Sorry you're having this problem, Brad. I know exactly how you feel since these were a crap shoot for me at first. Either they worked great straight out of the package or I got the worst kind of, I guess, 'wick' taste ever. Now I get consistently good vapes with them and I wish I could tell you why that is. Maybe it's because I know I'm actually filling them up now and I remove all the caps...? Before the clearomizers I was quesstimating how full they were and I wasn't even close.
What's your voltage with the CE2's? Try dry burning, as Traver suggests, and then putting a drop of your eliquid directly on the visible coil.
I take the third and final cap off and if I feel like it, pull out the wicks of the non-clear cartos to run them under boiling water in case there's any primer on them or I pop the tube off a clearomizer, wash the wick and put the tube back on. The wicks dry quickly if you blot them with paper towels. I dry burn a few times or until any wisp of vapor is gone. Then I fill them up with a syringe or by pouring juice down the inside of the tube, replace that first inside ring if I can find it, put that ridiculous top on it and vape away. No burned taste at all.
Yesterday on YouTube I saw where someone cuts the wicks and unwinds them (so they look like hair in your juice) and says he can vape at 6v. I vaped with one like that at 5v today but found it unnecessary to increase voltage to get warm vapor. I prefer the 2.4 to 2.6 ohms for warm vapor on my 18650's. No muss, no fuss and long battery life.
Good luck! Don't give up! It was worth the effort, imo.
Any advice would be great. Thank you.
