Cleaning your Vivi Nova tank

[Mountain_Rain96]

I'm new to the Vivi Nova tank scene, and still a relative noob to the vaping world (only 6 or 7 months), so please forgive me if this is an elementary question. I just started using a Vivi Nova 3.5ml tank today, so obviously haven't had to clean it yet. When I do have to, should I do a dry burn like most people do with their CE4+ clearos? Is this a common practice when it comes to clearomizers and tanks in general? I try to take exceptionally good care of the things I own, whether it be my car, Tv, whatever, and my vaping gear is no different, so I don't want to possibly ruin it by doing something I'm not supposed to. Any input appreciated.

 

[Jakersvape]

I usually take the head off the nova and run hot water over it to clean the head and wicks, then I dry it off as much as I can and put it back on the nova. Then I dry burn it in short bursts.

 

[LazyBulldogge]

You can dry burn it if you want to, I've done it many times and sometimes it helps (if the coil is still good) and sometimes it makes it taste like... well, burnt
Since I've recently gotten into recoiling/rewicking the Vivi Novas myself, I now just clean it out under hot water somewhat daily, dry off the wicks as much as possible, re-assemble and vape away. The reason being, that it costs me very little money to replace the coil, so can't be bothered doing the dryburn, plus cleaning it frequently, seems to keep the gunk building up to a minimum. That's my experience at least.

 

[DaveP]

I sometimes dry burn after washing the head as described above. If it's still working OK, you can pull out the remaining juice with a syringe, wash it by removing the tube and running the head under hot water, and set the head aside to dry while you switch heads and refill. I just dry burn when one starts really losing flavor or when it gets a funny taste. Dry burning is a good thing, but it's not always needed.

Rotating the heads every few days lengthens the time you can use them, IMO. Washing in hot water removes most of the juice from the coil. Dry burning removes what doesn't wash off and that's usually something that burned onto the coil and caked. Keeping them filled properly and never letting them get to the point where the vape tastes burnt will extend the useful life.

At $2.95 a head, if I get a week or more out of it, it's lived its useful life.

 

[Mountain_Rain96]

Ok, thanks for the replies, everyone.

 

[phephner]

After seven months of constant usage and experimentation I've learned that a thorough initial cleaning completely eliminates all the wicking and lack of flavor (aka Break-In) problems commonly associated with using brand new silica and wire heads ala Vivi Nova, Stardust or most any other 'rebuildable' tank.

New tanks and wick and coil assemblies must be thoroughly cleaned before their first use. The first obvious reason being "You are not really gonna put that in your mouth without washing it, are you?'

So called 'New' items and their heads are contaminated with minute amounts of everything from manufacturing particles and fluids residue to what the factory worker had for lunch moments before he assembled your 'new' tank.

IMHO, if you try a new juice with new Vivi Nova and/or head you haven't vigorously flushed prior to first use, it's a 50-50 proposition whether or not you will like the new juice. Asking a subtle juice flavor to compete with imbedded manufacturing residue is not a fair contest. How many times have we all read "The flavor was terrible at first but it got better after a tank or two."

It took that '...tank or two' to flush out the crud the factory left in your VN. What's worse is you didn't wash it down the drain, you inhaled it.

 

[DaveP]

phephner wrote: So called 'New' items and their heads are contaminated with minute amounts of everything from manufacturing particles and fluids residue to what the factory worker had for lunch moments before he assembled your 'new' tank.

So that's why my new Vivi Nova heads always taste a little like brown rice with a hint of soy sauce on first fill?

 

[Light Seeker]

So that's why my new Vivi Nova heads always taste a little like brown rice with a hint of soy sauce on first fill?

I personally haven't noticed any benefit of dry burning after cleaning, with exception it may steam off any water or moisture on the wick. I rebuild with cotton/kamthal, so usually just screw a rebuilt one on about every 2 weeks when it starts getting gunked. I do rinse everything out when I switch up juices every few days though.

 

[DaveP]

I personally haven't noticed any benefit of dry burning after cleaning, with exception it may steam off any water or moisture on the wick. I rebuild with cotton/kamthal, so usually just screw a rebuilt one on about every 2 weeks when it starts getting gunked. I do rinse everything out when I switch up juices every few days though.

I change a head about every 10 days of so, sometimes longer. When it starts to taste funky it gets a new head. At $2.95 it's a cheap fix. Before, I was tossing a carto every 3 or 4 days. The cost of the Vivi is about the same or less than cartos and much more predictable.

Have you noticed lines of burning or discoloration where the wick wires pass through the silicone grommet at the bottom contact? I've read one account where this has been noticed to occur due to the fact that the entire wire is resistive and gets hot all the way down to the contact.

 

[Light Seeker]

Have you noticed lines of burning or discoloration where the wick wires pass through the silicone grommet at the bottom contact? I've read one account where this has been noticed to occur due to the fact that the entire wire is resistive and gets hot all the way down to the contact.

Haven't seen that at all on my heads. I've read where some have welded nichrome onto the kamthal, or doubled back & twisted their kamthal, I don't bother... just run a 32 gauge straight down to the bottom contacts. But I'm a stickler on ensuring my wick is always nice & wet, seems the biggest issue with vivas is the dreaded dry burn, usually caused by not doing the old tilt & roll when the tank is getting low. I could imagine if one is getting dry burns, they're probably also getting the silicone grommet to char on the bottom. Also, I wrap low ohms .... usually .8 to 1 ohm .... and get a much nicer hit than the stock heads. Unfortunately, this only works with a mech mod, not my vamo. But being low ohm coils, they're heating much hotter than stock heads. Another thing .... I use the aClear viva clone which has different heads than the Vision or Smoktek vivas, perhaps this is why I see no charing.

 

[DaveP]

Last night I noticed lots of vapor and no flavor on the Vivi 2.8 head I've had in use for over a week. I had been upping the voltage in tenths trying to find the new sweet spot with no joy. I went to the kitchen planning to break out a new head and decided to dry burn the old one after a hot water wash. I did and it steamed and then glowed red and put off a few wisps of burned on juice smoke and then glowed without smoking. I filled it up, vaped lightly, and rotated for a few minutes until the wick reached a good saturation level. It recovered and turned back into a flavor producer. I'm good for another round!

 

[LazyBulldogge]

Have you noticed lines of burning or discoloration where the wick wires pass through the silicone grommet at the bottom contact? I've read one account where this has been noticed to occur due to the fact that the entire wire is resistive and gets hot all the way down to the contact.

I think I've noticed this on 1 out of the 10 heads or so, before I recoiled them and haven't seen it on any of them after recoiling. I don't use non-resistance wire, double the legs or anything like that. Just 0.20 mm 32 AWG Kanthal D, nice and tight, works like a charm