Cart lifespan question

[jc112704]

I've been washing out and refilling my carts since my 2nd week vaping, and was wondering what everyone looks for when deciding that a used cart isn't worth saving. I know that different juices wear on the attys differently, so I'm not looking for a number of refills. I'm asking if there are certain characteristics I should be looking for before filling a used cart that won't be worth filling.

I know that the more experienced members here will have a few tricks to share, and I appreciate all the help I can get!

 

[MachoKing]

I just toss them out when they start to get hot even when wet and flavors start to diminish. I know a lot of people like to wash them out and reuse over and over but that's just not for me. When they start preforming odd, they hit the trash. I only get a few days out of them.

To all those that can wash them out and reuse them over and over, more power to ya but it's just not for me.

 

[SnowDragon]

Well jc I am all for washing out Cartos and getting weeks of peak performance out of them. It's difficult at best to tell anything from just looking at a Carto outside of a hot-spot blister on the labeling.

YouTube - ‪Vapor4life Tips, Tricks & Fixes for Cartomizers‬‏ (2:33 mark..burnt Cartomizers)

Outside of being burnt into the polyfill (tastes nasty) there are some tell tale signs such as juice leaking into the wick/air tube after 10 drops or so. This indicates that the wick tube is compromised and has a hole in it. In this case it is possible to have a burnt Carto without the burnt taste. In both of these cases it is best to retire that Carto and dispose of it.

The other tell tale sign is that the Carto simply fails to produce the normal volume of vapor and the flavor has become diminished. Discoloration around the Atomizer wire is not indicative that the Cartomizer is burnt and may just be a result of what type of juice you are using. In any case if you avoid burning your Carto you should be able to get weeks of great performance from it as long as you put it through a cleaning cycle to remove any carmelized juice.

If you do end up filling a Carto only to find that it is dead or not performing well you can always spin the juice back out of it. I have a video to show how do that as well if you like me to post it. If you are unsure about a Carto, take an empty juice bottle and fill it with water. If the Carto has been cleaned and is dry add 25 drops to it either by dripping or syringe (1ml) if water floods the wick/air tube....the carto is no good.

Unfortunately the Atomizer (like a strand of Xmas lights where a portion does't work) can start to break down and the only way to tell is through vaping it.

Hope this helps...

So Macho, I'm just curious how your previous statement below supports your reply above?

Threads like this seem to be a step backwards and make the place seem less welcoming as a whole. Sure some of us are veterans and have been here longer than others but we need to make the newer users feel welcome. Today it looks like we're a bunch of snobs.

Here we have a new member asking a very valid question and your response not only fails to address their concern whatsoever, but seems to discount the OP and all the family members that wash out and refill Cartomizers.

Just sharing your deep heartfelt concern for helping newer users and not appearing as snobs.

 

[FantWriter]

I'm not sure my use is anywhere near normal, so I don't know how much it might help.

Most of my cartos get used once a week (I fill a week's worth at one time to cut down on the fiddling-with-it time). About every third or fourth week, I'm ambitious enough to plunger iso alcohol through them to clean them.

If a carto becomes hard to draw, doesn't give me a nice mouthful of vape, tastes burnt, or becomes hot, it goes into my junk pile.

I still have a carto or two that was new in December. Few of them last less than two months (unfortunately, it's usually the expensive ones that die quickest -- the bog-standard ones keep going forever).

It's about every two months that I have to buy a five-pack of new cartos.

 

[jeffree]

I'm with Macho on this one. Washing is for babies. When cartos become hard to draw, hot, or lose flavor--anything really noticeable--I trash them in a bag for recycling some day if I ever figure out where. Wondering now if anyone actually does that. I'm surprised we don't see more about recycling on ECF. Or maybe it's just me who's missed it. I'm always behind a step.

 

[katz-in-boots]

Life is too short to wash cartos! I mean, isn't there enough vaping housework required on top of the actual housework? If in doubt, throw them out, I say.

