Continuing to use a burnt wick?

[Kellycat]

So, not the same ol' 'why does my wick keep burning' or similar thread, for once. I'll admit I know just why it burned, but it doesn't change the fact my Evod replacement heads and wick/kanthal supplies are still in the mail, so my question is this: Besides the taste and possible lack of wicking (so far so good though), is there any reason not to continue using a burnt wick for a few days while I wait on the new heads?

I'm working under the assumption that the stock Evod heads use silica wick or similar, and from what I can find as long as the wick isn't actually falling apart in the juice there's really no ill effects of using a burnt one for a few days. Hoping someone with experience could chime in and tell me if I'm right or not. I do have a Vivi Nova Mini with wick I could cut off and probably thread into the Evod without too much trouble, but if there's no ill effects using a slightly burnt wick, I'm not going to waste the time right now until I can rebuild a proper wick.

P.S. The taste isn't really that bad either, almost makes it taste more like an analog if you believe that..of course I'm also vaping a very strong clove flavor, not fruits or desserts, so that might be helping with the taste too.

 

[Zipp]

You can't really burn the wick. It's just full of burnt stuff. If you take it apart so there's nothing but the base and coil, you can attach it to a battery and dry burn it a few times while watching for smoke. Just try not to let it glow for more than 2 - 3 seconds at a time and it'll be fine. When it stops smoking and smelling awful, give it a good rinse and it should be good as new. Remember - with silica, it's not the wick that gets burnt. It's the leftover gunk from your juice. As long as the coil and wick are intact, they can be cleaned up and re-used indefinitely.

 

[sychodelix]

If it's a silica wick, and if you are comfortable rebuilding it, you could always take apart the head and torch the wick. Torching it will burn away any leftover juice that burned, and make it like its brand new.

 

[Penn]

Tasting more like and analog is the main reason I don't use coils with to much crud. If it is silica the wick isn't really burnt.

One problem is your coil has to heat through the crud just to turn the liquid to vapor. This is undue use of the battery which merely decreases time between charges. You also are probably drawing harder just to get anything.

I can't think of any significant issues caused by it waiting but I would clean it. At the point you describe that would include a dry burn. If you loose the flavor wick in the process there a a few work arounds.

 

[crxess]

Remove coil assembly
Run under Very hot water
Pat dry
Wiggle Wick Pipe off
Remove flavor wicks and place on napkin
Place base with coil on battery
Pulse is 3-5 second burst until coil will glow orange
Blow off Carbonized liquids
repeat as needed to clean until wick is white
Hole Flavor wicks with Tweezers
Burn off gunk with Bic lighter
Insert Flavor wicks back into slot
insert Pipe and press in place - Don't forget the seal on pipe

Fill and Vape

 

[RoseB]

I've been using a really gunked up clearomizer. It's not the most pleasant. Waiting on an order my self. Just don't make the mistake I did..... Went to the local smoke shop and picked up some super cheesy generic CE4's. Filled one, and put it on my MPV. Ugh, I had the voltage at 5! Forgot to turn it down after the switch. You wanna talk about gross! Almost as disgusting as lighting the .... end of a cigarette o_0

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

Wash. Dry burn.

Wash again. Dry burn again.

Wash again, dry burn again, until it no longer smells like burnt organic material.

On an Evod, this is easy. Once you wash the coil, remove the stem over the wicks and pull the flavor wicks (I always replace them with cotton, even with new coil heads). Put the base/coil assembly on your battery.

Look down at the coil and mash the button on your battery. Hold it for a few secs, and do it again.

You should see the coil glow and smoke should rise. Let go of the button as soon as the coil glows for 1 to 2 secs. You may have to repeat this process a few times before the coil is finished burning off the gunk. Put your (hopefully new) flavor wicks in and put a drop or two of juice on it, replace the stem, fill the tank and let it sit for a bit.

Should be good to go.

 

[Kellycat]

Thanks guys, I'll pull the head apart and see what I can do with it. Last Evod head I used with a caramel juice was black as midnight and I just tossed the wick/coil, didn't think to dry-burn as I'd foolishly assumed the wick itself was burnt, not just covered in burnt juice. Learn something new every day

What surprised me is I'm not drawing any harder, getting the same amount of vapor, but still getting that gunky burnt taste, which is making me think this head just needs new flavor wick.. Going to go pull the head apart before dinner and probably work on it afterwards, I'll post back with results so any other new folks that stumble on this might have an idea of what to do to fix it.

