Kanger Unitank - rubbish?!

[JaxTel]

Hi all, about two and a half weeks ago I decided to make the switch to vaping from smoking (again - only the first time I didn't find this forum, didn't know there was a world beyond cig-a-likes, and went back to smoking eventually ), and after a while of using a vgo2 mini decided to upgrade a bit to using a 1300mAh ego-style varivolt battery with a Kanger unitank head. Just a day after getting this tank (and in my mind, veritably splurging for it!) it started to persistently be affected by juice making it into the airway. Gurgling sound, little to no vapour, really annoying.
At first I didn't know what to do to fix it but after a little Googling I found that it's recommended to blow through it onto a paper towel until no more liquid comes out. Relieved, I attempted this, only to find it just kept flowing and after a while I realised the tank was almost empty (had been about halfway)..
Since then I've just been twisting up very thin bits of paper towel and sticking them into the holes on either end of it (it enjoyed this very much) and absorbing a bunch of juice - this works for a while but I find I have to do this every few hours which is really ****ing annoying and not at all what I was hoping for.
Has anyone else had this problem, and found a definite solution? Or is it just a defective tank?
Cheers

 

[amoret]

I don't think that it's the unitank itself that is the problem. It seems to be a problem with a lot of clearomizers, especially bottom coil ones. I'm too new myself to be able to give good advice about it, but if you look at a lot of the threads about protanks you'll find a number of ideas. It seems to be mainly an issue with vacuum needed for feeding the fluid through. It can be affected by how you draw on it, how the airflow to the bottom is, and whether an o-ring is missing or twisted.

I had a unitank and did not have any more problems with gurgling and fluid in the stem than with other bccs that I have used.

However, do keep in mind that it is polycarbonate, and can't handle some juices (cinnamon, citrus, etc.) without damage. That's how I lost mine, knew better but just got careless. I'm still going to get another unitank as soon as I can afford to.

 

[amoret]

Also, been there and done that with the tissue. I highly recommend pipe cleaners.

 

[JaxTel]

I don't think that it's the unitank itself that is the problem. It seems to be a problem with a lot of clearomizers, especially bottom coil ones. I'm too new myself to be able to give good advice about it, but if you look at a lot of the threads about protanks you'll find a number of ideas. It seems to be mainly an issue with vacuum needed for feeding the fluid through. It can be affected by how you draw on it, how the airflow to the bottom is, and whether an o-ring is missing or twisted.

I had a unitank and did not have any more problems with gurgling and fluid in the stem than with other bccs that I have used.

However, do keep in mind that it is polycarbonate, and can't handle some juices (cinnamon, citrus, etc.) without damage. That's how I lost mine, knew better but just got careless. I'm still going to get another unitank as soon as I can afford to.

Oh okay, fair enough! I'll check out some of those threads, cheers. And try to find out what an o-ring is
Ah hm, I wasn't aware of that actually, thanks for bringing it to my attention though - that will no doubt save my tank! I will also invest in some pipe cleaners too, not sure why I hadn't thought of that haha!

 

[Kanj.nguyen]

This is an issue with pressure/ vacuum (2 sides of the same coin really). A simplest solution may be to change the way you fill your tank. From your description of the problem I assume you are filling by opening up the top cap. Try filling from the bottom instead.

 

[evan le'garde]

I know people will disagree, or maybe not, but, call it an educated guess, you're using a high pg e liquid solution aren't you ?. I keep saying this, Pg just doesn't work at all well in a bottom coil device !. It's too thin and just leaks and gurgles. I don't know why this isn't becoming more apparent to the vaping community. So most vendors sell pg/vg mixes, usually more pg than vg, e.g: 70pg/30vg. True pg provides more flavour than vg, but not if it all leaks out of the bottom of your device. Most people use a blend of pg/vg and all of those people have relegated their bottom coil clearo's to the junk draw, why ?, because they don't like using vg. If you don't want to use vg, don't get a bottom coil clearo !. I use 100% vg, always have, and none of my protanks leak or gurgle. Sometimes if a tank is left overnight the coil may get flooded i admit, but i shake out the excess, then turn up the volts until i get a dry hit, problem solved !.

