Getting a burnt taste rather quickly after replacing atomizer?

[Incendere]

Hey everyone, first time poster and extremely new to vaping. I went to a local Vape shop to finally kick smoking in prep for moving into a new place in a few months / pressure from girlfriend to quit smoking.

So far, I'm really loving it. In fact it's even better than smoking a regular cig in most cases. However, I'm running into a problem. I have a Aspire Nautilus tank and a Vision Spinner battery and I'm using a 50/50 PG VG menthol juice. After about a day or so of rather heavy vaping i'll start getting a horrid burnt taste. I've tried looking into it elsewhere, but a lot of suggestions require some hands on stuff i'm not quite comfortable working on as of yet. I run it on a rather high voltage to keep getting the 'throat hit' that I've grown oh so accustomed to and I assume that's the problem, burning the atomizier or something of that sort.

If anyone has some sort of maintenance I can do to prevent this or perhaps something I'm just missing, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[novamatt]

It could be that you have it turned up too high. If you're doing "rather heavy" vaping, as you put it, and you want a bigger throat hit, you may want to go up to the next nic level - that will give a harder throat hit and you'll use it a little less. You may also want to try a juice with a higher PG level. Generally, PG gives off more throat hit and flavor, and VG gives you more vapor. A 70/30 may give you more of the throat hit you want at a lower setting.

I've also found that the wicking on the Nautilus is a little finicky and relatively dependent on your airflow settings. If you're getting burnt hits, tightening up the airflow a little may help. On the opposite side, if you're getting a lot of flooding, try a smaller airflow setting.

Finally, if you're willing to throw another couple of bucks at the problem, you may want to try a variable voltage or wattage device with a display of some sort (like an MVP 2.0, Vamo, Evic, etc.). Then you know what kind of power you're running, and that can help you trouble-shoot. If you knew were running 5 volts or 12 watts, for example, we'd know your settings are too high and that's why you're getting the burnt taste. If you were at 4 volts and 8 watts, we could be more certain it was airflow/wicking or something else.

Oh, and I assume you've already got this part covered, but make sure you're not just running out of juice in your tank. A day or two of rather heavy vaping could go through a Nautilus's juice supply and lead to burnt hits because it's empty.

I've found those Nautilus coils go rather quickly and a good percentage of them are dead out of the box. A new coil could fix the problem, too.

 

[Rickajho]

You have a VV battery - what voltage are you using? It could just be you are running it too hot and the coil is getting trashed in short order in the process. If you run these BCC clearos hotter than necessary that can result in "burning" flavoring components in the liquid into the coil and wick faster than it normally occurs.

 

[Incendere]

Thanks for the replies, lots of useful information there. To answer your question, Rickajho, the voltage varies from 3.3v to 5.0v and I usually run it at at least 4.0.

When purchasing juices, do i just tell them I want different ratios of VG and PG? When I went the guy just asked for my flavor and went and did it. Didn't even realize there was so much variance between juices.

 

[novamatt]

It depends on who you buy from. Some juice companies have a set ratio and won't do anything else. Others ask what you want when you order. It seems that 70/30 is a pretty common standard, though - check out the websites for a few of the brands recommended on the boards and you'll definitely find something interesting.

 

[Hijack]

Thanks for the replies, lots of useful information there. To answer your question, Rickajho, the voltage varies from 3.3v to 5.0v and I usually run it at at least 4.0.

When purchasing juices, do i just tell them I want different ratios of VG and PG? When I went the guy just asked for my flavor and went and did it. Didn't even realize there was so much variance between juices.

Can you tell us what resistance the atomizer is, from the voltage and the resistance we can work out how much power(watts) is being delivered to the atty. if your battery doesn't have a resistance meter in it just tell us what is stamped on the atty coil.

 

[Incendere]

Err... I'll do my best. on the atty itself, it says 1.6 ohms and below it says 3.3-5.0V. Is that all you need?

 

[novamatt]

Also, at 4 volts, the 2.2 ohm Nautilus coils are at 7.25 watts, the 1.8s are 8.9, and the 1.6s are at 10. If you're using the 1.6 ohm attys (and possibly the 1.8s), you're probably burning your juice. Generally, 7.5-8 watts is about the line where most juices can start to burn in a clearomizer, but the Nautilus can go a little higher in my experience. I tend to keep it a 8 watts most of the time, which would be about 3.6v on the 1.6 coils, 3.8v on the 1.8s, and 4.2 on the 2.2s. Ohms plus 2 is a good rule of thumb for setting your voltage.

