Cartomizer Cleaning disaster!!!

[want to quit]

Ok a week ago I made a topic that I washed my cartos and they don't work. After which I noticed they were still a lil wet.

So here the situation now. I cleaned all my cartos smart boy that I am and out of these 20 cartos exactly 0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! work.

Here what I did...

- took boiling water put the cartos in the bowl with the water.
- took one of these goose thingys to flush the juices out of the cartos
- did it again
- let them dry for 5 days.

Now I refill them ALL and they give me this sound while being connected to the bat and I get the taste from the juice, however NOT A SINGLE BIT OF VAPOR!!!!!

Now I got over it and know they are done with which is sad and a waste of at least $60. The question is what did I do wrong? Or did I have to do anything with them after they were dry? Like taking the inner filling of the carto and push it up a lil to loosen it? I mean I watched videos about how to wash a carto but it is so unclear to me that ALL CARTOS ARE NT WORKING!!!

So please before I go and wash my new set of cartos enlighten me and tell me if I did anything wrong.

 

[swedishfish]

I really wish I could help you. I did the same thing you did and had no success. The second time I tried it, I used the oven method and still didn't work.

 

[Noodoggy]

instead of using water, use alcohol...isopropyl or everclear. if using the isopropyl, be sure to blow as much as you can out, do the thermometer "flick", spin around the room...whatever you can! to get the alcohol out. i did that then let it sit one day...and they worked fine. good luck!

 

[garyinco]

Doesn't sound like you did much wrong. I would figure out some way to dry them faster. They can get moldy simply air drying. I'd think about drying them in a food dehydrator or putting them in a capped jar full of rice to speed up the drying. Even putting them in an oven at 100 degrees for a couple of hours, with the door propped open with a spoon or something. Wow, three bucks each for cartos. That's a high price. But I don't know why yours are not producing vapor.

On Grimm Green's video site (vapeTV or something like that) there is a video that shows how to safely remove the filling from a carto. This effectively turns it into an atomizer. You might try that on one of them to see if you can get it working... The video is not by the Grimm dude, but someone else. Consists of using tweezers and working between the fill material and the outside wall to give the filling some space, then using needle-nose pliers to slowly pluck out the filler.

I don't bother washing cartos. Never seemed worthwhile when I tried it. Good luck...

 

[hairball]

I've had really good luck with an ultra sonic jewelry cleaner and a food dehydrator.

Here's what I do:

Get some water almost to boiling.
Sling out as much juice out of the cartomizer that you can get out. Do it into a sink.
Rinse under hot water and sling again. Do this a couple times.
Load cartomizers into the jewelry cleaner and add the hot water.
Cycle the jewelry cleaner 4-5 times (3 minutes each).
Drain off the water and refill.
Cycle 2 more times.
Drain water and carefully remove the cartomizers.
Rinse under hot water and sling them again to get as much water out as possible.
Now put them into a food dehydrator and set on high. My dehydrator has a top fan to circulate the air.
Leave for 12 hours.
Refill and vape.
**If you have long cartomizers or jumbo's, drying time will vary.

 

[Cisme]

Well, I'm a novice myself but I have cleaned both the Boge LR cartos and the 3ml Go-go cartos this way:
1. Used distilled water hot but not boiling from the microwave. (had read posts warning against tap water quality)
2. Dropped my cartos in to soak for a bit.
3. Used a rubbery bulb (for kids noses, I think) and sucked up the distilled water and slowly pushed it through the battery end of the carto. When they looked pretty clean -
4. I soaked them in Everclear to hopefully remove any flavor hanging on.
5. Dunked them back into a clean bowl of hot distilled water and then blew through the battery end to remove a lot of the water.
6. Did the Taryn Spin. They were looking pretty good at this point.
7. I set them out on my sunny patio in a wire basket to enjoy the afternoon. The next day I used one of them and it worked almost like new. All of them have worked fine.

Sounds like a lot of steps but it went pretty quickly. Some warnings I read on ECF: high temp oven drying might cause the filler to shrink up too tight. Push water or blow thru battery end to avoid compacting filler. A bunch of other stuff I forget but, anyway, this worked for me. Good luck on your next endeavor!

