Old Wotofo Serpent 22mm - It hates thick juice.

[AnTi90d]

Hey, does anyone have experience with the old Wotofo Serpent 22mm? It's the one that is like four inches tall and has a metal tank with glass windows, kind of like the Wotofo Conqueror.

When I first bought it, I was running 50/50 and it worked fine. Since then, I've been buying and DIYing 70 and 80vg juice and the tank just hates it. I vape in TC and I can feel when the wick isn't as wet as it should be.

So, I've been considering attacking it with a Dremel or file. I was just curious if anyone else has modified their old Serpent in such a manner.

Plan A: widen the tiny wicking channels.. which may be difficult to evenly carve out and could cause the tank to constantly leak.

Plan B: somehow shorten the bottom of the juice flow control / chimney so that the juice channels have more vertical room. Possibly with a large, flat grinding disc. The threads don't go all the way down, so I think I can shave off 0.5-1mm from the bottom so the JFC is more open. As long as the disc doesn't jump and hit the tank, I think it might work.

I don't have any wicking issues with the Conqueror.. and it has even less room for wicks. The JFC just seems to open up much more on that tank.

I also don't ever close the JFC all the way because it doesn't seal against the deck like it should, so it can't stop the tank from flooding when screwing on the top. With both tanks, I fill and then place the top cap on, then hold it firmly against the tank, turn the tank upside down, wait until the air bubble goes to the bottom of the tank and then screw the top on. I never have leaks out of either one when I refill it this way, so I've been doing this everyday for a few months.

So.. thoughts?

 

[stols001]

I can't really offer advice on that tank but would it not (possibly) be easier to just mix a juice closer to the percentage you were using before (maybe 60 VG/40 PG or something like that) and see how it handles the juice? You could also try a different wicking style, maybe thinning your wicks more, as I tend to find that too much wick (especially with thick juices) thicker tails make it harder for the juice to wick than thinner ones, as they stay less saturated.

By all means, experiment with your tank if you need to, but I might try the above first, as once you start modifying your tank, you kind of can't go back, as it were. It might work, or it might destroy the tank completely, rendering it unvapable. However, if you do decide to modify the tank, I'm sure other vapers with more experience so doing will be along with suggestions.

Anna

 

[AnTi90d]

Yeah, mixing DIY to 60/40 or thinner lets it wick fluid easier, but I have 120ml of Silly Rabbit that I wanted to run through it.. and then two bottles of Amity, after that. (My Serpent 22mm is my dedicated cereal / poundcake tank.)

I guess I might be a bit overconfident due to my success with drilling more airflow into my old Lemo 2. When I started losing interest in MTL, I retired the Lemo 2 for its super restricted airflow.. but, then I started missing the tank, so I disassembled it and sucked on all the parts to figure out where the restriction was coming from. I tracked it down to the center pin, so I clamped the pin down and drilled two of the four holes in its bottom out much wider. I now love the tank, again, (so long as I always keep it standing upright,) and the Serpent 22mm has been aggravating me with the Silly Rabbit.. so I'm seeking to solve the issue on the tank's end.

Thinning the tails doesn't seem to help much, as the tank has really shallow and narrow wick channels.. OH HOLY COW, absolutely randomly, I just tried searching YouTube again for a Serpent 22mm video to show how tiny the wicking channels are. Previously I was unable to find a single video on the tank. Thanks for replying, as this set a course of events that caused me to find the only video on it. Even though IDK what language this guy is speaking, he did show that he isn't wicking into the channels.. he's creating a wall of wick around the coil. I'll totally try that before I solve the issue with brute force.

 

[Vapemesilly]

Are you sure it isn't the cotton? Seems to me that the thicker the juice the harder it would be for the cotton to absorb.

 

[AnTi90d]

It was 100% the way I was wicking it. I just turned her upside down, popped the deck off, ripped out the cotton and rewicked it with a wall around the coil, not touching the channel.. just like that foreign-language video I linked in my second post in this thread. After vaping on it for a few minutes, I turned it on its side to see if this method would cause a leak. So far, so good.