 

[The Ocelot]

Remove coil assembly
Run under Very hot water
Pat dry
Wiggle Wick Pipe off
Remove flavor wicks and place on napkin
Place base with coil on battery
Pulse is 3-5 second burst until coil will glow orange
Blow off Carbonized liquids
repeat as needed to clean until wick is white
Hole Flavor wicks with Tweezers
Burn off gunk with Bic lighter
Insert Flavor wicks back into slot
insert Pipe and press in place - Don't forget the seal on pipe

Fill and Vape

You should make a pictorial. Some of us are visual learners.

 

[RoseB]

Remove coil assembly
Run under Very hot water
Pat dry
Wiggle Wick Pipe off
Remove flavor wicks and place on napkin
Place base with coil on battery
Pulse is 3-5 second burst until coil will glow orange
Blow off Carbonized liquids
repeat as needed to clean until wick is white
Hole Flavor wicks with Tweezers
Burn off gunk with Bic lighter
Insert Flavor wicks back into slot
insert Pipe and press in place - Don't forget the seal on pipe

Fill and Vape

All of my clearos are gross and nasty. Can I do the above mentioned on the iclear 16? Every time I clean and dry burn, they work for only a bit. So used to cartomizers, and I am afraid of over doing a dry burn. Promise I won't set the wicks on fire?

 

[Elantis]

The wick may turn brown but that is from the color of your e-liquid. The "burnt" taste some speak of is due to the ingredients of your e-liquid on the coils. The coils which when new look all silvery and separated - may now look like one solid glob. And as most have said cleaning these are really easy and they can even be cleaned to the point that you could if you wanted to rewick the evod coil.

My method for cleaning gunked coils is as follows: rinse with water, soak in Vodka for at least overnite, rinse with water, dry as much as possible with paper towel (dabbing the wick/coil) - place on battery and dry burn 5-7 seconds, rest, then again. I keep doing this until the smoke rises and the coils start turning red (at this point the coils are burning the gunk off themselves) at the point I am happy with the results - and the coil assembly is cool to the touch I remove it and rinse again (water - this ensures that any of the ashes are washed away) set to dry naturally - replace flavor wicks and post and boom - new coil!

Once I began rebuilding T3, Protank and Evod coils myself, I always cleaned mine this way. I never buy extra coils any longer.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with vaping a gunked coil if it is still performing and you are happy with the taste.

 

[Penn]

All of my clearos are gross and nasty. Can I do the above mentioned on the iclear 16? Every time I clean and dry burn, they work for only a bit. So used to cartomizers, and I am afraid of over doing a dry burn. Promise I won't set the wicks on fire?

Essentially yes. It is slightly different. Best to search you tube for something along the line of "iclear dry burn" and watch a few dry burn videos to get an idea of how you want to do it.

 

[Kellycat]

Yep, dry burning did the trick, used some spare wick from an Octopus RDA for flavor wicks, head's reading 3.3ohm instead of 2.6 so I'm guessing I accidentally changed the coil shape with too much/too little flavor wick or just while mucking about in general, but it fires cleanly on my Vamo with no sign of a short or hot spot anywhere..taste is back to normal, and it'll last me until I get the proper rebuild supplies in the mail, hopefully in a couple days.

If I find myself needing to do the process again, I'll try to remember to take some pictures and post it up as a tutorial, I followed crxess's instructions to the letter except I just tossed the flavor wicks and replaced with spare wicks that might be a bit thicker, don't have a lighter/torch around right now or at least didn't feel like looking for one.

 

[RoseB]

Thank you for posting this question Kellycat. Helpful thread. Dry burned the crap out of the i16 and getting good vapor now

 

[crxess]

Pictorial........... Might be to many pic

Good method, just remember eventually they all wear out. That is where rebuilding comes in. Save the dead ones.

Class dismissed

 

[Plumes.91]

Even though the silica wont burn itself, the juice does burn, as you've found out. and once the juice burns on there really bad, a dry burn will do little for it. You'd have to take the wick out and torch it with a butane torch. A lighter can sometimes work but not for really bad burnt on juice. a dry burn might just break your coils if the juice is burnt really bad. But yeah, if you can recoil it, take the silica out and just torch it till it turns gray in the flame. When you take the flame off and wipe the wick, it turns white! New silicaa

 

[Kellycat]

Thank you for posting this question Kellycat. Helpful thread. Dry burned the crap out of the i16 and getting good vapor now

Glad it helped someone else out, truthfully I knew about dry burning but the first time I tried it I thought I'd burned the wick, not done an incomplete dry burn, as there was still burnt gunk on the coils.

