Clearommizer & CE2 help

[N2rock]

After reading so many discussions about clearo's, I know that you either love them or hate them. Well right now I definitely am in the "hate them" category.

I bought one package of Clearomizers and one package of black CE2's, from vaporsheaven.com which arrived yesterday. I completely destroyed the first clearomizer attempting to fill it. Using the thinnest juice I have, the rate that it came out the little blue tip was just drip.... drip... drip.... So I switched that out for a 22 gauge blunt I had also ordered. That was still the same rate of fill, and ended up with juice everywhere when the clearo cracked down the side.

2nd attempt seemed to work a little better, but mid-way thru filling it, the top 1/4 of the clearo just basically shattered- the plastic just sort of crumbled More juice all over everything.

3rd attempt- building on the knowledge of the first 2, I finally got one filled without it breaking. Take a drag- BLECH!!!!! Tastes like a carto does when it goes dry. So maybe it needs to sit a bit. After sitting about 15 minutes take another drag- still that dry hit taste, but a little less. 3rd drag slightly less of the yuck, but still no flavor. And from there on, it had zero taste. I let my wife try it and she also could taste no flavor It produced a ton of vape, zero flavor. So I let it sit overnight. Got up this morning and tried it, and the same thing- ton of vapor, zero flavor.

What is going on here? How can it produce so much vapor and no flavor?

 

[Katatonik]

I broke the first one I opened. Mistake on my part. What I found to work is this:
Use a paper clip bend one end (a little difficult to do). If you can bend one end back and forth until it breaks. If you do it right, you'll have the perfect edge for it.
Pull out the top cap (easiest part of the whole thing).
Pull out the middle cap (hard to do until you learn how to do it, takes practice). To do this:
Use your paper clip and put it so the bent end goes under the cap and angle the end towards the outside of either wick side (can also do it a little on both ends to be more gentle). Try and get it under the cap, but don't put too much force on the actual coil, you can damage it (but don't worry too much, it can take a lot). The clearomizer helps with this part because you can see when the paper clip gets under the cap. and try to pull and wiggle the cap up and off. Once you do that,
you can just drip your juice in there without needing a syringe (I had your same issue, the blue tip and dropper tool they gave you sucks).

After you fill it you need to put the middle cap back on. This is excruciatingly annoying. But as before, it gets better with practice. Put the cap on the top, and match the wick part to the actual wicks (the cap has a little notch on it where the wick goes). Now you need to slowly wiggle the cap down. You can use the paperclip but it's difficult. It works better with the largest thing you can find that fits in the tube. You don't want to push the cap all the way down and tightly. This is creating that wicking issue that you have. You'll want to push it down so that it creates the seal around the top part of the actual atomizer.

Also, I had your same problem with the wicking. First, it gets better the longer you use it. You can just prime it several times to help get the flow into the wick. And then you open it back up and add two drops to each wick. The other thing you can do is with the middle cap off (from the steps above) is use the paper clip end to pull up the wicks a bit. This will also help. Another thing is to put the middle cap a little higher than where it was before.

All of this can be found in this movie:
YouTube - CE2 Clearomizer Cartomizer Tips - Gotvapes Fluxomizer

I was disappointed with them at first, too. But I actually like them now. I just wish I could get them in lower resistance. I found that the vapor is a little more "wet". Regular cartomizers give me a dry, cottony feel to the vapor.

 

[Betterbait]

Hey N2
What pv (voltage) are you using and what ohm clearos did you get?
If your using the Darwin, just dial it down in voltage until you get it right. Each flavor may require some tweaking on voltage which is why the Darwin is so cool.

I would suggest watching a few videos but I dont agree with most of them. There is no need to take them apart to enjoy them.
Im not sure what your doing to crack them other than some oil juices will disintegrate the plastic which is a major flaw.
Here are a few pics that may help with filling:

It is pretty straight forward but some moders want you to take it apart to fill and I just dont see the point other than weakening the seals.

Of the 2 rubber pieces removed to fill, I rarely put the smaller one back in and in most cases dont use the mouth piece either and just throw a drip tip on. You have to be careful with drip tips, as some of them are a little to big and they will crack the plastic if forced on.

