Daily dry burn for cleaning atties.

[surbitonPete]

Ok, despite trying all the different suggestions for prolonging the life of my atties none of them worked 'for me' and I could never get an atty to last much more than two weeks and even if they were working after just a few days the performance of my atties was always hopeless.

I tried my own slightly altered version of the dry burn idea and have now had several atties working 'perfectly' for well over two weeks. my latest one has now lasted 29 days. I am happy as long as an atty at least last's me for two weeks I feel as if I have had my moneys worth out of it, especially with the price of the TW 5 pack 801 penstyle's

My version is to do a dry burn 'every' day from new. This is just a simple matter of applying power without a cart until I can see a red glow from the coil for no more than a second or two. I have found it's important to do it every day otherwise the gunk builds up on the coil and then it just holds the heat in and usually the atty dies before you can even get it to glow red. (I have only used this on penstyle attys but I would think it would be the same with any atty)

Well anyway this is working for me and I am finally getting a reasonable life out of my atties. If you are someone like me who 'never' has any luck with atties lasting for long despite trying everything everyone else recommends.....then try out the dry burn and hopefully this method will also work for you.

Actually it might have been better to have titled the thread 'prolonging' the life of atties..because sometimes I do still give it a qick rinse out with vodka if the atty 'tastes' horrible.

 

[Daedalus]

I've always wanted to try something like this but it always involved a volt mod of some sort. I've only ever had automatic's so I didn't think there was any other way.

Now that I've got a Joye 510 though, I'm gonna give this a try on one of my atty's. I'll report results.

Do you just fill up your cart and go after a dry burn or is washing advisable?

 

[cassavetes]

Thanks for the tip, Pete.

I've always wondered if dry burning was a safe/effective method of cleaning an atty.

It's easy enough to do with my manual batteries.

 

[Daedalus]

I always thought that running the atomizer dry, even for a moment, would kill it. Had some 901 atomizer deaths that I chalked up to smoking it dry by mistake, never seemed like they were the same after that.

Tried it on a 510 atomizer I started yesterday just now though and it did nothing to diminish the vapor production. I'm gonna try to model the OP and do this every day, see how long this one lasts.

 

[Synthnadz]

I feel like I keep trying to put out this fire in every thread that raises the topic, in hopes of saving some of you from potentially trashing your atomizers. ;-)

I've noticed this: with certain attys - depending on where they're from and how they're built, 'dry burning' can result in burning up the fiber glass wick underneath the mesh material. So be careful. I myself tried this on two different types of 801 atomizers (the BE112 and a Rocky Mountain Vapor 801), and both of them were rendered unusable after attempting a dry burn. No amount of cleaning after the fact would remedy this.

So, be careful. I myself am never doing it again, that's for sure. YMMV, of course. =]

 

[surbitonPete]

I feel like I keep trying to put out this fire in every thread that raises the topic, in hopes of saving some of you from potentially trashing your atomizers. ;-)

I've noticed this: with certain attys - depending on where they're from and how they're built, 'dry burning' can result in burning up the fiber glass wick underneath the mesh material. So be careful. I myself tried this on two different types of 801 atomizers (the BE112 and a Rocky Mountain Vapor 801), and both of them were rendered unusable after attempting a dry burn. No amount of cleaning after the fact would remedy this.

So, be careful. I myself am never doing it again, that's for sure. YMMV, of course. =]

I made a point of pointing out that if you have 'tried everything else' and still had no luck with atty life ....then try this. It's worked for ME when nothing else did and it has worked for enough atties now for me to know that it's going to keep on working for 'ME' . I am on day 33 with my latest atty...burning 3 to 4 ml of juice a day.
And when it comes to burning the wicks ....I have taken apart a lot of atties...I have put the wicks in the hottest part of a bunsen burner flame and all it does is clean off the black gunk and make them look like new again.....the wick material has never 'burnt' on any of mine.
So thanks for your efforts to tell everyone not to try it.

 

[jj2]

I seem to have more trouble with the batteries in my first three models. The fourth and my all time favorite is my mini. I got two complete mini ecigs but one battery died in a short time. The other is going on three months.
All my atty's have lasted at least a couple months. I've been at this for around six months and I've only lost one because part of the arch came off. All the others still work but since I cleaned them, they got a bad taste to them. I use them on my mods--if one has to die because I made a mistake, I'd rather it be them.