 

[want to quit]

thanks for all the input guys. Question now to not waste the broken cartos could I as the person above mentioned take the filling out and direct drip into the empty carto? Or is that a horrible idea?

 

[JudgeVape]

I have only tried to clean one, running it through a jewelry cleaner loaded with vodka. I have not used it yet but I did test it after it dried for a few days and it does work.

 

[want to quit]

I took the filling out and about to put 3 drops in it!!! WARN ME BEFORE I KILL MY BATTERY!!

 

[want to quit]

oh .... it works!!!!!!!!!! Perfect way to test new juices woooooot!!

 

[beachpuff]

oh .... it works!!!!!!!!!! Perfect way to test new juices woooooot!!

Be careful if you're using auto batteries, though - you don't want any juice to get into the battery.

 

[want to quit]

the GoGo comes with a manual bat but still I am worried it goes into the bat. But right now I am super stoked about it because this is the easiest way to try my juices without using a new carto for every juice. BWB's malty toffee is for sure the shizzle

 

[les017]

Want to quit - since the coil obviously heats, I would say that your initial cleaning attempt did NOT kill your cartos. My gues would be one of two things...possibly both.

1) Your filler was really never dry
2) Your filler got compressed down against the coil.

If the filler is still wet it will not suspend additional juice very well. Also it could cause the coil to get flooded with moisture (in this case a combo of juice and water) which both does not allow the coil to heat enough to vaporize and could block air flow.

In the case where the filler got pushed down firmly into the coil, the effect could be the same...basically a soaked filler smothering the coil. The way to verify this is to look into the mouthpiece end of a carto with filler. The filler should be even with the top of the vertical air tube. One other GoGo-er on another forum did the exact same thing, but only with one carto, so it wasn't quite as stressful of an event.

Take the one that you have proved IS working, make sure the filler is DRY (go extra bone dry to properly baseline your test) and reinsert the filler as described. It should work fine. The filler itself will not be the problem, except when it is compressed and flooding the coil as stated above. I am confident that you should be in good shape.

Let us know!

 

[want to quit]

The weird part is if you check the big GoGo tread I made a picture of nhalers cartos and cigeasy cartos. The cigeasy cartos are way different to the nhaler once. The lil inner tube of the cigeasy cartos stick out a lil bit and are way above the filling. Your idea of the filling hitting the atty seems logical and I think you could be right. Let me try it out after the tornado is out of my county. Thanks a lot for the detailed info I think you are right about it.

 

[Dougiestyle]

Take your "dead" cartos and put em in PGA (Everclear) for 5 minutes. Agitate em a coupla times to work the PGA into the filler. The PGA with bond and push out the water. After you remove the cartos from the PGA, dry the outside and blow into the mouth end with a paper towel/rag until liquid stops coming out. Place the cartos onto a baking sheet standing up on end (mouth end up) and stick em into the oven (ELECTRIC OVEN ONLY!! PGA is highly flammable) on the lowest setting for about an hour. The heat will help to cause the PGA to evaporate. PGA dries/evaporates hella quicker than water.

I don't think your cartos are dead, bud!

 

[les017]

The weird part is if you check the big GoGo tread I made a picture of nhalers cartos and cigeasy cartos. The cigeasy cartos are way different to the nhaler once. The lil inner tube of the cigeasy cartos stick out a lil bit and are way above the filling. Your idea of the filling hitting the atty seems logical and I think you could be right. Let me try it out after the tornado is out of my county. Thanks a lot for the detailed info I think you are right about it.

I wish you and your much luck and safety with your weather!!!

As to the tube on NHaler vs CigEasy cartos...you are correct but it's not that simple. I think the batch with the taller air tube are what are being referred to as Rev 2 cartos. Maybe they are even powder coated as opposed to having the wrap around them (assuming you didn't get plain stainless version). CigEasy got this 2nd batch of cartos, while I think NHaler is still exhausting their first order of them. At least that's what I recall.

And Dougiestyle's carto water dispersion method should also help you get these dried out without having to remove the filler, if you choose.