Carts are based on a faulty idea, let's fix it

[Lucacri]

Hi everybody,
since days I'm thinking about the "engineering" inside those stupid carts and I think they are not effective at all.
So far, if I'm not mistaken, they work like this:
we fill the "cotton" inside the cart and when we inhale, the juice is supposed to "lift" to the top of the cart by a wicking process.

I see some problems here:
1) the carts are already small, why are we filling it ALL with the "cotton"? each piece of cotton is a drop less i can put inside and i can vape..
2) more than often, the top of the cart is dry and the bottom is wet (even with the straw mod, which tries to trick the problem but it doesn't solve it).

So I came up with this idea:

(i'm a programmer, not a designer...can you see it? )

What do you think about it?

 

[ournature]

i totally agree carts do not work well.
did you try your mod? does it work fine?
it seems a nice idea, my only concern is:
would the liquid leak down on the mouthpiece when you inhale and then inside your mouth?

 

[dc2k08]

something needs fixing for sure. do you think the weight of the liquid would push the cotton out? if it ever came loose it would be a mini-disaster. perhaps if it was a thicker cotton and firmly stuck in place. keep thinking though.

 

[breakfastchef]

Though I rarely use cartridges, I think they are an elegant, reasonably reliable design for its intended purpose. In fact, the e-cig is both an advanced, yet simple design. If you take four or five draws and put the device down, the wicking action will continue to bring juice to the atomizer. If you are like me, you take many draws, not giving the liquid a chance to move to the top of the cartridge. With so much fuss about vapor, throat hit, etc., we are pushing the original technology to fill gaps in our personal wants and needs.

Your cartridge idea is interesting, but might not work well with the design of the atomizer. The barrier between the juice and atomizer bridge would have to allow the juice to flow to the atomizer bridge, but not flow too much and flood the atomizer coil. I see gravity also taking its toll on the concept as we all know it sucks (gavity, that is).

 

[Babachoo]

Uhh there's nothing to stop the liquid from pouring out of the mouthpiece end. You would have to plug that end in a way that would keep the liquid from EVER coming out, but also allow the user to inhale the vapor.

 

[Babachoo]

Posting one of my favorite blues performances in honor of the anti-gravity sentiments expressed above...

YouTube - John Mayer - Gravity (High Quality) Crossroads Guitar Festival

 

[Lucacri]

The mouthpiece is in another "compartment" in my Janty Kissbox (the one that comes with the Stick) cart. You can clearly see that the refilling area is made in white plastic and it has no holes in the bottom. The mouthpiece itself contains this white plastic casing.

I tried it and it looks fine, it holds A LOT of juice and the gravity/wicking seems to work fine. I have to see if it leaks in the atomizer but so far I tried to shake the cart to see if some drops would fly around and nothing happened.

We might be onto something here

 

[ournature]

hey Lucacri, are you using the original polyfill that comes with carts or another material?

 

[ViciousCircle]

THe only thing I'd wonder about would be if the PV was left lying horizontal or with the cart end up. Would the weight of the liquid be enough to 'push' liquid through the cotton until the weight of the juice in each was evened out... Whereas now, with the cotton all the way through the cart, it keeps that from happening by 'holding' the liquid in place and it doesn't wick through the cotton unless it is touching the atomizer which wicks the juice from the cotton.

 

[Lucacri]

hey Lucacri, are you using the original polyfill that comes with carts or another material?

I'm using one cosmetic "facial cleaning buffs" that i found at Ricky's. They are the same consistency of the original one

I think ViciousCircle is actually right and my problem is that I have a Janty Stick which I find kind of hard to keep oriented up...
probably this way now is not so effective, but i definitely think that the way to go should be to use the cart to hold the liquid juice intact, somehow.
Maybe we could add a plastic "dam" with a hole in the center...

 

[seminolewind]

I tried that idea with a twist. Instead of having that empty reservoir, I put that aquarium filter spongy stuff in there, then the puffy stuff on top. It slows down the liquid just enough.

 

[Lucacri]

uh? send a picture of it!

 

[Rich]

thanks for the nice music!! not expected on this site but good none the less.

 

[DarkriftX]

Did this idea die out?

 

[Lucacri]

unfortunately, yes.. I still firmly believe we should find a fix...

 

[smokinsimon]

I think the whole design is bass ackwards..
Should be battery, cart, atty, mouth piece..
All they have to do is figure out how to make contact from atty to battery around the cart.
Then you suck the juice directly to the atty, and all that hits the mouth piece is vapor.
Having the liquid in the mouth piece is just silly, but I didn't design them.

 

[silentminja]

Absolutely... it is backwards if you think about it.

However, my design for a cart would be something similar to a liquid marker, but on a smaller scale.

or perhaps a lever where you could squeeze the liquid to the top of the cart... maybe a softer material that you could squeeze?

 

[vapn]

I just take my battery off and place my finger over the hole in the mouth piece and suck on the atty at the battery side. Then take my finger off of the mouth piece and few times real quick. It's like getting the liquid out of a straw. I do this about two or three times and it is just like dripping.

 

[warp1900]

I understand your concerns Lucacri, but i must say that our Chinese friends are no newbies when it comes to researching and developing an original idea.
Just remember that their culture is famous for many things, but specially for their patience. Trust me, they didn't just think about it and a few weeks later throw the final product out on the market.I am not saying that it is impossible to better the design, there is always room for improvement on anything. I personally think that the actual design they came up with works amazingly good and i will feel eternally thankful because they achieved what no one /anything could before (me quitting analogs).

Because of the reasons i mentioned above, I believe that the only way to make improvements on the e-cig is to completely re-design it and i wish very good luck to anyone who will try (they will need it)Last but not least, you must remember that just like any other product being designed, one very big consideration is the price to produce such design, and that limits things in a very big way.

 

[leavitodeaver]

Maybe this could work, rough picture hopefully included below. if you could split the cart up the middle having a little more than half of it containing the polyfill stuff, the rest being a reservoir, and some kind of one-way liquid check valve on the side you don't inhale from, you'd have the wicking motion that allows the atty to properly vaporize the liquid, a built in reservoir, the polyfill would stay in contact with the atty having nowhere else to go, and you'd rarely have to remove the cart to refill. just stick whatever bottle/dripper you're using onto the check valve and squirt until full. i'm guessing you could get 1-3mL in there, no leakage because the polyfill holds it w/o gravity drawing it out the breather hole, and you wouldn't have to have some kind of separate reservoir sticking off the side. basically a 2-in-1 thing, i think it would work pretty well. no idea how to construct this without some kind of industrial plastic-forming thing, but if anyone has any ideas i'll definitely give it a go. thoughts?