Anyway, since they get a bad taste to them after cleaning, I've pretty much given up on doing anything. I might use one of the old ones to try the burn method out though.

 

[surbitonPete]

I've always wanted to try something like this but it always involved a volt mod of some sort. I've only ever had automatic's so I didn't think there was any other way.

Now that I've got a Joye 510 though, I'm gonna give this a try on one of my atty's. I'll report results.

Do you just fill up your cart and go after a dry burn or is washing advisable?

Hi daedalus...I only ever give a rinse with vodka if I have a bad taste from the atty, I haven't had to do it at all with this atty and I have been using ecopure rich and tw hilton. I think the juices can make a difference.

 

[surbitonPete]

I seem to have more trouble with the batteries in my first three models. The fourth and my all time favorite is my mini. I got two complete mini ecigs but one battery died in a short time. The other is going on three months.
All my atty's have lasted at least a couple months. I've been at this for around six months and I've only lost one because part of the arch came off. All the others still work but since I cleaned them, they got a bad taste to them. I use them on my mods--if one has to die because I made a mistake, I'd rather it be them.

If your atties are lasting months anyway then there certainly isn't any point in doing the daily dry burn.
This thread is just for people like me who have tried everything else and still had no luck with atty life. the daily dry burn is without doubt the 'only' thing that has worked for me. All I know is that I am now a very happy vapourer now that I am no longer spending a fortune on atties.

The dry burn isn't even my idea but it was the very last method I tried because I thought it was far more likely to kill my atty's than make them last. I only tried it because I no longer had anything to loose ....nothing else had worked.

 

[Synthnadz]

I made a point of pointing out that if you have 'tried everything else' and still had no luck with atty life ....then try this. It's worked for ME when nothing else did and it has worked for enough atties now for me to know that it's going to keep on working for 'ME' . I am on day 33 with my latest atty...burning 3 to 4 ml of juice a day.
And when it comes to burning the wicks ....I have taken apart a lot of atties...I have put the wicks in the hottest part of a bunsen burner flame and all it does is clean off the black gunk and make them look like new again.....the wick material has never 'burnt' on any of mine.
So thanks for your efforts to tell everyone not to try it.

My only reason for providing the warning was that your suggested method comes across as a preventative measure of sorts. So, if you just slapped on a new atty and are interested in prolonging its life, you may read this thread and say 'let me give that a shot' - just like I did.

Perhaps my assumption about the wick burning is not the case, and it's in fact something else that's burning. Either way, I'm just doing my part to provide my own recent experience for anyone considering this.

If you read my post you'll see that I did not tell everyone to 'not try this'. I merely posted a warning about your method and shared my own failed experiences with the 'dry burn' method. It cost me 2 brand new 801 attys, so I think posting a warning for those thinking about trying this is certainly warranted.

Damn - I wish it worked for me, as my atomizers are not going the distance at all. Is anyone else doing the dry burn and getting good results?

 

[casey8579]

Hi Pete, I'm with you on this one. I'm not one of the lucky ones that can get much atty life/performance without some kind of cleaning. I have a 510 that I started this vaping with on June 6 and from the beginning my attys would only last about a week then the performance would drop to the unsatifactory level.

I followed your progress on the other thread and began to try it myself and can say it also works for me. Into the 3rd week now and the 3 atomizers I rotate during the day (I like to change flavors during the day) are still giving great performance.

I had several atomizers I had set aside earlier as being unsatisfactory. So I dug them back out did a dry burn on them but could see no glow (no suprise there). I got some of the nickel safe ice machine cleaner mentioned on another thread and gave four of them a three day soak and it worked great. All four now will glow after a second or two and perform good again. Gonna use only these for now and see if they will stay good with a daily dry burn. My thanks to you and the poster that brought up the ice machine cleaner, for these 2 ideas have certainly helped me out.

One caveat tho, for anyone that may want to try the ice machine cleaner, the 3 day soak ruined the paint on the atomizer. Doesn't matter to me but it may to others.

 

[surbitonPete]

My only reason for providing the warning was that your suggested method comes across as a preventative measure of sorts. So, if you just slapped on a new atty and are interested in prolonging its life, you may read this thread and say 'let me give that a shot' - just like I did.

