Looks like I will clean and dry burn all new clearo/clearotanks from now on!

[JustVapingBy]

I just received a Mini Vivi Nova and a Stardust V3. The Stardust vaped wonderfully for a few minutes, but settled quickly into a nasty plastic taste with a hint of burning. The Vivi started off ok, though flavor was low, but soon also took on a plastic flavor. I vaped both for an hour or so with no improvement.

Finally, in desperation, I opened both up, cleaned them with hot water, and dry-burned the coils until they glowed a couple of times. I really wasn't hoping for the best.

Since then, both have vaped cleanly, with no off-flavors, and both can take higher voltages without burnt taste. The Vivi also now has far better flavor and vapor production. Perhaps this is a quick way to do the "breaking in" people talk about with Vivis. I'm really pleased.

 

[mostapha]

That matches my experience with the vivi novas.

With the performance I was getting from just filling & vaping with a new head, I'm wondering why anyone ever bothered filling it up a second time. Cleaning and dry burning them straight out of the box is key.

Just remember to rinse the wick/coil again after the dry burn. The ash needs to go somewhere.

 

[AttyPops]

1) Turn the voltage down.
2) Melting plastic taste probably won't be removed by cleaning 1st.
3) It was the dis-assembly and reassembly the solved it, IMO. Or voltage was too high. Or wicking was poor with new partly dry wicks (and hence the low flavor).

Dry burning is a real mean thing to do to a brand new coil. What did it ever do to you?



P.S. Although I have heard that rinsing a wick and drying it helps it perform better but that was for SS mesh.

 

[JustVapingBy]

That's the funny thing! The units developed their off-flavors when I was still babying them (lower voltage and not asking too much). But yes, could well be just shuffling the parts around a bit, or the rinse. I'd rather not run the coils superhot without reason, like you said. I'll definitely do some tests on any upcoming clearo or clearotank (stock, just reassembled, reassembled and washed, all three actions, etc).

 

[Iffy]

I ALWAYS dry burn any new style clearos I receive until I'm satisfied that that particular clearo/manufacturer is OK from da git go. Those ol' atties made me a true believer in playing safe!

 

[X P3 Flight Engineer]

I always (now) clean and dry burn new clearos. They are going to be cleaned dozens of times during their life so one extra cleaning shouldn't hurt them. They seem to wick better as well after initial cleaning.

 

[mostapha]

1) Turn the voltage down.
2) Melting plastic taste probably won't be removed by cleaning 1st.
3) It was the dis-assembly and reassembly the solved it, IMO. Or voltage was too high. Or wicking was poor with new partly dry wicks (and hence the low flavor).

Dry burning is a real mean thing to do to a brand new coil. What did it ever do to you?



P.S. Although I have heard that rinsing a wick and drying it helps it perform better but that was for SS mesh.

Yeah…that's actually wrong. Silica doesn't burn at the temperatures we're creating. You'll pop the coil before anything bad happens to the wick. Same is true of stainless steel mesh.

The difference b/t a vivi nova that's been dry burned and one that hasn't is easily night & day. I dry burn mine every couple tanks worth of juice, and I've yet to have a head last less than a month.

Also, there's no reason why taking something apart and putting it back together would change anything unless you put it together wrong to start with.

 

[Quoiyaien]

Do the vision stardusts have silica wicks? I have always wondered if its ok to dry burn them...

 

[Iffy]

Do the vision stardusts have silica wicks? I have always wondered if its ok to dry burn them...

Yes, they do. I dry burn mine.

 

[mostapha]

Pretty much everything has silica wicks from the factory. If they're SS mesh, it'll be obvious. I'm not aware of anything that comes with cotton by default……probably because it's too easy to burn.

 

[Unforeseen]

Moved to Assorted PV Topics - Clearomizers

 

[AttyPops]

Yeah…that's actually wrong. Silica doesn't burn at the temperatures we're creating. You'll pop the coil before anything bad happens to the wick. Same is true of stainless steel mesh.

The difference b/t a vivi nova that's been dry burned and one that hasn't is easily night & day. I dry burn mine every couple tanks worth of juice, and I've yet to have a head last less than a month.

Also, there's no reason why taking something apart and putting it back together would change anything unless you put it together wrong to start with.

When did I say silica burns???????? I also didn't say you can't take it apart and reassemble. (The implication was it came assembled poorly from the factory)

If you're going to out-and-out call me "wrong".... at least read it please. Thanks. It wouldn't be the 1st time I was wrong, but making stuff up????? At least correct me on what I said......not what I didn't even say...

You may wish to investigate the "disappearing silica" phenomenon though. And no...that doesn't mean it burns.

