Wow, EXCELLENT explanation, thank you so much! (I'm glad you didn't tell me to just shut up and do it lol). Its quite possible I damaged the post end as you suggested on at least one when I tried to get the seal out the wrong way. I also destroyed one by catching the wick and coil with my paperclip or whatever I was using at the time (several of my knitting tools now are covered in juice).
Just now I removed the notched seal and just stuck my drip tip back on (the one that came with...which is growing on me) because I can't get the drip tip on, to my satisfaction, w/o shoving the notched seal too far onto the cup which in turn was giving me a burnt marshmallow taste. Way better, just need to make sure I don't lay it down.
Fiddling. Yes there is definitely fiddling with these but I still like the quality of vape much better than with cartos so I'm hanging in there.
Oh, very much so. I find that once modded these things vape like nothing else even at lower voltage. I did a video review and showed how these vaped even on a lowly 510, and the vapor production was
still amazing, and the throat hit was even fantastic on a 510. These things seriously best even the dual coil cartos that I love so much, even at higher resistance and lower voltages, and drain much less battery to boot. I'm suitably impressed with these.
Here's the trick to removing those original cup seals: First, a paperclip will make it much harder. I tried numerous times and while it worked, I both tore the seals to shreds and had a hell of a time getting it out even so. Try and use a thin hooked device like a seam ripper (you can get those at fabric or craft stores) or make something. I used a small flathead precision screwdriver and bent the end with some pliers until it was a hook shape.
Now, the real trick is this: Get your tool just under the bottom of the seal through the center (as you've found out, careful to avoid hooking the coil and/or wick). With as little pressure as you can get away with, push the tool against the inner rim of the cup, lifting the seal until your tool makes it over the lip of the cup. Once over the lip of the cup, push very firmly against the sidewalls and
slowly start lifting it out, keeping pressure constant. You
can lift it out all the way this way, but if you lift it out a bit, then rotate 45° and repeat this process all the way round, it will be much easier to remove without bending or placing pressure on the cup and tube, and you stand a much better chance of removing it without tearing the crap out of the seal. (Not that it matters if you tear the seal as you're just doing away with it anyway, but it ensures you don't get any torn bits sprinkled into the cup or on the coil.)
One more advantage to this mod: No more syringe filling. Just keep your hook tool handy; it removes the new cup seal easily and also seats it in place much better, too (although you can use a straw or paperclip or whatever you want to push it back down). When inserting the new cup seal, try and push it down in stages by pushing one side a little bit, rotating the carto a bit, pushing, rotating, and so on, so that it slides down without having one side shoved all the way down at a time. This allow you to get a better, move even seal without the possibility of having one side wedge itself too far down the side of the cup. This can create an uneven seal and push the tube out of center.
Yeah, it's sounds a bit fiddly, but believe me, once you've done it once or twice it's practically second nature. I can take off my drip tip, remove the seal, fill and recap inside a minute.
One thing I've found with drip tips though: Besides the fact that you should be able to fit any drip tip in now, the edges of these things are pretty sharp and can shave bits off the drip tip's O-ring. One thing I found that helps if you have a tip with a fluted design (thin in the middle and flaring out toward the tip) is to push the flared end of the tip into the top of the Fluxo to widen it just a bit, then put the tip in. It keeps the sharp edges of the plastic from shaving bits of the O-ring off.
