This was an idea that dawned on me while enjoying the new LR ego mega attys, but as usual I was getting irritated with dripping (which even with drip tips I find to be inconvenient at best). I've been experimenting lately with the new E2 cartos, and while I really enjoy them, the inconsistency of hit and quality control was really starting to drive me nuts.
So I thought, why not try combining some of the ideas for cartridge mods and the ideas used in the construction of the e2 and put them to work in these gigantic capacity (2.5ish ml) ego mega cartridges.
The ZFM postings in this forum are what inspired me to start this, and it begins pretty basically. The following are my weapons of choice:
1) Amazing Mold Putty to create the cap.
2) One ego mega cart sacrificed to the hacksaw for the mold body.
3) Your wick of choice, you can use polyfill. In my case I chose to use wicks which I liberated from some unused 1st revision E2 cartos that I consider worthless at this point (the reason I chose real wicks over polyfill, I'll get to later).
First step was to create the cap mold. While making the mold in the sawed off cap, I used a small jewelers screwdriver to create the juice hole that runs through the middle of it, it's about the same thickness as a toothpick though, the screwdriver just happened to be in arms reach as I was making the mold. I let the mold set up until it was fully hardened (about an hour, although it was workable in 30 minutes probably).
The next step was to slice off a piece of the mold to use as a cap. No real science here, I just eyeballed it to a reasonable thickness which I think might be close to 2mm or more. I then folded the wick over enough times that it completely filled the juice hole tightly after pushing it through.
Getting the right depth is not tricky, but I discovered the hard way that if you fill the cart up to or near the brim with juice and then just put the cap in and let the bridge seat it, you will be rewarded with a juice bath since the cap needs to sit down just a bit due to the height of the bridge. So, I set it on an empty cart and put it on the atty to gauge the depth:
After seating, it looked like this, note how the wick is almost at the edge of the cart top:
The cart is still holding 2ml of juice btw at this point, so no great loss.
So, performance wise, this is equivalent to dripping, but with the obvious flaws of wicking, it does need to rest about 4-5 hits or so, the nice thing about these LR megas though, is that (at least in my case), the vapor volume and hit is so strong, that it will knock you on the floor if you don't take a break for the wick to re-saturate anyway.
And, not to mention the fact that an ego decked out with these attys, looks just plain cool, and the duck bill tips have become my favorite by far..
Some final notes:
I experimented with using polyfill originally, but then a thought occurred to me that this kind of reservoir/wick mod might be the absolute perfect thing to use with bridge-less attys. I only have 2 LR attys currently, so I'm not about to take a chance on potentially breaking one of these beauties during bridge removal to test my theory...yet. In a couple of days I should have a bunch of them and then I won't stress about carving one up for the sake of science. I figure that removing the bridge, in conjunction with a non-burning wick material, might kill two birds with one stone. It will free up that little extra room in the cart that the bridge depth removes for more juice, and with it sitting on top of the coil, it should get the juice to it faster since it won't have the bridge and the factory wick in the way.
That's my theory anyway.... I won't know for a couple of days yet..
So I thought, why not try combining some of the ideas for cartridge mods and the ideas used in the construction of the e2 and put them to work in these gigantic capacity (2.5ish ml) ego mega cartridges.
The ZFM postings in this forum are what inspired me to start this, and it begins pretty basically. The following are my weapons of choice:
1) Amazing Mold Putty to create the cap.
2) One ego mega cart sacrificed to the hacksaw for the mold body.
3) Your wick of choice, you can use polyfill. In my case I chose to use wicks which I liberated from some unused 1st revision E2 cartos that I consider worthless at this point (the reason I chose real wicks over polyfill, I'll get to later).
First step was to create the cap mold. While making the mold in the sawed off cap, I used a small jewelers screwdriver to create the juice hole that runs through the middle of it, it's about the same thickness as a toothpick though, the screwdriver just happened to be in arms reach as I was making the mold. I let the mold set up until it was fully hardened (about an hour, although it was workable in 30 minutes probably).
The next step was to slice off a piece of the mold to use as a cap. No real science here, I just eyeballed it to a reasonable thickness which I think might be close to 2mm or more. I then folded the wick over enough times that it completely filled the juice hole tightly after pushing it through.
Getting the right depth is not tricky, but I discovered the hard way that if you fill the cart up to or near the brim with juice and then just put the cap in and let the bridge seat it, you will be rewarded with a juice bath since the cap needs to sit down just a bit due to the height of the bridge. So, I set it on an empty cart and put it on the atty to gauge the depth:
After seating, it looked like this, note how the wick is almost at the edge of the cart top:
The cart is still holding 2ml of juice btw at this point, so no great loss.
So, performance wise, this is equivalent to dripping, but with the obvious flaws of wicking, it does need to rest about 4-5 hits or so, the nice thing about these LR megas though, is that (at least in my case), the vapor volume and hit is so strong, that it will knock you on the floor if you don't take a break for the wick to re-saturate anyway.
And, not to mention the fact that an ego decked out with these attys, looks just plain cool, and the duck bill tips have become my favorite by far..
Some final notes:
I experimented with using polyfill originally, but then a thought occurred to me that this kind of reservoir/wick mod might be the absolute perfect thing to use with bridge-less attys. I only have 2 LR attys currently, so I'm not about to take a chance on potentially breaking one of these beauties during bridge removal to test my theory...yet. In a couple of days I should have a bunch of them and then I won't stress about carving one up for the sake of science. I figure that removing the bridge, in conjunction with a non-burning wick material, might kill two birds with one stone. It will free up that little extra room in the cart that the bridge depth removes for more juice, and with it sitting on top of the coil, it should get the juice to it faster since it won't have the bridge and the factory wick in the way.
That's my theory anyway.... I won't know for a couple of days yet..
