i have a battery/head/tank question

[J_L_K_64]

so i have this x2 battery, 1300mah not the spinner kind, and i've been using it for about 8 months or so. i'm also using the t3 tanks/heads (2.4ml tanks) on it all from SI

for the past month or so this setup has been acting weird, the head gets super hot when i vape for a while, which makes the connection on the battery pretty hot as well, i sometimes take it apart (the head) to see if washing it out with hot water will help, and it kinda does sometimes but it always starts getting hot again and it seems that i go through a new head every few days instead of at least a week (usually longer) which is how it used to be and the vapor/flavor production is barely existent. i think that the battery isn't holding a charge for as long as it used to either, but i haven't paid much attention to that

well my question is really does anyone know why my head is getting so hot?

 

[cindycated]

Did you change flavors? Hot heads and non-existent vapor/flavor sound like a crusty coil to me. That stuff doesn't rinse off. You'd have to dry-burn it off. If you've changed flavors, it could be that this new one is gunking your coils up faster.

Battery not holding a charge for as long is normal wear and tear. They hold less and less charge over time until they don't anymore. My batteries usually last about a year (11-18 months). I rotate 5.

 

[J_L_K_64]

Did you change flavors? Hot heads and non-existent vapor/flavor sound like a crusty coil to me. That stuff doesn't rinse off. You'd have to dry-burn it off. If you've changed flavors, it could be that this new one is gunking your coils up faster.

Battery not holding a charge for as long is normal wear and tear. They hold less and less charge over time until they don't anymore. My batteries usually last about a year (11-18 months). I rotate 5.

yeah i have recently changed flavors, went from ry4 to chocolate, and i thought it was crusty/clogged coils as well, so i have tried dry burning them a little bit, but it doesn't seem to do anything

 

[cindycated]

Chocolate does that every time.
SI's chocolate is pretty light too. Other chocolates crud up my coils in a day.

When you dry-burn, the coil has to be perfectly clean (no e-liquid) and completely dry. Keep doing short bursts until it glows orange. Peek through the hole on the top tube, or you can wiggle the press-fitted top tube off so you can see better (and clean it better with a dental brush). But if you remove the top tube, you'll probably have to replace the flavor wicks (or just be careful and don't lose them). With me, they're usually scorched anyway, so I just replace them.

 

[J_L_K_64]

Chocolate does that every time.
SI's chocolate is pretty light too. Other chocolates crud up my coils in a day.

When you dry-burn, the coil has to be perfectly clean (no e-liquid) and completely dry. Keep doing short bursts until it glows orange. Peek through the hole on the top tube, or you can wiggle the press-fitted top tube off so you can see better (and clean it better with a dental brush). But if you remove the top tube, you'll probably have to replace the flavor wicks (or just be careful and don't lose them). With me, they're usually scorched anyway, so I just replace them.

thanks for telling me to burn them till they turn orange, i never knew that so apparently i was never actually dry burning them correctly, so anywho, i did a dry burn as described and it seems to help mostly, but it seems like it's a very short term thing, i dry burned one head and either i did it too much or i was fidldling too much with it and the coil stopped working on it, on another head it worked for a day then went back to becoming super hot after vaping (i switched to a lighter juice) so i dry burned that head again and apparently burned too much and that coil stopped working (i'm thinking it melted or something?)

 

[awsum140]

If you're going to dry burn, effectively, you do need to remove the air tube and the flavor wicks so you can see and access the coil completely. Once the air tube and flavor wicks are off, rinse under warm or hot water. Dry things off with a paper towel and use the paper towel to wick the water out of the wick, itself. To do that gently place the edge of the paper towel against the wick as close to the end of it as possible. You'll see the water wick into the dry towel.

To actually dry burn apply power in short bursts until you get some smoke, then stop, wait a few seconds and repeat. Continue that process until the entire coil glows orange/red but always keep with short bursts and never go longer than two or three seconds. Once that happens, I use either a dental pick or a pair of pointed, surgical tweezers to gently chip off the crud that has been made brittle by the dry burn. If it all doesn't "chip" off simply dry burn again. The goal is to have the coil, as much of it as you can see and access anyway, clean of all crud. I also use a binocular loupe so I can see what I'm doing, up, close and personal to the coil. If you do over burn it, the coil wire will actually break and you're out of luck so be careful with how long you apply power. It takes a little practice, but you'll get the hang of it with experience.

Once you get everything off the coil, use some canned air and blow the dust of the gunk out of the head. This helps get rid of that "wonderful" burnt gunk flavor. Give it another rinse and dry, then replace the flavor wicks. I use two or three strands from 2mm or 3mm silica wick, trimming them to fit. Replace the air tube, fill and you're good to go again, basically as good as new.

I've gotten to the point where rather than dry burning, I just rebuild the heads completely with new wire and wick. I have found that using a 2mm and 1.5mm wick together, wrapped by the coil, eliminates the need for flavor wicks and dramatically reduces the gurgles that seem to happen as well.

The crud that forms is actually a polymer type of residue from the carbon atoms in the liquids combining with the oxygen atoms, and a few others as well, from the heat of vaping. I have tried a lot of different solvents, most of which I would never use on something I would vape with, and nothing but heat seems to be able to remove it.

 

[cindycated]

Yeah, VERY short bursts. And the wick has to be completely dry. I've only snapped wires when I didn't let the wick dry. But yeah, they're kinda finnicky. I think they weld their NR legs on, and some of the welds aren't so good. I think that's where they snap. But they don't all do that. Some off them last and last.

