How To Clean and Rebuild The Gogo Cartomizer

[mohawkx]

Part 1


The Gogo finds it’s strength in the cartomizer design. The horizontal coil allows a user to remove all the filler from the gocart without disturbing the atomizer. This means that factoring the already long, initial usage of the gocart, one can thoroughly inspect, recondition and reuse the gogo carto. Over and Over.

The first step with reconditioning the gocart is to wet the gocart in question under tap water. I actually soak the gocart in a bowl of water to thoroughly wet them from tip to end. You will find that the filler is much easier to handle when wet. Trying to remove dry filler or partially wet filler can result in pulling out the center tube and the filler sticking together and ruining the gocart completely (ask me how I know). After the gocart is completely soaked, do the following.

1. Using a pair of needle nosed pliers, Remove the filler. It will keep it’s shape as a tube. If you’ve soaked it well, the material will separate well. If you have an ultrasonic cleaner, use vodka and clean the empty carto just as you would any atty. I run the empty gocarts through 5 cycles of 3 minutes each using Vodka in a Bogue, 42,000 cycle Ultrasonic cleaner, then rinse with water. If not, run the carto under hot tap water for 5 minutes to flush out all residual. Shake the carto well to dry.

2. While the carto dries, unroll the filler. You will notice that there is an inner wrap of cotton batting and a thicker, outer wrap of polyfil material. Flatten out the polyfil and unroll the cotton batting. Clean thoroughly under hot water until white. Spread both, evenly on a kitchen or paper towel.

3. Go back to your empty carto and blow through it to insure it’s dry. Screw onto battery and push the button while you look down the empty carto. Hold the button down looking for a cherry red glow to the coil at the bottom. This is dry burning. You may have to dry burn 3 or 4 times to remove any caramelizing from the coil. Once you have a cherry red glow from your coil, you know you have a good, clean atomizer for your gocart. Rinse out any ash. All that remains is to reinsert the filler properly and you have a brand new gocart. This is where most have been having problems.

Picture 1 shows you the cartos in the ultasonic cleaner after the filler has been removed.

Picture 2 shows you the tools you will need for your job
red or black cocktail straws.Red ones from Bars work very good for 90% of the gocarts(The black ones from coffee stirrers from quick stop markets work best if the center tube is oversize as they are more flexable and can be widened if necessary, as you shall see) Tweezers will work but needle nose pliers are the perfect tool for this job.
[/INDENT]

Picture 3 shows the filler unrolled and laid out after initial cleaning.
Some will be cleaned again as you can see. Just run the filler under hot tap water until all the old juice is out and it is white and clean. Note the small cotton piece that is wrapped around the center tube when in the gocart it must stay with the gocart when refilling for proper wicking. The empty gocarts are clean and drying next to their respective fillers.

Picture 4 shows the black straw being flared with the tip of the needle nose to accomodate an oversized centertube.





Part 2 continues in next thread.


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[mohawkx]

Part 2

Now that you have both fillers clean and white again and you've dry burned your clean and empty gocarts to a nice cherry red you can proceed to re-install the filler to the gocart. This step is very easy with the proper tools but it is critical for the proper functioning of the gocart. The filler must have the cotton sheet tightly wrapped around the center tube for proper wicking. The polyfill must be evenly distributed from top to bottom of the centertube and the whole filler assembly must reach to the bottom of the gocart where the coil is.

Insert the straw(either black or red) over the center tube to check for a proper fit. If the center tube is flared, you will need to flare the black straw to slip over the center tube.(The red one is too brittle whereas the black one will expand at the tip with out breaking.) You just need to flare enough to get it started over the centertube.
Remove the straw once you know it will slip on the center tube.(90% will). Wrap the cotton sheet around the straw and then wrap the polyfill around the cotton sheet in the same direction. It is easier to handle the filler if it is wet.
Reinsert the straw over the centertube again holding the filler tight around the straw.
Carefully slide the whole filler assembly down into the gocart. You may twist the gocart in the same direction the filler is wrapped for ease of insertion.
Slip a McDonalds straw over the small straw still in place and lightly tamp down the filler until it is fully inserted in the gocart. It must be all the way to the bottom of the carto for proper wicking.
Holding the McD's straw in place, withdraw the small straw from over the center tube.
Continue tamping the filler with the McD's straw until the filler is just at or below the top of the center tube.
If your filler is wet, let the carto air dry for 24 hrs or so.
You now have a new cartomizer for the gogo.

Picture 1 shows a carto with a standard cocktail straw found in every bar.
This straw fits perfectly over the center tube.

Picture 2 shows the cotton batting wrapped around the straw.
The batting would be tighter but I had to take my hands off it to take the picture.

