How to clean cheap polycarbonate tanks?

[lirruping]

Hello!
I'm new here and new-ish to vaping, but have been reading ECF posts for about six weeks. Incredible resource - kudos to all involved!

I have a couple of Vision Spinner batteries, one Kanger Mini Protank 2 (which I love, and if I could afford it would have ten of) and several cheap polycarbonate tanks of different colors, which I purchased on ebay. I thought I would use these latter as an economical way to try out several flavors at once and be able to have a rotation going. So far, it's working okay, but I am noticing the pull gets harder and harder with these poly tanks as time goes on--I have to put more suction on it to get a hit. Except for the driptip, they don't *seem* to disassemble, so I've been rinsing them out with plain water when they get this way, which seems to help a bit.

I'm wondering if there is any way that i'm not seeing (I am not a technical adept, to say the least) to get at the wicks, atomizer and coil in these tanks to clean them more thoroughly and extend their use.

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[CastleRat]

Cheap tanks/clearos have a way of costing more in the long run. The cheapest I go is the iclear 16 I use those for back up and for around the yard etc..

$3.05 Authentic Innokin iClear 16 Top Coil Clearomizer (1.6ml) - translucent / 2.1

They have replaceable heads.

 

[blazemore]

Hello!

I'm wondering if there is any way that i'm not seeing (I am not a technical adept, to say the least) to get at the wicks, atomizer and coil in these tanks to clean them more thoroughly and extend their use.

Any advice would be appreciated!

I'm no expert, but if I was I'd at least need a picture/brand/link of the tanks in question to give an opinion on the matter. That being said, if you can get to them a good rinsing with hot water and a dry burn always did wonders for me before the nautilus days.

 

[Baditude]

More than likely the coils are going bad. This is the reason those tanks were so cheap (and considered disposable), you can't replace the coils in them like you can in the Protanks or other clearomizers that use replaceable coil heads. The tiny wires that all factory-made coils use eventually wear out and there is no fix for it.

 

[BiLLi0]

Can you be more specific about the tanks?

Maybe this helps? Vapor Lady Lounge Kanger eVod, Protank, MT3, Cleaning and Burning The Atomizer for Better Vaping

 

[lirruping]

Thanks for the feedback everybody. I tried to post a link to the tanks--will try again here, but got message saying I'm not allowed to post links. It's just a photo link, but these are the pretty recognizable--they're the kind you see in every corner store.

Nope still not allowed to post links. Hrm.
If you look on ebay at:
"20 YELLOW 510 Atomizer Clearomizer Cartomizer Vaporizer Hookah Tanks CE 4"
OR
even just search ebay for 'vape tank" and sort the results in order of "shipping + price lowest first", you will come upon a lot of these tanks in various colors.

I think I will try to stick with glass as much as I can.

 

[lirruping]

I notice, by the way, the flavors taste better and the hits are cleaner, for the most part, with my protank mini.

 

[muranternet]

If the wicks are silica you can wash and dry burn CE4 tanks pretty easily, which may be why they're drawing badly. Do they taste burnt?

 

[lirruping]

Sometimes I will get a burnt tasting hit, muranternet, yes. And they do have silicon wicking, I'm pretty sure. It's fairly shiny.
My bigger issue is the slow-draw, feeling like I'm burning through my $$ juice and not getting the most from it. I have tried dry burning the atomizer units for my protank mini, after washing, and that seems to help when I get a burnt taste with that.

I am not sure how exactly to dry burn a CE4 (I guess that's what I'm talking about when I say "cheap polycarbonate tanks"!), and alas, most of the info about dry burning is in the form of video, which I'm unable to stream at my current location. But I will look into that more and find a good text resource so I can give dry burning a try on these cheapies.

Thanks again.

 

[muranternet]

I would suggest at some point you search Youtube for "CE4 Dry Burn" as it helps. Cliff's notes on how I do it:

Remove the drip tip and wash it
Wash the clearo out as normal with hot water, shaking a few times (assuming you can't take it apart). If you use a vodka or PGA soak do it before the water cycle.
Shake/flick out the water and let it dry
With some fine tweezers or something similar remove the rubber nipple from the top of the chimney so you can see the coil inside
Put it on a low power battery or a spare eGo battery or whatever
Pulse the power button, 2 seconds on, 2 seconds off, to gradually heat the coil up and avoid popping it or damaging the battery
After a while, assuming your coil is gunky, you will get some foul-smelling smoke wisps out of there. At first this may be residual water vapor, but eventually it's the residue burning off.
Keep doing this, looking into the chimmney. After a while you will see the coil glow when you pulse it. This is what you want.
Keep pulsing as long as you keep getting smoke. Once in a while blow onto the coil to loosen ash.
When you stop getting smoke out of it and the coil gives you a nice even glow, you can let it cool. If you like, wash and dry it again to get rid of remaining ash.
Put the nipple back on the chimney, reload, put the drip tip on, wait for it to wick up like a new coil, and carry on.

Eventually the coil is going to pop, but with this method I've kept CE4s alive for several months.

 

[lirruping]

muranternet,

Thanks so much for the detailed description! I will definitely give this a try, as I have only one glass tank and all the others are CE4, each malfunctioning now to some degree, despite my attempts to wash them.

I'm assuming soap and water is to be avoided because it might alter the taste?

I saw something on ebay called CEX tanks, which are, from what I read, supposed to be superior in that they can be rebuilt--at least to some degree.

Thanks again, to everyone.

PS: What happens when the coil "eventually pops"? Does it just stop working altogether, or is this a dramatic event of some sort? I am such a newb to electronics. I keep meaning to sit down and try to wrap my head around the whole voltage vis a vis wattage vis a vis ohms vis a vis resistance situation. If anyone knows of any good, simple *text based* resources on the topic, I'd be appreciative.