High VG juice in a Serpent 22mm = don't wick the channels / wall off the coil with the cotton tails.

 

[Heartsdelight]

It was 100% the way I was wicking it. I just turned her upside down, popped the deck off, ripped out the cotton and rewicked it with a wall around the coil, not touching the channel.. just like that foreign-language video I linked in my second post in this thread. After vaping on it for a few minutes, I turned it on its side to see if this method would cause a leak. So far, so good.

High VG juice in a Serpent 22mm = don't wick the channels / wall off the coil with the cotton tails.

Used to be my fav nighttime atty. inspires me to rebuild mine. There’s a huge thread here on ECF on the Original Serpent 22. Glad you got it worked out

 

[Steve Parry]

It was 100% the way I was wicking it. I just turned her upside down, popped the deck off, ripped out the cotton and rewicked it with a wall around the coil, not touching the channel.. just like that foreign-language video I linked in my second post in this thread. After vaping on it for a few minutes, I turned it on its side to see if this method would cause a leak. So far, so good.

High VG juice in a Serpent 22mm = don't wick the channels / wall off the coil with the cotton tails.

That's the key right there. Sorry to hear about your leaking while refilling problems. Is it a black one? The first run of the black ones had this problem. The later issues can be filled while upright. These are pretty good atomizers though.

 

[AnTi90d]

Nope, I got the SS version because I heard Wotofo's grub screws were made out of butter in the black versions.

It's at least not half as vicious as the Wotofo Conqueror. I love the flavor and the build deck on that one, but it'll crap out every drop of juice in it if I take the top off and then the phone rings and I don't recap it within 10-15 minutes. That happened to me, last week.. I was unpleasantly surprised when I went to pick my mod back up. (I really need to save up for a Zeus / Kylin / Bravo.. I love postless decks but I revile juice flow control valves that go up and down.)

 

[Steve Parry]

The JFC on the Kylin is worse because it turns and doesn't stop. No matter how you wick it, it will leave an annoying juice ring under the tank. All of the tanks with that style JFC tend to do that. It does have good flavor though.

 

[AnTi90d]

Thank you for warning me. I was already on the fence with it because that huge branding logo really stands out. I prefer more subtle branding.. or none.

 

[Steve Parry]

Check out the Aromamizer Supreme V2. It's 25 mm, not sure if that is a problem for you. Also it comes with a velocity style deck, but you can buy a postless deck for it for around $10. I had the V1 and it was great, also run the Aromamizer Plus which is a 30mm version of basically the same tank. It comes with the postless deck.

 

[AnTi90d]

Oh, thanks again! I didn't know you could throw a postless into it.. I just added that deck to my FT wish list so I don't forget about it.

 

[Leo Bak]

The original Serpent takes some extra care when it comes to wicking. If not stuffed too tight it can easily take 20/80 juice. It has way better taste than any Supreme, Plus or Titan. In fact it's the best Serpent Wotofo ever made, maybe even the only really good one.

If you insist on trying a Supreme, i'd try the V2 and make sure you get the single coil deck and not the postless deck which has been wrongly engineered by positioning the airflow onto your wick instead of the coil. But even if you use the single coil deck, you'll have too much airflow in a huge chamber, making it close to impossible to get a real good dense flavor.

 

[Heartsdelight]

The original Serpent takes some extra care when it comes to wicking. If not stuffed too tight it can easily take 20/80 juice. It has way better taste than any Supreme, Plus or Titan. In fact it's the best Serpent Wotofo ever made, maybe even the only really good one.

If you insist on trying a Supreme, i'd try the V2 and make sure you get the single coil deck and not the postless deck which has been wrongly engineered by positioning the airflow onto your wick instead of the coil. But even if you use the single coil deck, you'll have too much airflow in a huge chamber, making it close to impossible to get a real good dense flavor.

