3 volts. Many people have trouble with them because they tend to turn them up and as soon as they chain vape on them they burn badly.
I generally recommend 2.2 ohms because they work well at 3.7 or 3.8 volts so great on a fixed voltage Ego, but they can also work well on a mechanical if you are careful when you have a fresh battery. At 4.2 volts freshly charged you have to take shorter puffs, or pulse the button for a long drag. It's actually a lot of fun on a mechanical, I love it.
If you think you might like the lighter draw I recommend the modification. More air will mean more vapour and flavour. Get a 0.75mm drill and open up one, two, or all three of the air holes in the 510 connector just above the 510 thread. If you don't have a drill this small use a 1mm, or use the point on a #11 scalpel or similar very fine point blade. Go round and round with the sharp blade and it will open up the hole in a about a minute or two. On the T3S's you need to open up all three holes on the outside ego collar.
To get an idea how much lighter the draw is going to be try the device off the battery and compare it to the draw on the battery. Off the battery is limited by the hole in the center pin and that's about as light as it's going to get no matter how big you make holes.
Ha! I just posted this video to my blog page prior to reading your post here!
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...uild-protank-atomizer-using-3mm-rba-wick.html
And I like to bottom coil though I may give the cartos a shot at some point.
Why then are people always talking about low ohm? And sub ohm??
Pulse... ooooooh.
Hmm. This is just an excuse for me to purchase small tools. It's a good excuse too, yes, a valid purchase.
Now ....to find someone who hates their kanger tanks.
Because they want even more vapour than a standard setup can give them. There's an art to doing sub ohm, or running SR coils at high watts and most of it is to do with making sure the wick can stay wet enough to prevent burning. The first step is probably rebuildable atomisers and wrapping coils on s/s mesh and cotton. You can then take these techniques to the protank heads and for example make a microcoil on a cotton wick and so on.
My advice is to stay with the standard type stuff for now, but google all the sub ohm stuff and see what people are doing. Pay particular attention to the safety aspects because you have to make sure you are using the right device and the right batteries. There's not too much point trying to make a sub ohm coil for a regulated mod unless it's got a DNA20 chip or something. Most people are probably doing it with a mechanical mod and the right batteries, which where a lot of the safety aspects come into it.
Yeah, take small steps and get the factory stuff running right first ;-)
Press and release the button once or twice a second. It's not something you need to do on a regulated mod, but a very useful technique on a mechanical where the resistance is the only way you can control the power and you have a fresh battery but a lower resistance coil designed to be most happy at about 3.8 volts. As the battery drops in voltage you can hold it down for longer periods.
Hmm. This is just an excuse for me to purchase small tools. It's a good excuse too, yes, a valid purchase.
There's plenty of people passing on their Protanks. It seems you either love them or hate them and I suspect that has a lot to do with whether you have a good experience with the early on.
Tools are always good though ;-)
You could always add a tiny amount of distilled water to thin it out so it wicks better.
Although clearos are easier to use I prefer a carto+ tank setup. Maybe if there's a sale pick up a 5 pack and see if you like them. VERY important to first fill properly/ fully saturate fully.
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