catomizer cleaning

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action300

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Apr 27, 2011
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quick question, i picked up a cleaning method out of youtube and it instructed me to put my used carts into boiling water for 15 mins. i did so and let them dry overnight, my problem is is that when its all dry, may carts stopped working. no vapor came out of it. what do i do? are my carts completely destroyed? or itll work eventually? thanks everyone!
 

zoiDman

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quick question, i picked up a cleaning method out of youtube and it instructed me to put my used carts into boiling water for 15 mins. i did so and let them dry overnight, my problem is is that when its all dry, may carts stopped working. no vapor came out of it. what do i do? are my carts completely destroyed? or itll work eventually? thanks everyone!

When I used filler type cartos, I never had much luck putting them in boiling water. Kinda like trying to get a stain out and using hot water verses cold. But I doubt that you ruined them.

Put one of your cartos on top of a light bulb and let it set for an hour of two. Sounds like they just arn't fully dried out yet.
 

cookiebun

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Mar 6, 2011
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quick question, i picked up a cleaning method out of youtube and it instructed me to put my used carts into boiling water for 15 mins. i did so and let them dry overnight, my problem is is that when its all dry, may carts stopped working. no vapor came out of it. what do i do? are my carts completely destroyed? or itll work eventually? thanks everyone!

They don't work because they aren't dry.
I put my cartos in a toaster oven for about an hour at 225 degrees. After that I set them aside for at least 2 weeks or longer.
 

dormouse

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Oct 31, 2010
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Bottom line - some people have success cleaning AND drying them. Drying them is the trickiest part. And even then, they may not taste good. So unless you personally have had success cleaning and drying them, then don't count on it.

The way I use cartos is this...

Prefilled samples - If I like it or at least don't hate it, I top off with a different compatible juice and keep it damp. I reuse it until it's performance or flavor gets bad. If I cannot stand to vape it, it goes in a bag and maybe some day if I am desperate I will try to clean them

Blanks - I never ever test juices in cartos. I use a manual battery w/ atomizer and drip tip to test my new juices and samples. When I find a juice I really like, it gets a carto. And then I keep that carto damp and keep using it as long as it works well. Then it goes in the bag.

I usually alternate vaping 2 main cartos and a couple of occasional ones. I can get 3-4 weeks use out of a Boge carto if I use a thin clear juice. V4L cartos seem to degrade a bit faster but I can get 1-2 weeks out of one if I use thin sediment-free juices like their WOW juices.
 
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tmcase

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Apr 20, 2011
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I had a similar experience yesterday cleaning an atomizer. It's not the same as a carto because there's no filler material but they both have coils that get gunked up. After I cleaned, blew out and then dry burned a few times the atty didn't produce hardly any vapor. So I dry burned again until I could see a red glow and then tried again. Vapor was better but still not like it was before I cleaned it. After vaping on it for awhile the vapor improved. If you have a manual battery you might try dry burning to see if you can here any sizzling or see any vapor. If you have an auto batt then you will have to suck the hell out of it. Mine just needed to be broken in again. Don't dry burn for more than a few seconds each time and allow the coil to cool down before you do it again or you could fry the coil. You should be able to check the resistance to see if the carto is blown. (Anybody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

I've never tried to dry burn a cartomizer before so if this is not recommended I'm sure somebody will let me know. (I hope)
 

440BB

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Apr 19, 2011
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I think that dry burning a carto will end up burning the fiber tube most of them have, but I'm no expert. I have found spinning them to get out excess water and setting them battery connector down on a light bulb gets them dry and ready to go in about an hour. We have those 80's style dressing room lights in our basement bathroom so I can dry four at once!
 

WomanOfHeart

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Sep 19, 2010
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I had a similar experience yesterday cleaning an atomizer. It's not the same as a carto because there's no filler material but they both have coils that get gunked up. After I cleaned, blew out and then dry burned a few times the atty didn't produce hardly any vapor. So I dry burned again until I could see a red glow and then tried again. Vapor was better but still not like it was before I cleaned it. After vaping on it for awhile the vapor improved. If you have a manual battery you might try dry burning to see if you can here any sizzling or see any vapor. If you have an auto batt then you will have to suck the hell out of it. Mine just needed to be broken in again. Don't dry burn for more than a few seconds each time and allow the coil to cool down before you do it again or you could fry the coil. You should be able to check the resistance to see if the carto is blown. (Anybody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

I've never tried to dry burn a cartomizer before so if this is not recommended I'm sure somebody will let me know. (I hope)

Not really recommended with the filler style cartos. Not sure about the ceramics, though.
 
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