Picture 3 shows the polyfil wrapped around the cotton batting and just barely inserted in the empty carto. The filler would be tighter and just slip in but I had to take the picture. Twisting the cartomizer in the same direction as the filler is wrapped will make re-insertion very easy.

Picture 4 shows the two fillers almost in the carto.

Picture 5 is a McDonalds straw slipped over the cocktail straw and used to lightly tamp down the filler into the carto.
Remove the cocktail straw and finish tamping the filler until it is even or just below the center tube. Keep the large straw in place when you remove the small straw from the gocart to keep the filler from rising from the bottom of the carto..

Part 3 continues in next thread

 

[mohawkx]

How To Clean and Rebuild The Gogo Cartomizer

Part 3

Now you have a fresh, good as new Cartomizer.

Picture 1 is a picture of a carto with the filler inserted, the red straw over the centertube and the McD's straw over the small straw.
Make sure you cut the large straw shorter than the small straw so you can pull the small straw while holding the filler in place with the larger straw.

Picture 2 is the finished product.
This carto is exactly like a new one in all respects.

Credit goes to Les017 of the Gogo Nation as he was the first one to post about removing the filler and reinserting it after cleaning.
Credit also goes to RolandPibb as he was the first to recommend a cocktail straw as the perfect filler install tool.


Oh, and one more thing.........if all this looks like too much work, you can always throw the funky gocart away and buy another one for 3 bucks.

 

[mohawkx]

Bonus Post! Bonus Post!

I decided to make a dedicated gocart atty for dripping. I took a gocart I cleaned thoroughly for the instruction and instead of putting filler back in I cut it to a length of 1 inch. I carefully removed the centertube and the paper wrapping, filed it smooth at the cut and removed the outside glue with some steel wool and hot water. I cleaned it good for metal filings, installed a driptip and the cone and this is what I ended up with. It works and looks great.

Happy Vaping Gogo Nation.

Picture 1 Cut down gocart, cleaned and ready for dripping. Standard gocart next to it

Picture 2 Cutdown gocart atty installed on a Cigeasy Gogo with drip tip.

Picture 3 Cutdown Gocart installed on Nhaler gogo with driptip and cone attached.

Picture 4 Profile of Gogo ready for a night of dripping while Gogo Kitty sleeps in the background.

 

[MissP]

VERY cool!! I been thinking of a go-go (trying to win one in a contest thread!) and I love the detailed instructions and pictures!! Great tutorial!

 

[Debian Dog]

Ah I was dreading this but you make it look relatively simple.

 

[txtumbleweed]

Hey Mowhawkx, your best tutorial yet. Good job! I guess I will try it one of these days if I ever run out of carts. Have you tried this method on any of the cup cartos like the iGo or Echo?

I really like the dripper too. Did you cut it off with a tubing cutter?

 

[mohawkx]

Hey Mowhawkx, your best tutorial yet. Good job! I guess I will try it one of these days if I ever run out of carts. Have you tried this method on any of the cup cartos like the iGo or Echo?

I really like the dripper too. Did you cut it off with a tubing cutter?

Tx, I see you're applying for "dual Citizenship" . The reason I did this post late sunday night was because I'd done 4 or 5 different threads on refurbishing the horizontal cartos and they were spread out all over the subforum. So I decided to condense them all in one spot so all the new gogo owners who may not have read the thousands of gogo posts would have a clear picture.

I used a hacksaw actually. I guess a tube cutter might work but a hacksaw and a 1" ....... file worked very well and was fast. The dripper works great. As good as any atty you buy for 8-9 dollars and for the gogo, it is the only game in town, so to speak. If you cut the carto to the length i've recommended, the delrin drip tip mates with the cone just right and looks like a factory build.

I don't have access to an Igo or an Echo so I'm not sure if the filler can be re-inserted into an inverse cone style carto shell. But BillOKC claims to have used my method on an Igo and had great success with it.
Cheers, TX it looks like the gogo nation is becoming one of the lost tribes of the Israelites, recently.

 

[txtumbleweed]

My Go-Go will be around for a long time but this new Echo with the auto battery is pretty amazing. What is the deal with the other forum? Have you heard from anyone? I see Nate found a new love too.lol

 

[MissP]

I was in a toss up between the go-go and the echo. I have only used auto batteries, but with your drip mod there, I will probably go into a manual go-go now!

 

[mohawkx]

My Go-Go will be around for a long time but this new Echo with the auto battery is pretty amazing. What is the deal with the other forum? Have you heard from anyone? I see Nate found a new love too.lol

Yeah, I've got my two gogo kits and plan to keep them until some whole new technology comes along. Like bobalex said, "When they come out with a model that looks like a camel king size, lasts two days without filling or recharging and is automatic then I'll switch over."