I've been rebuilding mine with new wire too, because I actually like mine better than theirs (I make semi-micro coils with twisted NR legs - just a hair fatter than micros). And I've gotten really spoiled with new wicks every day, just because it's so easy to thread a new one in on the ones I've rebuilt. So now when I dry-burn and clean, I don't even have wick on it. And my rebuilds last a really long time.

I did get the crud off with oven cleaner once, but who wants to vape that? Don't try it. It's NASTY! And TOXIC!

 

[J_L_K_64]

yeah that's what i thought i was doing, short bursts and i was using a safety pin to knock the loose junk out, but i think my ADHD took over and i think i might of broke the wire, but i also was doing all this on regular x2's, haven't moved up to spinners or any adjustables just yet

 

[awsum140]

I have to admit that I do my dry burns on a VV/VW mod, much easier to control the power levels. When I rebuild, I use "zero" resistance wire and CD weld them onto the coils. That's a whole other technique to learn and I am still experimenting to find the best solution, voltage versus capacitance, and a CD welder can be easily built for few bucks if you can handle a soldering iron.

 

[cindycated]

X2s are OK - just don't be too aggressive with the safety pin. But I really think it was a damp wick or faulty welds. Also when I dry-burn, I'm usually just brushing off ash and soot. If it's still so cruddy that you have to pick hard at it, give it another zap.

I've just been using my cheapo HF multimeter with alligator clips to measure the length of Kanthal I need. Twist on the first NR leg, clip the lead over the twist, clip the other end to desired resistance, snip the wire, twist on the other NR leg, then wrap coil from one twist to the other. I thought about buying a zapper, saw the price, looked into building one, but my first 20 coils are still alive after a couple of months (I just keep dry-burning and rewicking) and it really didn't take much to twist the NR legs on, so not as itchy to have one of those now. But if one were to pop up at FT for <$40, it might get tempting.

 

[J_L_K_64]

I have to admit that I do my dry burns on a VV/VW mod, much easier to control the power levels. When I rebuild, I use "zero" resistance wire and CD weld them onto the coils. That's a whole other technique to learn and I am still experimenting to find the best solution, voltage versus capacitance, and a CD welder can be easily built for few bucks if you can handle a soldering iron.

X2s are OK - just don't be too aggressive with the safety pin. But I really think it was a damp wick or faulty welds. Also when I dry-burn, I'm usually just brushing off ash and soot. If it's still so cruddy that you have to pick hard at it, give it another zap.

I've just been using my cheapo HF multimeter with alligator clips to measure the length of Kanthal I need. Twist on the first NR leg, clip the lead over the twist, clip the other end to desired resistance, snip the wire, twist on the other NR leg, then wrap coil from one twist to the other. I thought about buying a zapper, saw the price, looked into building one, but my first 20 coils are still alive after a couple of months (I just keep dry-burning and rewicking) and it really didn't take much to twist the NR legs on, so not as itchy to have one of those now. But if one were to pop up at FT for <$40, it might get tempting.

........wut...........?
all that went about 2 miles over my head

 

[awsum140]

A CD welder is sort of a "spot" welder but at much lower power levels. All it's really made from is a DC power source and an electrolytic capacitor. The capacitor stores electrons and when the "zero" resistance wire is brought into contact with the resistance wire, the ensuing spark provides enough concentrated heat to actually weld the two together. The higher the value of the capacitor, the higher the power generated during that spark. Unfortunately, too much current overheats the resistance wire and makes it too brittle to work with when winding a coil. The alternative being to raise the voltage and lower the value of the capacitor to prevent too much current while maintaining power to eliminate or minimize any overheating.

I really don't think a wet wick would lead to it breaking when dry burning. Wicks are wet all the time when we vape and that doesn't seem to make them break, very often at all. The big trick is to keep the "on" time relatively short. Overdoing it, wet or dry, can overheat it and make it break.

The welds to the "zero" resistance wire can be broken by chipping away at the gunk on the coils. I like using pointed tweezers because it allows me to work both sides of the coil at the same time, in a kind of squeezing motion, which evens out the pressure. Try not to pull the coil back and forth, especially the first and last turns of the coil by working in an "end to end" method. That can overstress the welds and make them break.

Cindy is describing how she simply twists the "zero" resistance wire together with the resistance wire. She's using an inexpensive volt-ohm-amp meter to measure the resistance of the resistance wire to get the desired resistance for the coil she is winding/replacing.

 

[J_L_K_64]

that is way clearer to me, thanks for "dumbing" it down for me, lol and thanks for the pointers about cleaning the coil too

 

[cindycated]

I really don't think a wet wick would lead to it breaking when dry burning. Wicks are wet all the time when we vape and that doesn't seem to make them break, very often at all. The big trick is to keep the "on" time relatively short. Overdoing it, wet or dry, can overheat it and make it break.

Dunno. Wet wicks do it to me...maybe water's different from PG. You can't dry-burn with PG/VG, because it's wet all the time - that's why you have to rinse it off first. And wet burns taste way nastier than dry burns.

 

[awsum140]

When I dry burn, I start out with a wet wick every time from rinsing things off. I do "blot" dry the wick with a paper towel to get some of the water out, but that's to make the whole process go a little faster, it does take a little while to force dry the wick with "burns", but I've never had a coil go open or break while doing it. YMMV, I guess.