If you get into the RBAs at some point (Rebuildable Atomizers, where you build your own coils out of wire and wick material instead of buying replacement coils), you can turn them up a bit more, but you'll definitely want more powerful batteries to do that. And honestly, even though they CAN go higher, they don't need to - I keep my Kayfun at 8 watts, too. You'll get a bigger hit and probably want to use lower nic content than your Nautilus, because they vaporize better. They also usually end up being a lot cheaper - a 100ft roll of wire is about 6 bucks on Amazon, a box of sterile cotton balls is about 3 bucks at any drugstore, and those two will last you like a year, as opposed to a couple 5 packs of replacement attys every month.

If you want to learn more about those, check out the rebuildable atomizer subforum or search for coil builds on Youtube. A lot of people are intimidated, but they're pretty easy to deal with - I can build and wick a new coil in 5-10 minutes, and you'll only do it every couple of weeks or so.

 

[Incendere]

So, just to clarify the information above, I should be running my voltage at 3.6v instead of 4+? Also, if I have been burning the juice, is the whole tank of juice contaminated now and should be replaced? As for the Rebuildable ones, is there a specific video or sub-forum I can visit to learn more about that? Seems like it would be a great alternative to buying these disposable ones.

Thanks everyone for the awesome replies, it's been very helpful.

 

[Hijack]

Yes at 10w my duel coil does start to taste a little burnt. try turning down to the 3.6 suggested. There is a possibility that its a bad atty and you could try a swap to see if it makes it any better. I use a 70/30 PG/VG mix more PG does give a better throat hit.

 

[Hijack]

No the juice in tank will be fine.

 

[novamatt]

3.6ish is a good place to keep it around. It's not set in stone - different juices have different burning points. And the rest of the juice in the tank should be fine. You just burned what was in the atty at the time. However, if you turn it down and keep getting the burnt taste, you may have burned your wick and you'll need to change the coil to get rid of the bad taste.

RBAs - the Rebuildable Atomizer Stystems subforum is great. They come in 2 basic categories - drippers (also known as RDAs) and tanks (aka RTAs), and the difference is just what they sound like. You put your e juice in a dripper a few drops at a time, take a few hits, then add a few more drops. The tanks work pretty much the way your Nautilus does - fill it up and vape until the juice is almost gone, then refill.

A good basic dripper to learn on if you're interested in that style is the Youde (UD) Igo series. I have an Igo-W and an Igo-W4, but they're all very similar. And they're cheap - $15 or so. Here's a good video on the Igo-L, which should give you the basic idea.

The tank that's the most recommended to start with (and for more experienced users as well) is the Kayfun Lite + (or the Russian 91%... they're pretty much the same thing). These are pretty expensive, but the cheaper clone versions tend to work just as well for over half the price. I have an EHPro KFL+ clone I got for about $40 and it's great. Here's a video on these.

And yeah, you can save a lot of money in the long run on those. However, most of us find we end up spending it all on more vaping toys - new mods, new RBAs, different juices, and all that stuff. Once you get the bug, it can add up pretty quickly if you're not careful. Good luck.

 

[Mikala]

I'm not a fan of bottom coils. I like to enjoy a warmer vape and bottom coils will never win over the top coils ,like the iclear16 and the iclear30 etc.. The iclear 30 tanks are more economical and can handle higher voltages for a warmer vape & great throat hits. The wicks and coils are easy to clean and be reused , and not to mention, a lot cheaper than the Nautilus Heads (yes,I'm a cheapo). But your problem has to be that the voltage is to high. Oh yeah, Congradulations for giving up smoking!

 

[Sandylp]

It seems complicated, doesn't it? I'm new, too, and have found that I learn more and more every day. Just the experience of vaping has enlightened me, and of course, reading these threads. I seem to go thru atomizers on the Nautilus more than I would like. I try to reuse them as long as I can after soaking in Vodka and letting them dry, but if I get a burnt taste or they continue to flood, I just get out a new one. I've also found that if I use a clear e-liquid, I am able to use the atomizer longer. I've kept the old atomizers, in case I decide to try to rebuild them, but I'm not quite ready to try that yet. BTW, I do keep the voltage at a minimum.