Always remember when screwing them onto your PV that you hold them down at the bottom (part that gets screwed to bat) because you can spin these things right off its seal and have a mess.

Now the terrible taste your getting can be a number of factors. If your using 5 volt or higher, you would best use the 3.0-3.2 ohm clearo. Anything lower than that and not many juices can stand the heat besides at 5-6 volt you would burn the atty up in a day or so. I have found that when first filled they need a few minutes to wick to get good flavor and vape but as you mentioned you left it overnight and still horrible. That leads me back to the ohm/voltage ratio your vaping at.

Now that you have your Darwin, you can play around with the voltages to find the perfect voltage for each flavor so dont give up just yet.

 

[otrpu]

I've yet to have much trouble with my Clearo's. Been using them for more than a month. Now have a MAP Tank, so using it mainly. But, wouldn't give up on my Clearo's on a Riva on the road. JMHO

Cheers,
otrpu

 

[N2rock]

@Katatonik- the method you described for filling it actually how I was able to finally get the 3rd one filled. Although now that you mention not putting the cap on too tight- I definitely did put it on too tight. I pushed it down very tight. So I'm betting that is the big problem right there. When I get home I'll loosen it up and see how that works.

@BetterBait- tried on eGo (no taste), 5v box mod (no taste)... But now I'm thinking the no taste issue is because the cap is too tight as mentioned above.

Question- both the Clearo's and the CE2's I got are the XL's. How much juice will these hold? Obviously it is easy to see with the clearo. But when I go to fill a CE2 I won't be able to see, so I want to get the right amount.

 

[hairball]

I mod all of my clearomizers with 3ml BD brand syringes. They have to be BD brand or they won't work. I found 100 (also come with needles) on Amazon for 19.95 shipped in the US.

 

[hairball]

I take all of mine apart. Once I remove the ceramic silicone ring, I take a pair of cuticle scissors or really pointy scissors and snip the openings (where the wicks go through) a little bigger. This helps the wicking. I also only use 3.0-3.2ohm ones. I don't like lower due to a burnt taste. Some people love the 2.8ohm. I have a few of these but prefer higher due to higher voltages that I vape at.

 

[Para]

Excellent thread and tips.....thanks for everyone's ideas

 

[Katatonik]

Question- both the Clearo's and the CE2's I got are the XL's. How much juice will these hold? Obviously it is easy to see with the clearo. But when I go to fill a CE2 I won't be able to see, so I want to get the right amount.

1.8 mL but I wouldn't put that much in.
Probably 1.5ish will keep it from flooding. you can always try it then add more.

 

[N2rock]

Well- I went home on my lunch break, and destroyed Clearo #3 LOL. Um yeah, I put that center cap back on way too tight. I couldn't get that thing to budge. Ended up breaking yet another one just trying to get it loose. After the case cracked, I figured oh what the hell, and I pulled from the base- the base and everything pulled out, leaving the atty still attached to that center cap LMAO. So yeah, I think it might have been a little too tight hahahaha.

I now have one clearo left. So I get one last chance to either love them, or never see them again. Then I'll move on to the CE2's I bought and see what happens with those.

 

[jj2]

I mod all of my clearomizers with 3ml BD brand syringes. They have to be BD brand or they won't work. I found 100 (also come with needles) on Amazon for 19.95 shipped in the US.

You too...there sells must be up.

 

[N2rock]

uh oh... you guys are using medical delivery devices! LOL

 

[Xzelian]

Just a tip or two here,
We've been using CE2XL v4 cartomizers, and while I have seen cracking at the base where the threads insert, I have yet to damage a carto filling it.
I remove the white cap as well as the "air seal ring" with a paperclip in which I have made a tiny bend at the end.
I work it under each ring as I go and pull upward.
I find the secret is to not use the blue syringe tip, rather use a 20 gauge angle tip to fill.
I insert this into the filler hole rotating it as it goes in.
rotation is extremely important.
The result is that the hole is stretched slightly larger by the tip of the syringe and the plastic is undamaged.
I have had on one occasion found a tiny bit of the silicone shaving trapped in the needle but this was flushed easily.

I then use the syringe to prime the initial wick by force injecting a little juice directly into the center, then blowing out the excess.