 

[Kanza]

Call me strange, but I enjoy cleaning the carts It's a Zen thing

jc...Fant gave a nice rundown on obvious and immediately perceivable problems. SnowDragon's videos are excellent works to show how to care for carts for maximum use and how to identify problems. I can only add that I had one (badly) refilled cart that failed to "fire"/produce vapor. I took a chance and emptied it, washed it and refilled it and it worked like a charm It was my sloppy filling that mimicked a dead cart

 

[Glam]

OK, call me a big baby--but I wash carts (soak in vodka, flush with hot faucet water) and reuse over and over. I can use the same carto 2 or 3 days--then throw it in the vodka bowl to soak. When I get 6 or so in the bowl, I flush, let dry and reuse. Most I can use for months--eventually the draw gets very hard....then I pitch. I have some I have used over and over for several months. Right now I have a cool cart that I filled on Sat., been topping off a couple of times an hour and using all week. But I only use clear juice. I spend so much on vaping supplies that I like to save dollars whenever I can.

 

[jc112704]

Thank you all for such helpful responses! I knew I could count on you guys (and gals) for some good tips. Hopefully I'll be as helpful as some of you in a few months... still dabbling and experimenting for now though!

 

[phishtraveler]

i completely agree with macho and jeffree...+1 i tried to wash out and boil a nuport sample about 10 months ago since i liked the black cartomizer, but HATED the heavy menthol. that was a disaster! i boiled it out twice and it still tasted like stale menthol...just would NOT go away. now i dedicate blank cartomizers to a particular flavor and refill them about 10 times before tossing them. prefilleds are re-filled with the same flavor and i get about 5 refills before they are tossed.

for me....its just not worth more worth another maintenance routine. i am already cleaning and re-charging batteries, after all. plus they are about $2 for a prefilled wow cartomizer or $1.90 for a wow blank...less if they are on sale!

 

[jeannest]

I don't even refill my 808 cartos! I'm too lazy and I've got OCD so I'm really paranoid about germs and bacteria. I've tried washing and refilling in the past and it wasn't something I wanted to do. I just stock up when there is a sale at V4L. I do fill up new empty cartos with juices from other vendors sometimes, but I toss them out after use too. I go through 2-3 cartos a day. I'm in NY and cigs are over $10 a pack, so it's still way cheaper to pay $5 or 6 a day for new cartos than $20 a day for smokes.

Some people are real good at washing and refilling and get a months use out of their cartos.

 

[Nev]

I wash mine. Though really I am not sure why since I have so many prefills and blanks. I use the boiling method. If they taste burnt or the draw is too stiff or too airy, they don't make it into the wash pile. The couple of times I did wash (I wait until I have a bunch...and I mean a bunch), they all came out working like a charm.

 

[Mmc]

In the winter when I'm working from home I'll wash them, now that I'm back in the office, I buy a lot of pre filled and top them off when I can get the juice. Right now I am very low on juice so buying mostly pre filled and storing the used ones until the FDA releases the juice

 

[Bogey]

Only tried once. I posted about it. I never did follow up on that post. I killed a lot of them. I am on my phone so i can't search but I think it was maybe incantis that posted a great thread about the different washing methods.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[FantWriter]

I'm surprised we don't see more about recycling on ECF.

The only practical recycling of cartos is to wash and reuse them. They're a mixture of metals and fibre, with not enough of any one thing to make them worth the handling cost to recover.

It's like saving the wrapper on Hershey Kisses because it is metal and can be recycled -- possible but insane.

If I didn't wash/reuse my cartos, vaping would cost more than smoking.

 

[MachoKing]

Well jc I am all for washing out Cartos and getting weeks of peak performance out of them. It's difficult at best to tell anything from just looking at a Carto outside of a hot-spot blister on the labeling.

YouTube - ‪Vapor4life Tips, Tricks & Fixes for Cartomizers‬‏ (2:33 mark..burnt Cartomizers)

Outside of being burnt into the polyfill (tastes nasty) there are some tell tale signs such as juice leaking into the wick/air tube after 10 drops or so. This indicates that the wick tube is compromised and has a hole in it. In this case it is possible to have a burnt Carto without the burnt taste. In both of these cases it is best to retire that Carto and dispose of it.