It’s true that the single coil deck for the v2 is very airy but that can be circumvented a bit by a larger coil 3.5-4mm id. I really enjoy the flavor in mine with the airflow opened to just about 1/4 way. I also enjoy my Plus with the postless deck that I use single coil, just need more power (wattage) but the flavors great. JMHO

 

[Steve Parry]

If you insist on trying a Supreme, i'd try the V2 and make sure you get the single coil deck and not the postless deck which has been wrongly engineered by positioning the airflow onto your wick instead of the coil. But even if you use the single coil deck, you'll have too much airflow in a huge chamber, making it close to impossible to get a real good dense flavor.

It's not that the postles deck has been engineered wrongly, it's that it isn't really intended to be used as a single coil deck. If you set it up with dual coils they are properly positioned.

 

[Leo Bak]

It's not that the postles deck has been engineered wrongly, it's that it isn't really intended to be used as a single coil deck. If you set it up with dual coils they are properly positioned.

Nope, especially with dual coil setup it's not working. Single coiled you can use a build like this:

which obviously is far from ideal because the chamber is just too big for single coil, even with a huge flapton, you also need an insane amount of cotton which partially blocks the airflow.

Now take a close look at the Plus deck, which is correctly designed:

See the airflow hitting the coil and the juicewells being on the sides? Makes sense, short wicks, no blocking.

Compare that to the Supreme deck:

You'd need to lead the wick in front of the coils towards the wells that are wrongly positioned. As you see happening in the single coil build above, but then there's only one side blocked by wick. Using dual coil you got two ends of the wick blocking the coils from catching proper airflow. Which explains the muted flavor of the supreme postless deck. Raising the coils would only make it worse with air only hitting the wick.

Back on topic: use a sparse amount of wick in the Serpent and cut it slanted so that you can put the longer corners of the wick into the juicechannels on each side, but use as little as you can, close to leaking, and you'll be fine using 20/80 juice. Great tank that first Serpent.

 

[Steve Parry]

Using dual coil you got two ends of the wick blocking the coils from catching proper airflow.

No you don't, because with dual coils you don't have to fill the entire cup with one wick. Since the wick is coming in from both sides it doesn't block the coil. If your wick above only had to fill half of the cup, you wouldn't have to block coils to get it to the other side.

 

[Leo Bak]

No you don't, because with dual coils you don't have to fill the entire cup with one wick. Since the wick is coming in from both sides it doesn't block the coil. If your wick above only had to fill half of the cup, you wouldn't have to block coils to get it to the other side.

Yes it's very well possible that it doesn't bother you. For me that deck is a fail, SC tried to make a Plus version of this deck but didn't succeed, so they were aware of the issues of wick blocking the coil. But again, if it works for you just keep using it.

 

[Steve Parry]

It's not about me or my opinion. I prefer the velocity deck. It's about the deck itself. Look at the 2 decks. The tabs on the bottom show which way the airflow comes into the chamber. I totally agree that it is coming in differently on the 2 decks. However, if you look at the holes on the deck where you attach your wire, you will see why. The decks are 2 different sizes.

Since the plus deck is larger, each of the 4 holes are about an equal distance from each other. Thus, they had enough room to basically turn the deck sideways which does make wicking easier. On the smaller Supreme deck, look how close the 2 positive and 2 negative post holes are. If they had designed the deck the same way as the plus, the distance between the two positive holes would then be the distance between the positive and negative holes, meaning your coil would have to be that short. It would wick better, but the coil you show above wouldn't even come close to fitting in that deck. Thus, it wasn't a design flaw. It was the best use that they could make of the space they had with a postless configuration.

However, when you build dual coils on the postless, you set the coils then bend them out towards the edges. The wicks then go straight down into the juice wells and, as I pointed out, don't block the coils at all.

 

[Leo Bak]

Yes you're right about the narrow space part. The reason why SC didn't manage to make a Plus styled deck for the Supreme was lack of space. But again if it works for you that's fine, it didn't for a lot of people.