Joye 510 attys do have a wick, and it is general quite pronounced. However, while I do not have a LF atty, I do have a KGO 510 atty, which I believe is made by SLB. It does not have a wick, and instead it has a much wider bridge. It does have the oval-like coil bed, like a Joye, but evidently no wick. That said, I really like these attys, and unlike early SLB attys, their resistance is around 2.5 ohms, rather than 3.2 ohms as SLB were before. So either this atty has no wick at all, or it is so small that it does not stick out or can be pushed out. I have not used them for long enough to even clean them, however, as I favor cartos, so I do not know about what they will do after days of
vaping.
So this means that it is very possible your atty has no wick. And thus, the burnt taste is not necessarily related to a "burnt" wick. Wicks do not burn. You could even take a lighter to them, and they will not ignite, by chemical design. I know several people here have insisted on them getting burnt and thus making a bad taste, but they do not burn. They can get dark in color from
juice decomposition, and it is possible this needs to be cleaned off, but if an atty has a wick, I assume it is there for a reason...to wick. Evidently the KGO attys don't need them, but then I generally drip only. Haven't bothered with carts in ages. The LF attys are quite possibly the same, no wick.
I am very aware of the dewicking craze, but I do not support it. I have attempted with great care to dewick several Joye attys, which did open them up briefly, but they all died within 30 minutes. This means that I somehow severed the coil, probably old and fragile (they are fragile anyway), perhaps the wick was tangled or stuck hard to the coil. Burnt taste is virtually 100% coil not getting juice wicked to it. Good cleaning of the atty in my experience is a far better way to keep the atty healthy, tasting better, and living longer. I use the polydent tablet/hot water method. I put my attys in a small mug, just cover with hot water, add an overnight polydent tablet (generic is probably fine too), and let sit with occasional swirling for 12 hours, then flush them out with lots of hot water and air or oven dry at 250 degrees. The "burnt" wick comes back white.
But this is all moot for you, since you probably have no wick fibers in yours. Thus, if you are using carts, the burnt taste is the age-old problem of carts not delivering juice well. I would try dripping, either with a drip tip or an empty cart...4 drops directly onto the bridge...and see how that tastes. If its good, then its a problem with the cart filler not giving up juice well, as this generally is. Changing the filler to another filler, like aquarium foam, should help a lot. As I said, though, I found carts to be too much of a pain...leaking, or not giving up juice, having to be topped off a lot anyway, so might as well drip. There are some very good cart mods out there if you look, and kinda fun to make and try, but I am so much happier with Boge cartomizers for routine
vaping. And it is very possible that since these attys have no wicks, they were designed with dripping in mind, since very few seasoned vapers use carts...but they have to include SOMETHING to allow you to vape right out of the box.
Some also remove the bridge entirely. You can try this, but again, this is very careful and fine work to do without killing it. This will render the atty drip-only anyway. If you are a new user, it takes a while to get the feel of making an atty/cart work well, and if you are like most, you will either try cartomizers or dripping.
Good luck!