Haven't heard a word about the other site. Figuretively speaking, the apartment is empty, no forwarding address, furniture is all gone. Left the cat to fend for herself and the carpets are dirty.

I see JP1000 is selling out of gogos, Nate.........well.........seems something younger and better looking came along. Left us with the kids and the underwater mortgage. Well, I'm still here and will continue to support and help the new users get started. All the horizontal coil, large capacity carto designs like gogo, Igo and Echo are the latest, greatest things outside the mod crowd and do appeal to those who want no muss, no fuss vaping. Mostly the old farts like me. The young crowd seems to flit from one design to the next like high schoolers with cell phones. Screw the PS3. Gotta have the PS3-Gold, Mod-B. They like to fiddle with latest, greatest new technology. Such is life in the fast moving e-cig world.

 

[fog80]

I tried this and it works fine, but I do have one problem.

When i refill the cart it starts leaking before i get the usual amount in the filler, and it feels like im losing the taste faster and then have to top off.

Any ideas on what it could be?

 

[mohawkx]

I tried this and it works fine, but I do have one problem.

When i refill the cart it starts leaking before i get the usual amount in the filler, and it feels like im losing the taste faster and then have to top off.

Any ideas on what it could be?

I also notice that after a carto rebuild that the carto only takes between 75-80 drops instead of the usual 90-100 drops. My guess on the loss of flavor and the dripping out is for two possible reasons.
1. the cotton sheet is not wrapped around the centertube tight enough allowing for the juice to slide down the side of the centertube and due to this, the filler is not fully saturated before drops come out the bottom.
2. The whole filler assembly is not seated at the bottom of the carto next to the coil to allow a good juice supply to get to the coil.
3. did you dry burn the coil with the filler out to insure you had a nice clean, hot coil prior to inserting the filler? Out of ten I did for this demo, 1 coil was dead, 7 coils had to be dry burned 5-7 times before the coil turned a nice cherry red for complete vaporization.
Hope this helps.
One more question. does your straw fit snug over the centertube so the cotton sheet will fit snug when installed?

 

[mohawkx]

I tried this and it works fine, but I do have one problem.

When i refill the cart it starts leaking before i get the usual amount in the filler, and it feels like im losing the taste faster and then have to top off.

Any ideas on what it could be?

I had another thought. Is it possible that the filler was not completely dry when you filled it? This would account for taking less juice, for premature drops coming out the bottom and for the weak hits lacking in flavor. These things take a very long time to dry out completely as the material used for filler is designed to retain moisture.

 

[mohawkx]

I tried this and it works fine, but I do have one problem.

When i refill the cart it starts leaking before i get the usual amount in the filler, and it feels like im losing the taste faster and then have to top off.

Any ideas on what it could be?

Got one more thing for you. since you're not getting the good hits anyway, and the tear down and reinstall is easy for you, why not just pull the filler out and inspect it. The pattern of your juice in the filler should tell you what is happening. I did that with one that was not working right after a rebuild and it turned out I had tried to vape it before the juice had fully settled in the carto and burned the bottom of the filler. I just cut off the burned end and reinserted it, put new juice in and was good to go. Let me know what you found if you do pull it apart again.

 

[Major]

I've only done the one which I already mention in another thread but anywho... After reassembling it, I used the taryn spin on it. Logic was that the filler being wet still would tend to be pushed down to max around the coil. I may have spun it a little over zealouly though as it is packed way tight now and takes juice a bit to fully soak in and settle but for me, I like the vape it is producing slightly better after the cleaning.

Only after cleaning more than the test one will say if the taryn spin addition to the ceremony helped since one carto isn't a true sample size. I'll let you guys know when I clean more.

 

[jp1000]

...I see JP1000 is selling out of gogos,...

Keep up the good work here mohawkx - even though I switched to the echo for out and about carry - I still use the gogo carto as my daily vaper - I just use it on my Provari. I love being able to tune the carto a bit depending on the juice that I am using. Your work here is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[mohawkx]

Keep up the good work here mohawkx - even though I switched to the echo for out and about carry - I still use the gogo carto as my daily vaper - I just use it on my Provari. I love being able to tune the carto a bit depending on the juice that I am using. Your work here is greatly appreciated!!!

Yeah, I'm really surprised that more of the VV mod crowd hasn't jumped on the gocart as the juice feeder. Seems like a match made in vape heaven.

 

[Fishbelly]

How did you remove / install the center tube?

 

[mohawkx]

How did you remove / install the center tube?

You don't remove and reinsert the centertube. Once you remove the centertube, it is removed forever. You insert the special sized straw over the centertube to remove the filler safely without removing the center tube. If you throughly read the instructions you will see that the straw is mainly used to re-insert the filler after cleaning without damaging the centertube. Hope this helps