Busted two atomizers? Passthrough to blame?

[Mistress_of_Design]

Ok, I admit I am still a total noob at all this. I was loving this to start with but now I'm sad because I fried both the attys in my starter kit.

I got my 510 kit on Tuesday. The biggest and best surprise was that I managed to completely drop my real cigs the minute I started vaping. I had given myself until August to be analog free, so the instant switch has me hooked on these things. My sense of smell is coming back, and my taste buds are slowly recovering.

However...

I started using a USB pass through on Thursday, plugged in to an outlet on my laptop. On friday, the first atomizer started tasting a bit weird. I had to top off my cart more often than I had been. On friday night it just went cold. I blew it out, ran it under some hot tap water, blew it out again and left it to dry overnight. Primed it with a couple of drops in the morning but it was still stone cold. "Oh well, I still have the other one"...

I popped the working atomizer back on the passthrough, added a new cart, vaped for 10 minutes. I got that nasty taste again. I remember thinking "Jeez, this tastes worse than a real ciggy". Popped off the cart, added another drop to the polyfill even though it still looked moist enough to vape... took a couple more draws and *poof*... second atomizer died on me.

Since then, I've tired almost every trick I've found in regard to cleaning them. Boiling water, alcohol bath (this one made yellow crap run out lol), blowing with compressed air, oven bake for 5 minutes, nuking them with water in the microwave (not recommended!), sucking, blowing, sending myself mental. But alas, they are both stone cold dead.

Luckily they are covered by warranty and I don't need to send them back to prove they're fried. I'm just bummed that they both died in less than a week. I have an order of extra juice and spare atomizers due to arrive some time this week, but in the mean time I'm back on the nasty, old school stink sticks.

I am making a big assumption that it was the pass through which fried them. Am I best to stay away from that thing and just use the batteries?

These things are awesome when they work, and I'm not giving up on the idea just yet. I just don't want to be responsible to more premature atomizer deaths.

 

[Sun Vaporer]

Mist---your assumption is more then likey correct, the passthough switch sounds like it is sticking on and burned them out. Get a new on if that is under warranty as well. This is quite common and many people including me did not even know it was happening

 

[TDM]

If you are going to use a passthru the best ones to get are the manual ones. That way you control the poser going to the atty.

 

[Mary Kay]

If they weren't dead before going into the mic..! That just scared me! Can you send the atty's back with the passthru? At least mention the passtru killing the atty's when you contact the passthru supplier.

 

[Mistress_of_Design]

The pass through has a manual switch on it, but no LED to say if it's on or not. It has a battery half way down the cord, close to the USB plug... so in my head that should mean it's regulating the amount of power it draws... no?

I've done some searching on the forums and it seems a number of people have had issues with various pass throughs. It might be my USB port sending too much power, it might be the switch sticking, it might be a number of things. It might also be my own fault... not vaping it right??

I'm not 100% sure it was the pass through... but when I thought about what I was doing when I busted them, the common culprit was the PT.

I'm not game enough to test the theory on the news atomizers arriving some time this week. I might give the PT another shot when I have enough spare parts to sacrifice.

Thanks for the quick replies.

 

[breakfastchef]

The in-line battery on your passthrough powers the atomizer, not the voltage from the USB port. So, your atomizers are getting essentially the same amount of voltage that your screw on batteries provide. It is always possible you got two atomizers from a weak or defective batch because losing two on a passthrough would be unusual. I would recommend that you also try to get a replacement passthrough as you cannot rule out a problem with it.

Did the atomizers ever get hot to the touch when you were vaping on the passthrough?

 

[Mistress_of_Design]

Did the atomizers ever get hot to the touch when you were vaping on the passthrough?

Yes? Maybe? *giggles* Towards the end, in the moments before they died, after I'd taken a drag I hung the cord down my top for safe keeping and it sort of felt like I'd burned my chest. I hadn't... but I would rate that as rather abnormally hot, not just warm.

I spoke to the supplier and originally we thought it was just that I'd managed to get two defective atomizers in my starter kit. Luckily I had already ordered two more which are on their way so the wait between orders won't be too long. I should email them again and mention the passthrough though... I just feel slightly paranoid and HATE whining. Luckily they're lovely about it... I just don't want to wear out my welcome.

 

[breakfastchef]

If you tend to vape fairly heavily for extended times, it is possible to get the atomizer pretty hot. If you drip (folks that do not use cartridges) liquid onto a hot coil, it can cause atomizer failure. Even topping off can saturate a hot atomizer pretty easily. When the new attys arrive, try one on the passthrough and one with screw in batteries. Switch between them so the other one cools down for a few minutes. See if the new atomizers last longer by giving them a rest periodically.

 

[Sun Vaporer]

Mist--no need to worry about wearing out "our welcome" as there are issues all the time with equitment---it comes with the territory and all the good Suppilers will stand behind their product. I can assure you that this will not be the last time you will have issues as it is the nature of the beast so to speak. So no need to worry there. Get that passthough replaced so you can enjoy your vaping----------Sun

 

[Mistress_of_Design]

All very good advice breakfastchef, thank you.

I was using them slightly different when i was plugged in to the passthrough. More like a pacifier... small puffs, but pretty frequent. When I'm away from the computer I guess I just smoke them like analogs, puff away for one or two and put it back in the case for a while.

I think I'll follow your advice when they arrive, at least then I can still test to see if it was the passthrough and claim it on the 30 day warranty if it does fry another. Hopefully I won't have to though if it was my own fault for how I've been using them.

 

[Mistress_of_Design]

I received my two new atomizers for my 510 today- yay!!!

I ditched the half a real ciggy I had left and jumped straight back on the vaping bandwagon. SO--MUCH--NICER!!! I'm sort of glad I had this hiccup early on, it really makes you appreciate the difference between e-cigs and analogs. E-cigs are not the same as smoking... it's better!

What I've said in previous posts may still be true in regards to the passthrough but I've noticed a few things about my own habbits/style since I got the new atomizers this morning. I'm still so new to this, and a lot of it comes down to experience and understanding your own hardware... this is something I'm still learning.

The first atty I plugged in to a fully charged battery and vaped away for a couple of hours. I wasn't chain smoking or anything, but i would pick it up ever so often for a hit. I noticed it got softer(?) after about half an hour, guessing that's probably a sign the battery wasn't as full as a brand new one. No biggy though, it was still working fine in my opinion.

After a couple of hours, I was brave and followed the advice I'd been given *giggles* and plugged the passthrough back in. Screwed the second atty on, popped on a fresh cart and took a drag. My first reaction this time was "whoa! super heated!". When I'm plugged in to the passthough... I don't need to hold the PT switch down for very long at all to get massive vapour!!!

If I hold down the switch on the passthrough for two seconds and keep dragging afterwards, I get a bigger hit than I would if I was holding the button on a battery for five seconds or more. (Good lord, I hope that makes sense).

I'll keep you updated if I notice something out of the ordinary going on with the passthrough, but at this stage I'm starting to think it was probably a combination of user error (yep- I admit I was holding that button down and probably fried them myself), and maybe some defective attys as well.

The switch doesn't seem to be sticking as far as I can tell, and if I only hold the switch for a couple of seconds it's no longer getting crazy hot. I really didn't mean to alarm anyone, or speak ill of what is possibly a great addition to your e-cig stash.

Thanks a bunch to everyone, you were all so quick to reply and so helpful. It's appreciated!

MissD