The other tell tale sign is that the Carto simply fails to produce the normal volume of vapor and the flavor has become diminished. Discoloration around the Atomizer wire is not indicative that the Cartomizer is burnt and may just be a result of what type of juice you are using. In any case if you avoid burning your Carto you should be able to get weeks of great performance from it as long as you put it through a cleaning cycle to remove any carmelized juice.

If you do end up filling a Carto only to find that it is dead or not performing well you can always spin the juice back out of it. I have a video to show how do that as well if you like me to post it. If you are unsure about a Carto, take an empty juice bottle and fill it with water. If the Carto has been cleaned and is dry add 25 drops to it either by dripping or syringe (1ml) if water floods the wick/air tube....the carto is no good.

Unfortunately the Atomizer (like a strand of Xmas lights where a portion does't work) can start to break down and the only way to tell is through vaping it.

Hope this helps...

So Macho, I'm just curious how your previous statement below supports your reply above?



Here we have a new member asking a very valid question and your response not only fails to address their concern whatsoever, but seems to discount the OP and all the family members that wash out and refill Cartomizers.

Just sharing your deep heartfelt concern for helping newer users and not appearing as snobs.

I was just posting as normal and giving my input on how I handle this situation. If you are really going to follow me around and turn everything that I say into a fight over something that happened more than a week ago now, I must have bummed you out pretty bad. I wasn't making fun of anyone. I wasn't even saying that my method was right. So I don't clean my cartos. I'm such an awful person. You need to get over whatever you have against me because now that you are following me around in unrelated topics posting old stuff, you are becoming very stalker like. Sure, I was also bummed out by the events that took place last week and how you won the popularity contest but I'm sure not following you around being Mr. Negativity and pouting about it still. You will not be running me off anytime soon if that's what you are trying to do. Nice trying though. It's good to see that you're thinking about little ol me.

That said, can't we all be pals?

 

[incantius]

Only tried once. I posted about it. I never did follow up on that post. I killed a lot of them. I am on my phone so i can't search but I think it was maybe incantis that posted a great thread about the different washing methods.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

wasn't me...i can't even wash windows(at least that's what i make my wife think )

 

[lujin4]

Only tried once. I posted about it. I never did follow up on that post. I killed a lot of them. I am on my phone so i can't search but I think it was maybe incantis that posted a great thread about the different washing methods.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Snowdragon maybe?

 

[SnowDragon]

So are you done editing yet? Must be a struggle spending a lifetime blaming repeated failed attempts of self-aggrandisement as losing popularity contests. The disconnect here is that the people you stood in judgement of the other day are neither self-serving nor insecure. At a minimum they offer input of substance, relevance, or pertinance with their responses to all OP inquiries. Personally, I could careless if you stay or if you go since the net content result would certainly be the same. Your proclamations of stalking or attempts of running you off only further highlight self-serving misguided delusions of grandeur.

After 10 months of assisting and welcoming others daily I have given you a total of 15 seconds of my attention. I assure you it will be the last you will ever receive.



Bogey,

I do have a video on cleaning cartos and have several Posts on cleaning techniques. I don't know if you are referring to my video specifically but if you want a link to revisit it....just let me know.

 

[MachoKing]

So are you done editing yet? Must be a struggle spending a lifetime blaming repeated failed attempts of self-aggrandisement as losing popularity contests. The disconnect here is that the people you stood in judgement of the other day are neither self-serving nor insecure. At a minimum they offer input of substance, relevance, or pertinance with their responses to all OP inquiries. Personally, I could careless if you stay or if you go since the net content result would certainly be the same. Your proclamations of stalking or attempts of running you off only further highlight self-serving misguided delusions of grandeur.

After 10 months of assisting and welcoming others daily I have given you a total of 15 seconds of my attention. I assure you it will be the last you will ever receive.



Bogey,

I do have a video on cleaning cartos and have several Posts on cleaning techniques. I don't know if you are referring to my video specifically but if you want a link to revisit it....just let me know.

I'd still like to know what all of this has to do with THIS THREAD. You left the thread that you had a problem with me in, only to come to a completely unrelated thread a week later and harass me? I don't understand the logic. Continue to have your problems with me. That's swell. From this point on, I'm going to treat it as harassment because that's what it is.