Pondering. Vivi Nova juice color changes.

[AttyPops]

OK. So let's see if I can make this post coherent...

1) The wick draws the juice in.
2) The juice gets vaporized.
3) The air-flow is up the center tube.
4) The partially depleted wick draws more juice in from the tank ('cuz it's a wick..)

When does the juice flow outward back into the tank, if it does at all? The juice turns colors after a few vapes. Logically, WHY?

I know that warmed juice has chemicals that react. I know it's normal. I don't know why, if the wicking is one-way, it turns colors in the tank.

Could the (slight) electrical conductivity of the juice with the tank walls as a ground be a contributing factor?

Obviously, the wicking action isn't 100% one-way. And it doesn't take much vaping for it to go from clear to dark. I always figured, with an atomizer, that the juice was insta-cooked anyway and never even bothered to worry about it when blowing out an atty or whatever. But for a tank....it shouldn't be cooked.

Must be chemical with a little of it leaching back across the wick. Maybe it's the heat. Curious as to your thoughts. Sure goes dark fast.

(Man...I need to get a life. I actually think about this stuff. BTW... My VN is ver 2.5)

 

[Amish Ed]

Someone posted a while back that some of the flavor actually doesn't make it up the wick. Thus the wick acts almost like filter. Most of the flavor makes it up the wick, but some doesn't.

 

[AttyPops]

OK. But the flavoring I'm using is nearly clear.....

 

[Trick]

You're assuming that wicking only works one way, which is an incorrect assumption. The wick remains wet, but gravity and saturation will pull some back downward.

 

[MF DOOM]

I notice color change as well.I think it is from that dark spot created on the wick at the coil point.I KNOW it's from that.

 

[mitsuhashi]

I noticed this, too, and it's one of the reasons I stopped using the Vivi Nova. I also noticed that flavor changed as the liquid darkened. My theory is that the wick doesn't get saturated enough near the coil, and I'm vaping pieces of burned wick. Same as how days-old cartomizers become full of dark juice somehow (without carto tank).

Try the Kanger T3 if you have an eGo -- I find it saturates far better and it takes much longer for the juice to change color. A 510-eGo adapter also works but I find the vape to be way too airy that way.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 2. Only took 10 minutes to type the post.

 

[AttyPops]

You're assuming that wicking only works one way, which is an incorrect assumption. The wick remains wet, but gravity and saturation will pull some back downward.

So there's a flow...a current...going on? Like you vape it, and it creates heavier stuff, and that flows outward as the lighter "new" stuff flows inward? The coil spot is horizontal though.

I'm thinking heat and chemical reaction mostly. But could be flowing too.

 

[bsidb]

The better my coil and wick the less my juice turns colors, i use a spacer for when i wrap the coil so there is little browning of the cotton, little to no discoloration of the juice, alot of trial and error on the spacer

 

[brando4905]

Seems I read somewhere that the color change was from burnt sugars in the juice? Happens in carto tanks too, but not nearly as quick, sometimes I go a couple weeks and the juice doesn't change at all. For me, this was also one of the reasons I layed my Novas down.

 

[AttyPops]

OK gang. But just so you know....

I'm pretty sure that...whatever device we use with a heating coil in it be it an atty, carto or tank, the juice is cooked to vaporization at the coil. So I don't know that the color matters much except as a discussion point.

I for one and not laying my cool rebuildable VN tank aside because the color changes when it changes as it's vaporized at the coil anyway. So I don't want this to turn into an anti-V.N. thread. That's not the intent. However, I was curious as to the thoughts.

 

[mostlyclassics]

Okay, folks, I'm reaching back half a century to a half-remembered high school chemistry class. I'm sure someone who actually is a chemist can explain it more clearly. But here goes . . .

Our e-liquids are not comprised of all one substance. Rather, our e-liquids are comprised of many different substances (PG, VG, flavoring, nicotine, maybe alcohol, maybe some other things). All these different substances want to reach a state of equilibrium, where each is represented in every drop of e-liquid by the same relative concentration. So all the different molecules jockey around until they reach this blissful state. And even when they reach nirvana, they still jockey around.

Now, when we vape, we're applying heat to a tiny proportion of the e-liquid stored in our tanks/clearos/cartos. That heat is enough to change the chemical composition of at least one of the compounds of our e-liquid. It's also enough to change the chemical composition of the wire and wick, even if just enough to oxidize them. So, now we have new compounds in our multi-compound e-liquid. And these new compounds, if soluble in e-liquid, will want to do what the others did: mix with the others so all are equally diluted in the e-liquid. So that's part of the color change.

