How do you know when your carto's empty?
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in short, when it's not giving you a good vape. at least for the ones i've tried, the polyfill will still be a little wet but not giving me enough. do you have the kind with the removable cap? if not, get some, put a drip-tip on it, and just drip 4 drops when it's feelin' low
Thanks, for an obvious answer to my bonehead question. There's a removable cap for the cartos im not using, if that's what you speak of.
maybe. little white rubber cap on the top that serves as a mouthpiece. if we're talking about the same carto, you can just pop it off, plug in a drip-tip, and treat as though you were dripping, but with low risk of spilling and less frequent need for dripping.
Are your 510's the basic 3-piece older-style starter kit with battery, atomizer and cartridge, or are they 2-piece (battery and cartomizer)? That makes a huge difference in how I'd answer this question.
It's a three piece. Theres no mouth cap. Just the hole at the end of the cart. I've had no leakage issues as of yet, plus I usually angle the LED-side down just in case
I use the one-piece cartomizers which work on KR808; like the V2 brand.
I periodically pop the white plug out of the mouth end (using a toothpick in the hole to pry it out) and just look at the polyfill.
If it doesn't look "wet enough" I'll add a few drops.
As others have also said, after a while you can start to tell the difference when you're not getting good hits of vapor; if it seems weak or sparse (instead of thick) but you know your battery is good.
If you go long enough, you can taste a slight change when you start burning the polyfill. Unfortunately, once you can sense that, it's often too late. I see a lot of people say you'll never get rid of the burned taste from the carto at that point; but I have quickly learned to stop before then and refill.
I periodically pop the white plug out of the mouth end (using a toothpick in the hole to pry it out) and just look at the polyfill.
If it doesn't look "wet enough" I'll add a few drops.
As others have also said, after a while you can start to tell the difference when you're not getting good hits of vapor; if it seems weak or sparse (instead of thick) but you know your battery is good.
If you go long enough, you can taste a slight change when you start burning the polyfill. Unfortunately, once you can sense that, it's often too late. I see a lot of people say you'll never get rid of the burned taste from the carto at that point; but I have quickly learned to stop before then and refill.
Burning the polyfill. That's something else I wondered about. Reading that made me check my pollyfill real quick. Thanks!!
I was a little unclear on that, since you used the terms "carto" and "cart", which are not the same. It sounds like you're using cartridges, which I have never been able to yield as much as a single puff of vapor. I was first subjected to them when I bought my first PV, some kind of Joye 510 clone. I looked at the design and wondered "how the hell is the juice supposed to magically find its way into the atomizer", and it was my experience that it didn't. My vaping career began when I was told to buy a box of five dual coil low-resistance cartomizers (cartos), where the "cartridge" and atomizer are together in one piece, and the coils are nestled right in with the absorbent material that holds the juice, so they can actually warm it like they're supposed to.
The cartomizers I got were just some no-name, but quite good, ones that I got through esmokeronline.com. Almost anything will be far better than what you're using now, but Boge cartomizers seem to be very well-regarded. With your 510, I think around 1.7 ohm should give you a good vape. Once you're up and running, you can start discovering all of the many other options available, like big tanks with (slotted or punched) cartomizers running down the middle of them, like Mom and Pops Submarine Tank, the CE4, or a ton of others.
I really do have a strong feeling that your carts haven't been giving you much of a vape AT ALL, because if they were, you'd know for sure when they were running low.
***
I wrote a looong post (#18) in this thread:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/new-members-forum/279775-new-member-here-need-help.html
that might help you sort out some of the options available. I found this whole vaping deal to be extremely confusing, and I just wanted to try my hand at seeing if I could pass along some of the things I've learned to try to make it less painful for others just starting out. Maybe it'll help you get a good vape on. Good luck.
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As others have also said, after a while you can start to tell the difference when you're not getting good hits of vapor; if it seems weak or sparse (instead of thick) but you know your battery is good.
First sign will be a lack of flavor followed by lack of vapor. At first sign of flavor loss, stop and refill or you run the risk of burning the carto rendering it useless.
