What I was wondering was what exactly was carbon based on the juices. If sugar is used, then there is a lot of carbon. I actually used a high powered magnifying glass here at work and put the atty under it. Yikes. You can really see the gunk on the inner coils, but not a lot on the outside coils. I mean, this stuff is caked on. I can see now how the burning method may work, akin to getting the grill really hot to cook off all the excess carbon (i.e. fat, grizzle, etc.) on it. But, those coils are really thin, I would think with time, that metal would break down, especially after numerous heat/cool cycles. Going to try the Coke cleaning method. When looking at it through a compound magnifying scope, you can reall see how thin the coil wire is. It's amazing to me that they work at all. Pretty delicate.
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Yeah, it's Nichrome wire, I think. Eventually it will burn out or break, especially if it's coated in gunk-- one person determined that the deposits can get so bad that they literally displace the wire so much it just breaks off.
Interestingly, one way people have found to break the carbon deposits involves heating the atomizer up to glowing and then tossing it in cold water. The sudden expansion reportedly makes the deposits break right off, but I have to think that's going to shorten the life of the wire, too. Just a guess, though.
Based on what I've read around here, there are definitely liquids with sugars in them, and they are best avoided.
OK, been reading a bunch on how to clean atty's. Seems like that subject is highly subjective. What works for some, others swear it ruined theirs. So, what about hydrogen peroxide? The water boil will not get off what I described above looking at the coils under a compound microscope. With that in mind, the jewerly cleaner method with soapy water will not suffice as well. Coke seemed pretty logical, besides the low phosphoric acid, the rest is sweetner and if left on the coils, it wouldn't be such a bad thing. Hydrogen Peroxide is H2O2, so your technically soaking it in a super rich oxygen, which wouldn't be a bad thing.
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I've tried hydrogen peroxide and noticed no difference, but some others say it works for them. It could be a placebo effect, or it could be that deposits left by certain liquids are more affected by H2O2 and others are less so. All I know is that I personally didn't have much luck with it. It doesn't hurt to try, though.
I used an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner to clean mine. Two runs about 5 minutes each, takes the gunk right off. Soak and rinse in water, leave to dry in the sun, good to go. If you can find one of those ultrasonic cleaners, they work really well.
I've also tried the peroxide bath--I can't say it's super-effective, but I've had the same three atties for awhile now, and I do notice increased vapor after each wash (I do mine about once a week, or just whenever the atty starts slacking). And it's definitely not going to hurt your atties as much as some of the more intense methods could.
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