Could pulling too hard burn up my cartos?

[Synnuh]

A little back story. I've spent the last month trying to get a Mini Sub tank working on my LavaTube. In that month, I've gone through 20 cartos, and am almost ready to throw in the towel. I keep the voltage below 4.2 volts and use Boge LR cartos. I prefill the cartos and let them sit, then put them in the tank and fill it through the fill screw hole.

I've tried just about everything that research on here and Google, talking with other members in the Live Chat, and common sense / ghetto engineering can provide, and just can't figure it out. I've used 1 small hole, 2, 3, and 4 small holes, same # of large holes, tried moving the polyfill around the holes once I've gotten them punched, all to no avail. I'm using 50/50 mix.

As I'm vaping the juice level in the tank drops, but seems that once it gets below half full, the carto goes burnt. I've examined 4 of the cartos to ensure that the change in taste is indeed the carto burning, and the polyfill / center wick is usually burnt completely through. (As a side note, even when I pull the polyfill out of the burned up cartos it is soaked, and bubbles are coming through the holes as I vape.)

I saw a video from SnowDragon a few minutes ago on the DCT's from SmokTech, thinking that it may just be my tank, and he said something about taking slower, deliberate and measured pulls to avoid flooding the cartomizer. What this got me wondering is will harder pulls cause my cartos to burn the way they have been?

I really don't want to throw in the towel on this, but I've actually considered selling or trading my LT and tank for another VMod since I've got a lot less problems operating it properly. I'd really love to get more than 1 day, or 1/2 tank full of juice through a carto before I've gotta deal with unloading the tank, punching a new carto, then re-assembling the entire setup.

How do you guys, successfully using tanks, pull on your vape? Is it something you deliberately pull slowly on, or is my theory on this wrong? I'm vaping the LT / Mini Sub exclusively to test my theory, but I can't say that if I burn up another carto that I won't be chucking it onto the classifieds.

 

[pir123]

Hmm, I don't have my lavatube yet (it's on it's way!) but on my 800mAh 3.7v battery, with a ~1.6ohm DC smok tech single-hole prepunched carto, I'm on my seventh fill in a 3ml tank with the same carto, after about two weeks, and it still tastes OK and performs well, though the flavor is starting to fade a bit. I also use a 50/50 mix. I always switch off with a second battery with a clearo on it if the tank gets warm, until it cools back to room temp.

I usually pull softly for a half second or so, and then as soon as it crackles, I pull harder to get a big hit, and it's been fine. I give it an extra pull (no power) from time to time to keep the carto wet, or even drip a few drops into the top of the carto if I'm hitting it a lot. I guess *really* hard pulls might flood the carto, but on mine, if it floods, that's pretty obvious, as it gurgles and juice comes out the battery end, but even that's not a big deal, I just blow it out and it's good to go.

I'm just guessing, but, I'd say it sounds like the voltage you're using is too high, though the LT is supposed to throttle the voltage if it's too high for the resistance, but maybe not enough in this case? Though I'm guessing you've already tried lower voltage...

It sounds like your cartos are wet, so I don't think it's the lack of juice that's hurting them, unless not enough is flowing into the punched holes. Maybe you got a bad batch of cartos? Are they dual coil? Maybe the top coil is drying out? Have you tried a different device under the tank?

I hope you can get the issues sorted out. Hopefully someone else will have some more ideas, but I don't think you can be causing the damage you're describing just by the way you draw on them.

 

[invididual]

I agree with Pir, it definitely sounds like your voltage it too high, try 3.5v and work your way up. And for what its worth, my Lavatube fires .1v higher than its set to (set to 4.6v fires at 4.7v)

you might consider looking into getting an inline voltage meter like this LED Voltage Tester from SmokTek

Last night I burned up a "3.0" at 5.5v which has never happened before.

I know for me, lately, my SR "3.0" Boges have been reading anywhere from 2.2 to 3.1 ohms. Im not sure what went wrong in their quality control or if the employees feeding the machines just dont care anymore.

 

[Synnuh]

I'm using the single coil cartos. I'm going to go ahead and order another 25 cartos, and ~20 different juices to try out. I raised the voltage up to get more TH but I'll try finding some other juices that give me good TH at a lower voltage. I'm also going to order the Tankometer to figure out where the LT is really coming in at. I'll throw in a couple boxes of both SR and LR in the order.

I've had a couple of the cartos flood after I've done 5-10 dry pulls, but at this point I'd rather deal with flooding than burning up the cartos since it's a lot easier to fix.

I'm also going to pull this tank off of the LT and carry around a couple of my Riva batteries today to see if they burn up on there, too. I'll give your technique a shot, too, Pir.

I love the concept behind carto tanks, but so far my execution has left a lot to be desired. Thanks for the thoughts ya'll. If you have anything come to mind, definitely let me know, any and all help is greatly appreciated.