Kayfun floods and leaks when filling.

[Davantrac]

I'm still new to this so take it easy. I have kayfun clones and a couple of rocket v1's. My coil building is coming on great and I prefer top filling and never had a problem from day one till now about a month on.
Sometimes when filling the juice just runs straight through into the air channels even though I think I have my finger over them.
After drying it out (turning upside down and blowing through) I get it going great but after laying it down for an hour or so I find it flooded again.
This has happened on the last 5 builds and I'm sure I haven't changed the way I'm working apart from not priming the wick before the final build.

any ideas what I'm doing wrong or what could cause this.

 

[Randall.K]

Have you checked to see if any of the o-rings have fallen out or become loose?

 

[Smann245]

The simple answer is top filling and laying it on its side both cause the vacuum to be lost, resulting in flooding which causes leaking. With my 3.1 I use one of the two fill ports and when I put it down for a while I have a large coffee mug with a plastic cup in it that I use as a mod holder and stand. Never leaks. If you don't maintain the vacuum it's gonna happen.

 

[coolercoiler]

Have you checked to see if any of the o-rings have fallen out or become loose?

agree that seals are the most likely culprit, check the tiny one near the driptip too.

 

[Davantrac]

I check all the seals every build I do and they all seem ok, strange that would be the problem with all of them at once. Maybe I'm just blocking the air channel properly when I top fill, will try harder. And I'll transfer my juice to needle bottles, I've been using mainly juice from dropper bottles lately, so I'll try bottom filling also. Cheers.

 

[Ronald3638]

I had trouble with leaking on my KFL+ when the air flow screw fell out. Without the air flow screw it would be necessary to block the opening for the air flow screw as well as the air intake opening.

Fortunately mine came with a spare air flow screw.

 

[Davantrac]

I've taken the screws out of mine, will try harder to block both and try bottom filling. Cheers.

 

[gpjoe]

The simple answer is top filling and laying it on its side both cause the vacuum to be lost, resulting in flooding which causes leaking. With my 3.1 I use one of the two fill ports and when I put it down for a while I have a large coffee mug with a plastic cup in it that I use as a mod holder and stand. Never leaks. If you don't maintain the vacuum it's gonna happen.

This.

And you don't need to block anything if you bottom fill.

 

[duc916]

Top filling is a waste of juice unless you have a top fill cap, and even with a top fill cap, you have to plug the intake AND the drip tip holes (to completely seal it) to keep from flooding the chamber (something you can't do when you remove a standard top cap). It's not enough to plug just the intake (common misconception), because it shares the same plenum as the drip tip hole. e.g. If you plug the top of a straw before inserting it into your drink, no liquid will enter the straw. It's the same effect.

Your best bet is to get a needle tipped bottle and just bottom fill. Done.

As for your flooding while it's laid down, probably not enough cotton tucked down on top of the liquid channels. Cotton has to smother those two liquid channels. Are you even using cotton? Please don't say silica.

 

[Davantrac]

I am using cotton for the wicks, and I normally use the bunny ears method. Pull through the chimney dry, trim about 5-10mm above the chimney height then tuck down each side. Don't force or pack them tight and try not block the juice channels with them.
Could I be over-filling? Just a thought.

 

[jambi]

I am using cotton for the wicks, and I normally use the bunny ears method. Pull through the chimney dry, trim about 5-10mm above the chimney height then tuck down each side. Don't force or pack them tight and try not block the juice channels with them.
Could I be over-filling? Just a thought.

10mm seems like a lot of wick. Maybe you've got so much wick in there that it's dripping in and flooding due to over-saturation, especially when it's laid on its side?

Trimming just barely higher than the top of the chimney and then lightly tamping (not jamming) down works great for me.

I store my Kayfun on its side all the time and its never leaked a drop. In fact, the only time it leaked was when I top filled it. Juice leaked out of every orifice. Does it leak when you use the fill port?

Overfilling...I once filled my KFL completely up, till there was no air at all in the tank. It didn't leak or flood, quite the opposite in fact. Juice didn't flow and it burned up the wick. There needs to be air in the tank for juice to flow.

 

[Davantrac]

Haven't tried the bottom fill yet, that's my next step if I can't perfect the top filling. I will keep my wick I bit shorter though.

 

[Piak]

This is interesting because I own 2 KFLs and 2 Russian 91s and I've noticed that recently the KFLs have been leaking a fair bit, its been a real pain in the a** and I build them exactly the same. My russians stay bone dry, on the outside =D

I only fill them through the bottom though and my KFLs do not have adjustable airflow and I have my Russians' airflow wide open and air flow control screws removed. For me I've always credited the leaking in my KFLs to the difference in airflow... I personally feel that constantly un-screwing and screwing back on threads with O-Rings on them just wear them out faster and have never felt a need to do so...