Perhaps my assumption about the wick burning is not the case, and it's in fact something else that's burning. Either way, I'm just doing my part to provide my own recent experience for anyone considering this.

If you read my post you'll see that I did not tell everyone to 'not try this'. I merely posted a warning about your method and shared my own failed experiences with the 'dry burn' method. It cost me 2 brand new 801 attys, so I think posting a warning for those thinking about trying this is certainly warranted.

Damn - I wish it worked for me, as my atomizers are not going the distance at all. Is anyone else doing the dry burn and getting good results?

It 'is' a preventative measure, it doesn't give the gunk a chance to build up, my own experience has shown that atty coils can have a thick coating of gunk within just a couple of days of vaping and if you do try doing the burn with a thick coating of gunk on the coil it more often than not kills it because it gets much hotter under the insulation of all the gunk. I don't go around warning everyone not to try any of the methods that haven't worked for me and believe me I have tried them all. Other methods do work for a lot of people but they didn't work for me. I really don't understand why there is so much variation, I really don't know why your atties died if you did it the same as I do, perhaps just bad luck, perhaps I am finally having 'good' luck...but I didn't post this method until I had a number of atties that had worked perfectly and given a reasonable life using it.

(oh I have to admit, I never did get around to trying the ice machine cleaner, it was hard to get a hold of) ..but I now have a supply of just about every other chemical you can purchase in my cupboards..lol.)

 

[ournature]

hi surbitonPete, can i ask you what brand is your penstyle atty that is doing fine with dry burn cleaning metod?
I'm trying to find a safe way to not let my attys get the permanent burnt taste they always get after a week or so of use.
i haven't had problems with short life attys, haven't had a dead atty in 4 months of vaping, but they always get a permanent burnt taste after 7-10 days. i'm using TW penstyle attys with a JS.
Fact is that i don't know what makes them taste like that, then i'm not sure what to do to avoid the burnt taste.
Did you have any burnt taste atty with your daily dry burn method?
You mention vodka cleaning to get rid of it, how exactly do you clean them with vodka?
thanks in advance!

 

[Synthnadz]

It 'is' a preventative measure, it doesn't give the gunk a chance to build up, my own experience has shown that atty coils can have a thick coating of gunk within just a couple of days of vaping and if you do try doing the burn with a thick coating of gunk on the coil it more often than not kills it because it gets much hotter under the insulation of all the gunk. I don't go around warning everyone not to try any of the methods that haven't worked for me and believe me I have tried them all. Other methods do work for a lot of people but they didn't work for me. I really don't understand why there is so much variation, I really don't know why your atties died if you did it the same as I do, perhaps just bad luck, perhaps I am finally having 'good' luck...but I didn't post this method until I had a number of atties that had worked perfectly and given a reasonable life using it.

(oh I have to admit, I never did get around to trying the ice machine cleaner, it was hard to get a hold of) ..but I now have a supply of just about every other chemical you can purchase in my cupboards..lol.)

I know the method is intended as a preventative measure, and that's why I was so drawn to it after reading your posts. I really wish that my experiments with it worked for me. Now I'm hesitant to try it with the new attys I have coming, even though I really like the concept.

For reference, the 801 attys I 'cooked' with the dry burn were a BE112 and an 801 from Rocky Mountain Vapor.

I'm getting some TW 801s, some Eastmall 801s, and some RN4072s this week, and I wish I had the stones to try this with them. ;-)

 

[surbitonPete]

hi surbitonPete, can i ask you what brand is your penstyle atty that is doing fine with dry burn cleaning metod?
I'm trying to find a safe way to not let my attys get the permanent burnt taste they always get after a week or so of use.
i haven't had problems with short life attys, haven't had a dead atty in 4 months of vaping, but they always get a permanent burnt taste after 7-10 days. i'm using TW penstyle attys with a JS.
Fact is that i don't know what makes them taste like that, then i'm not sure what to do to avoid the burnt taste.
Did you have any burnt taste atty with your daily dry burn method?
You mention vodka cleaning to get rid of it, how exactly do you clean them with vodka?
thanks in advance!