Yeah. That's a cartridge -- the filler that's inside of those cartridges is supposed to wick the juice down to the atomizer. My experience is that with those, it takes about 10-12 drops to fill the cartridge, and then about every fifth puff, you want to add more juice before you start getting that burned filler taste.
I strongly recommend getting cartomizers, which are a one-piece combination of a cartridge and an atomizer that tends to wick far better. Typically, cartomizers also hold a lot more juice than a cartridge will, and because they're made to wick the juice to their built-in atomizer, it does just that.
But if you do want to keep using the cartridges: keep the juice in your pocket, and as soon as you start losing flavor, add more juice.
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I was a little unclear on that, since you used the terms "carto" and "cart", which are not the same. It sounds like you're using cartridges, which I have never been able to yield as much as a single puff of vapor. I was first subjected to them when I bought my first PV, some kind of Joye 510 clone. I looked at the design and wondered "how the hell is the juice supposed to magically find its way into the atomizer", and it was my experience that it didn't. My vaping career began when I was told to buy a box of five dual coil low-resistance cartomizers (cartos), where the "cartridge" and atomizer are together in one piece, and the coils are nestled right in with the absorbent material that holds the juice, so they can actually warm it like they're supposed to.
The cartomizers I got were just some no-name, but quite good, ones that I got through esmokeronline.com. Almost anything will be far better than what you're using now, but Boge cartomizers seem to be very well-regarded. With your 510, I think around 1.7 ohm should give you a good vape. Once you're up and running, you can start discovering all of the many other options available, like big tanks with (slotted or punched) cartomizers running down the middle of them, like Mom and Pops Submarine Tank, the CE4, or a ton of others.
I really do have a strong feeling that your carts haven't been giving you much of a vape AT ALL, because if they were, you'd know for sure when they were running low.
***
I wrote a looong post (#18) in this thread:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/new-members-forum/279775-new-member-here-need-help.html
that might help you sort out some of the options available. I found this whole vaping deal to be extremely confusing, and I just wanted to try my hand at seeing if I could pass along some of the things I've learned to try to make it less painful for others just starting out. Maybe it'll help you get a good vape on. Good luck.
carto=cartomizer, cart=cartridge?
Anyway, you've struck on another thought I was having about the juice going from the polyfill to the atty. How would it when I'm sucking air the other direction? I was guessing that maybe sucking the warmth from the atty through the cartridge with the liquid inside is what's happening. Now I know.
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I think i'm beginning to experience what you're talking about needing to add more juice..
Well in a word, NO! Do Not run low resistance cartomizers on a cig-sized battery, you will probably destroy the battery or at the very least, drastically reduce its useful life. LR cartos and atomizers should not be run on batteries rated less than 450mAh bare minimum, or you're asking for trouble. I'd run nothing lower than a 2.5 Ohm carto on those batteries; you could probably get away with somewhat lower resistance but your batts will be in the battery graveyard a lot sooner.
Happy Vaping, Folks!
As others have also said, after a while you can start to tell the difference when you're not getting good hits of vapor; if it seems weak or sparse (instead of thick) but you know your battery is good.
ive just put in a few drops of some flavored juice so i can really be able to tell
There's a learning curve to these things, but I promise, it gets easier from here.
Another question for you, this time about your batteries: do your batteries have a button? If they do, that's called a manual battery (because you have to manually trigger it rather than just inhaling). If they DO have a button, you can get a drip tip (there's all kinds of these, but you want a drip tip made for a 510) and skip the cartridge altogether, and just drip juice directly onto the atomizer. If they do not have a button, then do not do this -- automatic batteries are not sealed in the way that manual ones are, and if juice gets into the battery casing, your battery dies, so it's too much of a risk to direct-drip with an automatic. This works pretty well, but you're probably only going to get around 3 good, solid hits off of a drop of juice, so you'll need to drip more often than you would need to fill the cartridge... which means that if you're trying to do this at work, while on the go, or in the car, it's probably not a good idea.
Constant fiddling with cartos is required. Sad thing is, even with "quality" cartos like Boge, consistency is nearly impossible to find. Getting very frustrating for me. Clearomizers at least give you a better idea of how much juice you have left. But then you fight wicking/leaking problems. Someday someone will come up with the ultimate solution. I just wish they'd hurry!!
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