 

[cope]

i now recoil pro tank coils and use cotton wick..i never use a flavor wick a none is needed..it never leaks or givs a dry hit this is week 3 on a
micro coil..

 

[danny4x4]

I know people will disagree, or maybe not, but, call it an educated guess, you're using a high pg e liquid solution aren't you ?. I keep saying this, Pg just doesn't work at all well in a bottom coil device !. It's too thin and just leaks and gurgles. I don't know why this isn't becoming more apparent to the vaping community. So most vendors sell pg/vg mixes, usually more pg than vg, e.g: 70pg/30vg. True pg provides more flavour than vg, but not if it all leaks out of the bottom of your device. Most people use a blend of pg/vg and all of those people have relegated their bottom coil clearo's to the junk draw, why ?, because they don't like using vg. If you don't want to use vg, don't get a bottom coil clearo !. I use 100% vg, always have, and none of my protanks leak or gurgle. Sometimes if a tank is left overnight the coil may get flooded i admit, but i shake out the excess, then turn up the volts until i get a dry hit, problem solved !.

I beg to differ. I usually use 70pg/30vg on kanger bcc and don't usually get leaks. Happens sometimes when the juice gets low (but not always), or the flavor wicks get gunked up. I've even done 100%pg and didn't encounter any leaks.

I find that using cotton as main wicks and 1mm to 2mm (depending on juice and coil size) ekowool works best for me. To me, it's the flavor wicks and the amount of cotton to use that determines whether the clearo leaks.

I've tried silica, cotton, butchers twine and ekowool as FLAVOR WICKS. I find ekowool and butchers twine best at preventing leaks for bcc. Ymmv.

 

[mightymen]

I put my Kanger unitank in the draw for a spare didn't like it went back to protank 1 and 2 more enjoyable for me.

When your getting Gurgling sound it's one of three reasons

1. Need flavor wick.
2. Drawing to hard and sucking to much juice to the wick
3. Raise the voltage slightly will burn more juice.

It's nothing more then the learning curve we all go through.

I use 80%PG and 20% VG

 

[damionjharlan]

I had the exact same issue with my Unitank. I found two things that "fixed" the issue. Number one, I found the rubber ring on the bottom of the coils that came with the Unitank were of a different material than those that came on the heads with the Evod. Swapping in the Evod head got rid of the flooding issue. I did not want to chuck the two heads that came with the Unitank, however. So what I found that worked for those was to take the little rubber cap/ring off of one, turn it upside down and put it on top of the existing one. This slowed down flow enough to keep the head from flooding also.

 

[Kanj.nguyen]

The nice thing about submerged coil tanks is that if you work out the right pressure points, you can fine tune the pressure to work well with any juice. I just put pure VG in my protank to experiment, with a stock wick it pretty much doesnt wick, but after some tinkering i could chain vape 10 second hits without dry hits or flooding.

EDIT: on second thought, i suppose the OP does not want to tinker around with his devices just yet. Then yes, high VG juices may cause problems with the unitank. However, it does NOT cause the problem he is describing: he is experiencing flooding as opposed to under-wicking. Flooding is a sure sign of pressure problems, and sometimes can be fixed by filling the tank in a different way.

To answer the title's question, yes, the Unitank is kind of rubbish in its top-cap-filling design. In fact, filling a bottom coil tank with the top cap open is just a bad idea in general. When you open the cap, the pressure level inside the tank is completely different from when you have it closed. This means that if your coil functions well with the cap closed, it ought to flood with the cape open.

 

[JaxTel]

Thanks everyone for the replies, lots of great advice in here! However, Kanj.nguyen is correct in assuming I'm still too noob to be able to tinker around with things Once I learn more though I can come back to this thread and try some of these ideas. I will try bottom filling it from now on and see if that helps! Cheers all.