Moderate Newbieism - Weeks 6-8. Vaporless and desperate.

[Lisbeth]

Greetings!

So this is my seconf month of vaping, with two original cignot kits, 4 attys and bats total. I am a heavy vaper, meaning I'm always moderately dragging on my passthru, and need the 4 batteries to go out for a night. Plus chargers.

Here are my assumptions (because I have read through countless threads), and questions:

1) How often should I reasonable expect to replace my stuff? My batteries seem to be draining a lot quicker lately.

2) I am now getting almost no vapor on anything, and I don't know why. Is this likely because they are past their prime?

I've done filter mods, the pepsi dunk, hot water and a good blow. I've poked and prodded at the holes, and I even tried to remove the wick on one to just drip and everything just seems to be the bleh.

I realize its subjective, but I deeply appreciate any obvious points I may have overlooked. I mean appreciate - I think I am going to have to post an emergency order for a new kit tonight, and I need to get through the next few days. Also, I hate throwing all of this out.

Hearts and happy vapes,

Lis

 

[Kurt]

Two weeks should not be past the prime of 510 attys, but bad ones do crop up sometimes. Getting several extras is pretty much mandatory, batts too.

A regular 510 batt with heavy vaping should last maybe 45 minutes. YMMV. If you are a heavy vapor, I recommend getting a 510 passthrough for vaping on a USB (or offline for a few hours on the batt) or mega batts which are 280 mAh. regular batts are about 160 mAh. I do not chain vape if I'm using a regular batt, as I know it will not last long at all if I do.

As for your attys, in order to diagnose the problems, and there could be several, its important to know what kind of problem you are having:

If it is sluggish or clogged, but vaping, it needs to be cleaned. If you are using tobacco or darkly colored juices this is more likely, due to particulates in the juice. Tobaccos are notorious for this. I dedicate an atty for tobaccos, as I know it will need more care than with other juices. Trying to force a sluggish atty to vape will often overheat it, which then leads to permanent clogging from heat-warping the coil bed. In principle this can be solved, but I have yet to be successful at this (maybe another vet can give some insight...Helen?).

Over time and use the coil can increase its resistance due to gunk that has cooked onto it (I think). This of course can only be checked with a multimeter, which I highly recommend for anyone serious about vaping. A "normal" Joye 510 atty should have a resistance of about 2.5 ohms. Over time this can increase to 3+ ohms, and on a regular batt this will be quite weak. A few I have gotten were 3 ohms brand new, but the majority of them are around 2.5 ohms. Cignot sells true Joye attys, so this should not be an issue...we hope. If the attys were DSE510s, those are generally around 3 ohms. If the attys have two airholes and a white rectangular coil surround (inside at the very bottom under the bridge)they are Joyes.

I hate to say this, and I was guilty of this in the beginning too, but poking and prodding attys, over washing them, using harsh solvents like alcohols for cleaning, sticking things in them, removing the wicks without delicate care, are all things new users do...and these things kill attys!!! Leave them alone. Unfortunately the regular batt puts only 3.1V on the coil, which is actually often too little to keep the atty from flooding and clogging. These problems were chronic with my attys until I got a mod that puts 3.7V on the coil (14500 battery box mods are ~$25 and great!!) And they last MUCH longer too. Just a suggestion to look into, since this is a common problem for regular 510s.

Removing the bridge wick is a crap shoot. Often they are either wrapped around the coil or stuck to them by gunk, and it is VERY easy to break the coil. If this happens the atty is dead and not coming back without rebuilding the atty, which requires more skill and materials than I have, but it is possible. But hey, they are cheap. Get more.

My way of keeping attys healthy:

If the atty is flooded, I don't blow it out, I put on an empty cart and vape the excess. This gets the juice hot and flowing in the right direction: up and away from the coil, rather than blowing from the cart end which forces juice onto the coil and the mesh. This is also my end-of-the-day routine, and when I get a bit of the burnt starved atty taste, I do several hard mouth pulls (suck like on a straw), remove the atty and do a few more mouth pulls, then put the atty cart-end down on a paper towel. Once a week or so I wash them. A god deep cleaning solution that is relatively harmless on the atty's electronics is Crest Health-Pro, Polydent, or just a hot water soak. Coke has CO2, which is good for cleaning, but also sugars and acids which are not. 10 min for a crest soak, or overnight with 12 hour polydent, then flush with lots of hot water. I even put my mouth to the cart end and suck and blow hot water through the atty a few times. Then dry for 36 hours or so, and dry burn a bit to get residual water out. This will drain the batts fast, though. If you do not get a good glow in a couple seconds, repeat the whole cleaning procedure. Sometimes it takes two washes.

