I agree. No air getting trapped. Bubbles are not going up because it's not wicking properly. Less cotton
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Well, I won't try it with this wick job, this time there's really very little cotton there, I wanted to make sure to solve my dry-hit problem. So it's probably quite leak prone right now, but I wanna make sure that it stays ok for a few refills, before I'll make the tails about 1 mm longer, and then I'll try to fill from the top again.
After a few days of re-wicking and refills, I’m starting to enjoy the Berserker
It only took me about a year lol Although during this time, there has been many incidences where I must have gotten it right accidentally, or almost, because I’ve always had to pay attention not to chain vape. Now, even with my home-made 100% VG, no problem, and no leaking, spitting or gurgling either! The trick seems to be, to let the tails hang into the wells, but very little, just about 1 mm. I think the wells are about 3 mm deep, so the margin of error isn’t very large until your tails are too big. That’s when I had the problem of dry hits.
It only took me about a year lol Although during this time, there has been many incidences where I must have gotten it right accidentally, or almost, because I’ve always had to pay attention not to chain vape. Now, even with my home-made 100% VG, no problem, and no leaking, spitting or gurgling either! The trick seems to be, to let the tails hang into the wells, but very little, just about 1 mm. I think the wells are about 3 mm deep, so the margin of error isn’t very large until your tails are too big. That’s when I had the problem of dry hits.Many academically scientific theories exist among rta vapers as to what would allow for good wicking or cause a dry hit. They all make theoretical sense but don't always translate to everyone in real life.
1. Avoid completely full tank, need some air to expand at each draw, allowing for the juice to wet /saturate the wick : dunno about this one, my serpent mini wicked very well on completely full tanks, no dry hits due to that. Perhaps only tanks with juice holes would need some air to expand (allow for juice to go through holes) not so doggy styles or other wick<>juice contact tanks (capillary suction does not need expansion of air in tank)
2. Avoid over packing your juice wells, it will trap the air bubbles and cause dry hits : how much is too much or too little is different for everyone, one thing though is too little will cause flooding. I found the only impact of packing wells and coil is the sound of the vape, not so much the flavour/dryness.
3. What I found made a consistent difference in how you wick was how your wick meets the juice/juice holes:
-if it just touches it on its Fiber tips, you're good.
-If doesn't touch, you'll get either flooding (if wick over thinned) or dry hits (normal to over packed wick).
-if wick is positioned as such that it is not the tip but the bend side of the fibres that is in contact with the juice/air holes, you'll get to dry hits pretty fast.
-with screw-in chimney type of tanks which hold wick in place (serpent mini), one needs to be careful not to to strangle the wick with the chimney, where wick meets the juice, ie wick length should be just right to touch bottom of wells.
1. Avoid completely full tank, need some air to expand at each draw, allowing for the juice to wet /saturate the wick : dunno about this one, my serpent mini wicked very well on completely full tanks, no dry hits due to that. Perhaps only tanks with juice holes would need some air to expand (allow for juice to go through holes) not so doggy styles or other wick<>juice contact tanks (capillary suction does not need expansion of air in tank)
2. Avoid over packing your juice wells, it will trap the air bubbles and cause dry hits : how much is too much or too little is different for everyone, one thing though is too little will cause flooding. I found the only impact of packing wells and coil is the sound of the vape, not so much the flavour/dryness.
3. What I found made a consistent difference in how you wick was how your wick meets the juice/juice holes:
-if it just touches it on its Fiber tips, you're good.
-If doesn't touch, you'll get either flooding (if wick over thinned) or dry hits (normal to over packed wick).
-if wick is positioned as such that it is not the tip but the bend side of the fibres that is in contact with the juice/air holes, you'll get to dry hits pretty fast.
-with screw-in chimney type of tanks which hold wick in place (serpent mini), one needs to be careful not to to strangle the wick with the chimney, where wick meets the juice, ie wick length should be just right to touch bottom of wells.
Same with my Berserker, and it doesn't really make sense: even if the tank isn't full, the air won't magically expand, there has to be new air coming in after each and every draw, which will allow some juice to flow into the wells, to replace the juice that has just been vaporised.
That has been my experience, I had a lot of dry hit until I realised that I was overpacking the wells.
It's been a month since this message, but I said I wanted to try again (filling from the top, now I wick it differently), so just yesterday I did, result: Started leaking immediately, and I had to go through the flipping it upside down and up and down and up procedure for a couple of minutes, until it stopped. Once it had stopped, no more leaking at all (nor dry hits), just like I'm now getting used to, with how I wick it now.
I think I have figured out what's happening with the filling and leaking: The reason that the Berserker isn't leaking until the tank is empty isn't the wick (except maybe if you stuff the wells tightly with cotton), but it's the vacuum in the tank which reduces the pressure sufficiently. Once the juice has filled the wells and soaked the wick, if the pressure is too high (if there's no vacuum, it will start overflowing and leaking. So that's why flipping it upside down helps stopping the leaking: That way, the air that's in the upper part of the tank will work it's way out and create a vacuum once turned upside up. This same theory would also explain why overfilling either stopped or substantially reduced the leaking: by leaving no air (or very little) in the tank when filling, there's (almost) a vacuum right from the start, or after a couple of puffs.
This is it. I have a Berserker Mini 1.5 and I cut the wick tails so short that when I go to tuck them in to the wells they barely go into the well. They just sit at the top of the wells.
I figure the liquid will get pushed upward through the well while you take a drag and naturally flow into the wick. I'd have to really hot box this thing to get a flavorless hit and even then it's not an actual dry hit.
I try to cut them long enough so that they go into the well at least a little bit, like 1mm (the well is about 3mm deep). If they are too short, it could start leaking and/or flooding the deck (eg gargling noise).
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