Pictorial........... Might be to many pic

Good method, just remember eventually they all wear out. That is where rebuilding comes in. Save the dead ones.

Class dismissed

Bring out yer dead! Got a head here that I'll be using to practice rebuilding on, incomplete dry burn and I tossed the coil thinking I did it wrong, but after seeing the replies here I realized I could've saved it. Oh well.

Even though the silica wont burn itself, the juice does burn, as you've found out. and once the juice burns on there really bad, a dry burn will do little for it. You'd have to take the wick out and torch it with a butane torch. A lighter can sometimes work but not for really bad burnt on juice. a dry burn might just break your coils if the juice is burnt really bad. But yeah, if you can recoil it, take the silica out and just torch it till it turns gray in the flame. When you take the flame off and wipe the wick, it turns white! New silicaa

Thankfully not had anything quite that bad yet, but I usually vape very light juices, that caramel experiment was at way too high a percentage in the mix as well, which I'm sure didn't help matters. Will keep the torch method in mind, but I've got six feet of silica on the way so I'll probably just rebuild from here out, not like silica and kanthal costs that much in the grand scheme of things.


Also for what it's worth my earlier comment about a higher ohm reading after changing flavor wicks and dry burning was due to a loose connection on the Vamo I was using, which I have since fixed, the coil still ohms at the factory standard 2.6ohm and tastes perfectly fine once again, I think the thicker flavor wicks I added helped as well, using what I believe is 1mm silica from a Smok RDA I bought. Little thicker than the stock flavor wicks but I still got two in there easily enough.

 

[ArcherB]

OK, I have this problem, so I've done what everyone is suggesting here, clean, soak, dry burn. I can't replace any of the flavor wicks because I don't have any. I'd swap them out with each other, but both EVODs are having the same problem with both batteries. It works, for about five or six hits, then it tastes burned again. I haven't even made it through a full EVOD tank yet and it's already burned tasting. Am I doing something wrong or is something wrong with my equipment? Here is the setup I purchased and received a week ago last Saturday:
https://www.fasttech.com/products/1390605
I am using a 100% VG juice. Two different flavors have the same problem.
Like the original poster, new heads are on the way, but won't be here for at least another five days.

What could be causing this problem?

Thanks in advance!

 

[RoseB]

I had watched one dry burn video. Read various things. Burn the H outta of it never came up lol. It works, and I was going to toss the head anyways. Us prolific cartomizer users dread any kind of burn. Gonna be a while before I get over this cheap thrill

 

[Kellycat]

OK, I have this problem, so I've done what everyone is suggesting here, clean, soak, dry burn. It worked, for about five or six hits, then it tastes burned again. I haven't even made it through a full EVOD tank yet and it's already burned tasting. Am I doing something wrong or is something wrong with my equipment? Here is the setup I purchased and received a week ago last Saturday:
https://www.fasttech.com/products/1390605
Like the original poster, new heads are on the way, but won't be here for at least another five days.

What could be causing this problem?

Thanks in advance!

2.5ohm heads on an eGo non-VV..interesting.. What kind of juice are you vaping? I'd wager it's more to do with chain-vaping, a high-VG juice, or something else besides burnt coils. Once you get that burnt taste after five or six hits, does letting the Evod sit bottom-down so the wicks are saturated make it go away after a few minutes, or does it continue to linger? I'm thinking you're just getting dry hits as opposed to having a burnt wick if it keeps doing it every time like that.

I had watched one dry burn video. Read various things. Burn the H outta of it never came up lol. It works, and I was going to toss the head anyways. Us prolific cartomizer users dread any kind of burn. Gonna be a while before I get over this cheap thrill

Yeah, I didn't realize you had to do that many burn cycles on the first head I tried either, which is part of why I posted this one before just tossing the head and going back to my old cartos until I got my order in. Sure, you can only dry burn to a point, sometimes the coil is done for, the wick is damaged in another way, etc, but until that point, dry burns seem to drastically extend the life of these things. Now to strip my Vivi Nova and do the same thing to it..vaped Halo coffee in it and the wick is a mess.