 

[tiburonfirst]

1) Turn the voltage down.
2) Melting plastic taste probably won't be removed by cleaning 1st.
3) It was the dis-assembly and reassembly the solved it, IMO. Or voltage was too high. Or wicking was poor with new partly dry wicks (and hence the low flavor).

Dry burning is a real mean thing to do to a brand new coil. What did it ever do to you?



P.S. Although I have heard that rinsing a wick and drying it helps it perform better but that was for SS mesh.

atty, you'd be surprised! anybody with allergies will tell you a dry burn before usage is a must heaven knows what china puts on coils to condition them and, possibly, the silica ..............

 

[AttyPops]

I'm not opposed to cleaning them Tibby. But I'm in the "warm burn to dry the wick" camp, not dry-burn to stress the coil camp!

Dry burning stresses coils, IMO. Often needlessly. Dry burning was invented to de-gunk an otherwise useless/usedup coil+wick. An "Atty resurrection method". Not needed for a new coil. But the debate continues....

 

[tiburonfirst]

from my experience drying the wick did not get rid of the chinese gunk.
it is so hard to get rid of i am now firmly in the ss and cotton wick camp!

 

[media]

the first thing I do when I get a new vivi nova or stardust is rip out their wick and add my own. Also when changing any flavors.

 

[mostapha]

When did I say silica burns???????? I also didn't say you can't take it apart and reassemble. (The implication was it came assembled poorly from the factory)

If you're going to out-and-out call me "wrong".... at least read it please. Thanks. It wouldn't be the 1st time I was wrong, but making stuff up????? At least correct me on what I said......not what I didn't even say...

You may wish to investigate the "disappearing silica" phenomenon though. And no...that doesn't mean it burns.

I'm sorry, I did assume that the reason you said not to dry burn was because you're afraid of silica burning. That's the most common objection I've seen.

Dry burning the right way does not stress the coil significantly more than using it does. Multiple VN heads lasting > a month are on my side of that one.

I've never heard of the disappearing silica phenomenon you mention, but I know that my wicks & coils are clean when I get done with my clenaing process, at least where the wick & coil are close to each other. I haven't found a good way to get the stains out of the wick further away from the coil. But it doesn't seem to matter.

If you want to keep dealing with crappy, inconsistent performance from the VNs, that's fine. If you have a different method that works, that's fine too. Dry burning is simple and effective, and in doing it about every 5 ml of juice on 4 vivi novas over the course of a few months, I've had one coil pop…one coil only last a month……and I've forgotten how old the other ones are. I might still be using a head that I first put on in July. I've only used the 1.8 ohm heads, and I finally used the last out of the 5 pack I bought in july the other day. So, that's 9 heads total. On 4 VNs (and temporarily on a mini until it died) since July.

Seems okay to me.

 

[Zaratoughda]

You guys all talk about cleaning the vision's or vivi novas in hot water and, I had two vision 2.0 clearos that were working fine but I was going to a new bottle of juice on both and so I ran hot water through the tubes of both and, when I put them all back together they both LEAKED... from where the plastic meets the metal on the tube... and I had to replace BOTH of them with new tubes.

So, cleaning the tubes with hot water... is not necessarily a good idea.

Z

 

[X P3 Flight Engineer]

You guys all talk about cleaning the vision's or vivi novas in hot water and, I had two vision 2.0 clearos that were working fine but I was going to a new bottle of juice on both and so I ran hot water through the tubes of both and, when I put them all back together they both LEAKED... from where the plastic meets the metal on the tube... and I had to replace BOTH of them with new tubes.

So, cleaning the tubes with hot water... is not necessarily a good idea.

Z

I've never had a Star Dust that didn't eventually leak.

I've gone through 20 of them so far (only because I bought a large amount when I first tried them).

I use Vivi Nova and Minis now. They don't leak.

 

[Hitmetwice]

You guys all talk about cleaning the vision's or vivi novas in hot water and, I had two vision 2.0 clearos that were working fine but I was going to a new bottle of juice on both and so I ran hot water through the tubes of both and, when I put them all back together they both LEAKED... from where the plastic meets the metal on the tube... and I had to replace BOTH of them with new tubes.

So, cleaning the tubes with hot water... is not necessarily a good idea.

Z

Yeah, a cool rinse and a dry with a paper towel has served me well.
I still have the 3 replacement heads I bought for my v3 stardusts(2) months ago.
The resistance does climb a little with age but man these things are lasting like next to forever with regular cleaning and
gentle dryburning(allowing for some cool down between firings)

Found a fix for the leaking onto battery issue. Check my blog posts if''n your interested .