Other vets are more than welcome to add their thoughts.

 

[Kent C]

Lis,

Here are my assumptions (because I have read through countless threads), and questions:

1) How often should I reasonable expect to replace my stuff? My batteries seem to be draining a lot quicker lately.

Yep. That's your battery aging. A 510 batt will go from around 2 hours new to 1.5 to 1 hour and sometimes less after many recharges.

2) I am now getting almost no vapor on anything, and I don't know why. Is this likely because they are past their prime?

While, the time between charges become less, the batteries still should be putting out the voltage to make enough vapor. So the atomizers are more likely the problem.

Less or no vapor can be a sign of flooding of the atomizer. It's the first thing I check - remove atty and blow from the batt end into a paper towel on the cart end. Put 1 drop on the bridge, fill - not overfill - the cart and start again.

I don't recommend cleaning attys until there is a performance drop and then I only use 151 vodka - pepsi (not diet pepsi) has sugar in it and sugar is not good for the coil. Many use water but you have to be sure you dry thoroughly afterwards. The 151 dries rather quickly on its own but I still blow it out after soaking for about a half hour. But again, over cleaning can deteriorate the effectiveness of atomizers. And certain chemicals simply shouldn't be used, imo. Stay with stuff for human consumption - internal. And I don't recommend pulling out the wicking. It's there for a reason.

I've done filter mods, the pepsi dunk, hot water and a good blow. I've poked and prodded at the holes, and I even tried to remove the wick on one to just drip and everything just seems to be the bleh.

IF the hardware is not totaled, there are a few things that can improve vapor - from cheapest to more expensive:

Mega batts - longer lasting and the peak voltage off charging lasts longer.

eGo/Tornado/riva batteries - these will last you 5-6 hours and will have a significant effect on vapor with good atomizers. You would need one charger and one cone.

Mods - they can be had for as little as $25-30 box mod (better if you make it yourself), or as high as you want to go almost with many features. The battery is the main reason for mods - no more proprietary batts and full peak voltage for hours and hours. Plus I think the higher voltage (even 3.7V where you have more peak voltage vs. the regular and mega batts) will help clean atomizers via a wet burn where the higher voltage is burning off the crud as you go.

I realize its subjective, but I deeply appreciate any obvious points I may have overlooked. I mean appreciate - I think I am going to have to post an emergency order for a new kit tonight, and I need to get through the next few days. Also, I hate throwing all of this out.

No. Don't throw it out. You've got good atomizers there - except perhaps the one where you took out the wicking but even that one can be used for dripping and unless they are burnt out, you should be able to use them and perhaps revive them. My suggestion would be to go in the middle and just get one or two eGo/Tornado/riva batteries, the quick charge and a cone and see how that goes. Many people who went to mods, have tried the eGo/tornado and use that more than their mods because the vapor production is good enough and it is really nice/small/light to carry around as well.

 

[DonDaBoomVape]

And there is now the 1300 mAh* Hello 016 carried by MadVapes and Vapor Country.

* Two times that of the eGO/Tornado.

 

[rolygate]

Get a multimeter and check the resistance of the atties - set the meter to the lowest resistance scale, maybe '20' (Ohms) and see what they read. Anything over 2.4 Ohms won't work well on the battery of a standard ecig model.

First though: short out the two probes and see what the meter measures - if it's 0.2 Ohms then you remove that from the final result, it's the system 'overhead', common on cheaper meters / probes. So if you measure an atty @ 2.5 Ohms, and the meter measures 0.1 Ohm shorted out, the atty is 2.4 Ohms.

Atties near the bottom end of the usual values, around 2.2 Ohms, will be just fine. Even better are LR, low resistance, atomizers @ ~1.5 Ohms, if you can find them.