To date Ive not had a single burnt carto or bad primer.

 

[lfries1990]

Did you remove the o-ring (the one that has the two fill holes)? That o-ring is sitting on the ceramic cup so tight that it will not let juice get to the coil. Whenever I opened up a new clearo, I used to remove that, then put it back in so it wasn't pinching the threads but now I just leave it out because it was too much of a PITA to put it back in.
And as for the plastic tubing cracking and shattering, some juices that have oils in their flavors (certain cinnamons, citrus and mint flavors) will melt the plastic because the oils reacts with the plastic. Stick with alcohol based flavorings and your tubing will not crack because of the oils. Unless you are being too harsh on them and breaking them by shoving the needle down between the ceramic cup and the tubing.

 

[N2rock]

Did you remove the o-ring (the one that has the two fill holes)? That o-ring is sitting on the ceramic cup so tight that it will not let juice get to the coil. Whenever I opened up a new clearo, I used to remove that, then put it back in so it wasn't pinching the threads but now I just leave it out because it was too much of a PITA to put it back in.
And as for the plastic tubing cracking and shattering, some juices that have oils in their flavors (certain cinnamons, citrus and mint flavors) will melt the plastic because the oils reacts with the plastic. Stick with alcohol based flavorings and your tubing will not crack because of the oils. Unless you are being too harsh on them and breaking them by shoving the needle down between the ceramic cup and the tubing.

Definitely was not an issue of the juice weakening the plastic. The juice was a green apple. And the first clearo broke before the juice even had enough time to do any damage. Same with the second. I suspect that I just got some old/bad clearos as the plastic was super brittle. I saw youtube videos where people were squeezing the tubes to show how unbreakable they are. But these things were super brittle- just a little too much pressure and they cracked like an egg.

 

[N2rock]

My final update on the clearos since I have no more left LOL

The last one- took my time. Very carefully filling it up, and while filling the plastic just crumbled under my fingers! So I guess Lfries was right about the juice reacting with the plastic. I'm using Vapor Bomb Green Apple. The plastic was fine until I started adding juice, at which point it just started crumbling. Who would have thought that a benign juice like green apple would have such a reaction.

Well... I'm done with Clearo's. An entire box gone. Obviously the biggest problem all along was the juice I was attempting to use. But that IMHO is a serious design flaw- it should not react to any juice. I'm not going to put any more money into these. Moving on to my CE2's to test now.

 

[lfries1990]

If you have any halfway decent pieces left, try putting one on a small plate or something non-absorbent and drop some drops of that Vapor Bomb Green Apple juice and wait about 15 mins. Go back to it and put some pressure on it to see if it crumbles like it had. If it does, then it is most deff your juice.
I would have never thought that green apple would crack these.
You aren't the only one that ditched the Clearos. I ditched mine because I went through 10 in 3 weeks just because the nicrome wiring was crap and died after 2-3 days on 3.7 volts.

 

[N2rock]

that was a good idea. I took a large piece, set it on a paper plate and put a couple drops of juice on it. Within minutes, the area where the juice was, was now discolored- kinda foggy looking, no longer clear. A few minutes later, it was brittle and just came apart in pieces.

 

[lfries1990]

I saw this on YouTube and this was the first situation that I thought would be perfect for the experiment.
I loved my ce2's... when they actually worked, but I think they are still going through some growing pains trying to get the kinks out.

So for anyone reading this: Vapor Bomb's Green Apple will melt ce2 clearomizers.

 

[N2rock]

Last night I moved over to the black CE2's that I purchased at the same time as the clearo's.

Still a PITA to fill. Even more so since you can't see when it is full.

Flavor was very good. Comparable to a carto, but I wouldn't say it was better. I assumed since these CE2's were XL and hold more juice, that they would vape longer. Not the case. The vape was massive- like a damn fog machine LOL. But it ran dry very fast. That was a lot of juice to go thru in a very short period. And of course since you can't see the amount of juice, you don't know you're running low until you get that nasty dry hit (yuck!!!).

I'll give the CE2's a "C" rating. I'm not going to use these simply because they will be expensive with the amount of juice they go thru. Guess I'll hold on to the un-used ones for parts to possibly use in a future map tank.