I now rarely use my KFLs because I very much prefer the draw on the Russians but if I were to build on the KFLs again I was going to try stuffing the juice channels with cotton in hopes of it not leaking as much.

 

[novamatt]

I agree with everyone here who said top filling is probably the biggest issue here. I use a blunt syringe to fill from bottles that have the dripper tops. And 5-10mm is definitely too much cotton. With that much in there, you're going to end up getting dry hits because the cotton chokes out the juice channels and it has a long distance to travel to get to the coil. Try more like in the range of level to 2mm above the chimney, then tuck it in and clear the juice channels - you want to be able to just barely see them when you look down on it.

I found this pic with a google image search, and it's a solid wicking job. The key things are that he's trimmed to the right length, so he's got just enough wick to reach the deck, and the juice channels are clear. See how you can just barely see them on both sides? This is exactly what you're looking for.

 

[novamatt]

This is interesting because I own 2 KFLs and 2 Russian 91s and I've noticed that recently the KFLs have been leaking a fair bit, its been a real pain in the a** and I build them exactly the same. My russians stay bone dry, on the outside =D

I only fill them through the bottom though and my KFLs do not have adjustable airflow and I have my Russians' airflow wide open and air flow control screws removed. For me I've always credited the leaking in my KFLs to the difference in airflow... I personally feel that constantly un-screwing and screwing back on threads with O-Rings on them just wear them out faster and have never felt a need to do so...

I now rarely use my KFLs because I very much prefer the draw on the Russians but if I were to build on the KFLs again I was going to try stuffing the juice channels with cotton in hopes of it not leaking as much.

If they were working fine and then recently started leaking, it sounds like you've got an o-ring that needs to be replaced. On my KFLs, I notice that the tiny one inside the top cap where the chimney connects tends to take a lot of wear and tear, so it's the one that goes first. Try assembling your KFL and putting a finger over the airhole while you take a pull. It should be a total vaccuum. If you can get air coming in, you've got a bad seal, which means a bad o-ring.

 

[duc916]

Try assembling your KFL and putting a finger over the airhole while you take a pull. It should be a total vaccuum. If you can get air coming in, you've got a bad seal, which means a bad o-ring.

Yes, do this. A bad tank seal will always have equilibrium between tank and chimney, which means juice is always free to flow into it.
I had an Orchid V4 recently that kept flooding while it was laid down, and it was from a bad seal on the new top fill cap (from Fasttech) I installed on it. Those two tiny little O-rings for fill/vent weren't being compressed enough by the cap. I did the pull test on it with just the fill cap pressed against my palm and sure enough it was suckin' wind. Good thing it was only $6. Note to anyone looking at kayfun/orchid top fill caps, don't get 'em at Fasttech. The ones I bought at Fleabay sealed fine.

 

[Davantrac]

Right, I bottom filled last night and no problems till today. I got up and the mod was layed down, knocked over by someone. I picked it up vaped maybe a dozen times then I felt the draw change and new it was flooding. So turned it upside down and blew threw it, sure enough a fair bit of juice came out the air flow.
Next time I clean and do rebuilds I will be doing the vacuum test that's a new one for me cheers.

 

[novamatt]

Right, I bottom filled last night and no problems till today. I got up and the mod was layed down, knocked over by someone. I picked it up vaped maybe a dozen times then I felt the draw change and new it was flooding. So turned it upside down and blew threw it, sure enough a fair bit of juice came out the air flow.
Next time I clean and do rebuilds I will be doing the vacuum test that's a new one for me cheers.

It sounds like you were right about the flooding in this case, but be careful blowing through it - with these vaccuum-based tanks, even a perfect one will leak through the air flow when you blow into it. You're basically changing the pressure differential in the wrong direction and blowing juice off of the coil and straight down the airflow tube. With a single airhole kayfun, the best way to clear a flood is to gently vape through the airflow hole and wipe away the juice that leaks out. Not possible with something like this. I'd try firing it a few times without taking a draw to burn off the extra juice without pulling more into the chamber.

 

[LMS62]

I have a handful of Kayfuns, both authentic and clone, and usually when I have gone with the top-filling on any of them in the past, it has been a PITA most of the time. Needless to say, I just bottom fill now.

 

[Davantrac]

Emptied that Kayfun last night and pulled it apart to clean. Found 1 of the problems I think, part of the wick on one side was half way down the juice channel.
Thought this was suppose to give dry hits, I got none, not cause the flood/leaking.