So far I have had a reasonably long life out of two (or three) RN 4072's and now two of the cheap, no guarantee Tw 801's, sometimes there is a bit of a crappy taste after a dry burn but it only lasts for a few vapes. Which I don't inhale. ....If there is a taste that won't go away I have been just dropping the atty in a small pot of vodka and giving it a quick shake and blow it out onto a tissue. I sometimes have to do that with a brand new atty as well because it's not unusual to get one that tastes really bad. Even if you don't bother with trying the dry burn...a vodka or alcohol rinse hopefully will get rid of your bad taste problems.

 

[dhp1161]

thank for tip

 

[sattec]

If your gonna try to burn it clean, using a power source thats more powerful than your pen batt helps. If You put 4.2 volts on an atty that is used at 3.7, your gonna stand a better chance of carbon gunk flaking off. It's better to use a precleaner to loosen and remove gunk before you stress it out by doing a full dry "burn off". If you can find an effective cleaning solution,for your juice, you won't need to "burn off", and you'll see the "glow" right away. "Burning off" shortens the atty's lifespan and can ruin it. The DRY burn off will completly drain any juice reserves in the atty, your not burning the gunk if it's still smoking when you blow air into the cart end while powering the atty. Auto batts and "auto time out manuals" don't work well for a full dry burn, an untimed batt mod will allow you really brun it down to dry and actually make carbon flake off...this is all very risky and any weak atty's with defects may fail during a REAL dry burn...I hope this helps you.....

 

[surbitonPete]

If your gonna try to burn it clean, using a power source thats more powerful than your pen batt helps. If You put 4.2 volts on an atty that is used at 3.7, your gonna stand a better chance of carbon gunk flaking off. It's better to use a precleaner to loosen and remove gunk before you stress it out by doing a full dry "burn off". If you can find an effective cleaning solution,for your juice, you won't need to "burn off", and you'll see the "glow" right away. "Burning off" shortens the atty's lifespan and can ruin it. The DRY burn off will completly drain any juice reserves in the atty, your not burning the gunk if it's still smoking when you blow air into the cart end while powering the atty. Auto batts and "auto time out manuals" don't work well for a full dry burn, an untimed batt mod will allow you really brun it down to dry and actually make carbon flake off...this is all very risky and any weak atty's with defects may fail during a REAL dry burn...I hope this helps you.....

Yes the dry burn could only really be done with a manual pv.

It has worked for me with my mod running with four AA 1.2 v batteries which fully charged give 5.68volts and it's still worked O/k running the mod with just 3 AA 1.2v batteries which give 4.26 volts fully charged, so I can't see why it wouldn't work the same with a 3.7volt pv which usually charges to around 4.1volts fully charged. There is no doubt that it will kill atties that are 'already' defective but for me it has only given me atties that have worked perfectly for well over the two weeks that was the most I had ever gotten before with any other cleaning method.

I had originally dismissed the dry burn idea because I thought it was absolutely crazy and was far more likely to kill atties than to make them last longer, so when I finally tried it, it was only as a last resort. Now 'I' certainly wish I had tried it first.
Oh and it's day 34 today with my latest atty....still working just as good as new and no loss of performance.

 

[kinabaloo]

I was an early adopter of this back at the beginning of May. Though it was not until some time later that I saw with my own eyes how effective this can be when I was working on some electronic circuitry and was using a coil removed from the atty casing.

After a short time of glowing orange hot, it was clean - not far off new looking!

I describe this more here: Cleaning the Atomiser

In fact while doing these experiments I often run my 901 coil yellow hot for extended periods while fiddling with the electronics (say 20 seconds), a number of times and it didn't fail.

There are obviously limits and variations though. In short, I recommend only battery power (not direct passthroughs), looking for the glow and doing daily from new, just as Pete says.

If doing this as a last resort, I recommend a soak first; vinegar or lemon juice being good choices, or cola; say 24 hours. In these cases, the deposit will be too great to burn-off (primarily carbon to CO2) but will flake off instead.

A new atty might fail straight off with a dry burn, but might not have lasted long anyway in this case. If it's not new, the risk is far higher.

There's still more to learn about this.

 

[kinabaloo]

btw, I remember someone saying we wouldn't do this to a car engine. Indeed, but an engine has gaskets and seals and altogether more complex.

However, there is a fuel additive that is effective at removing carbon deposits from the fuel system; and I have had good results with it. Basically it is alcohol, which makes the fuel burn hotter. So in fact a similar approach.