There's another factor contributing to the color change: Brownian motion of the new but insoluble compounds. The heat, in addition to making new soluble compounds, also makes insoluble compounds. (For instance, oxygen plus heat plus iron equals rust.) These insoluble compounds are not big chunks; rather, they're microscopic particles. These microscopic particles get moved around by all those soluble compounds jostling for solution equilibrium, or miscibility.

Voilà! Color and taste change in heated e-liquids.

Bottom line, though, I figure unless the e-liquid tastes funky, there's no problem. And even then, it just tastes funky and deserves pitching for that reason.

This process occurs to an equal extent in cartos (and carto tanks), clearos, and devices like Vivi Novas. Obviously, it's hidden from view in cartos and carto tanks. There must be something about the design of Vivi Novas that makes this whole process more visible.

 

[DaveP]

I haven't noticed a distinct change in juice color, but I'm vaping clear to slightly yellow juices anyway. I can understand the filtering effect that might be a characteristic of wicking in a clear tank, but that shouldn't affect the free juice in a tank, just the wicks that retain some of the particulates in the juice as it travels up the fibers. Maybe the wicks color changes are being reflected in the juice in the tank.

When I pop the tube off to change a head, my wicks show the color of the juice I've been using. Being transparently clear with little yellow tint, the wicks only show a similar color to the juice in the bottle as best I can tell. Maybe juices that contain darker flavors have more actual particulates in the mix that accumulate in the wick fibers.

 

[oh u mad]

yep, my juices turn nearly black in the vivi nova.

 

[Tank V2]

Its normal for Vivi Novas. More over if its more VG in the liquid.

 

[DaveP]

After vaping on Vivi Novas for about three weeks, I've noticed that the 2.8 ohm heads produce a little better vapor and flavor than the 2.4 ohm heads. The large single rope wick on the 2.8 vapes farther down into the tank than the 4 rope heads on the 2.4 that start to fade when the tank is about halfway empty. You'd think that more surface area would wick more juice. Maybe the issue is how the coil interacts with a large round wick as opposed to the bundle of 4 wicks.

Right now, I'm back to a carto for comparison. The vape quality is about the same as when the Vivi Nova is producing a good vape. I prefer the reduced bulk of a carto, but like the vape time a Vivi Nova gives me. It's just the wicking variances that are a little troublesome to me.

 

[DaveP]

I'm dry burning and recycling the same head now for about 10 days. Each time I wash it out in hot tap water and dry burn it, the taste and flavor are close to a new head. It's a quick and simple procedure if you use a syringe to draw out the juice and replace it. I do it around the third or fourth day when I notice the flavor dying a little.

 

[Baditude]

From what I have read, there are small particles in our juices. They are not completely liquid, but have suspended solid particles, probably from the flavoring agents used. These micro-small particles do not get wicked, but stay in suspension in the e-liquid of the tank. The more liquid that gets vaparoized, the more concentrated the juice becomes in the tank.

I think this is the reason that Boba's Bounty has such a difficult time being wicked in either a clearo tank or a cartotank. It's not just the fact that it is an extremely thick VG juice. It has a very heavy particulate content. After about a tankfull of Boba's is vaped, the above process causes the wicking material to become cloged, resulting in a stiff draw, decrease in vapor and flavor, and possibly dry hits.

 

[Kemosabe]

i agree largely with most of what has been brought up here. i will add that the reason why i think the juice changes color in Novas is wicking, like you guys say and that some flavor particles cant make it all the way up the wick, BUT i also think that heat plays a role.

when you slosh the liquid up to the top, then take a puff, youre vaporizing the liquid that hits the coil. the liquid *next to* the liquid that gets vaporized only gets heated because it hadnt quite reached the "vaporizing area" AKA the coil. this liquid has changed in chemical makeup: its not quite vaporzed, just heated and its not quite fresh juice either.

i think very sweet juices are particularly suseptable to this due to the ethyl maltol that is present. EM carmelizes more than its vaporized. it carmelizes onto the coil, gunking it up. perhaps fresh juice that comes in contact with the pre-carmelized gunk (when you slosh the tank for whatever reason: travel, assisting the wick, etc), it washes a bit of the pre-carmelization back into the tank.

you can clearly see im no chemist. but like Atty, ive done some thinking about this and this is just my personal theory.

 

[peraspera]

None of the four Boge Vivi Novas I got at Vapor Beast turn my juice into a brown, tasteless, syrupy goo the way all eight of the Visions do. The differences between the two brands that I've noticed:

The Boge's coil is wrapped around a single wick with a loose wick placed on top of it while the Vision's wicks are all coiled together.

The Boge's have a single air hole in the side of the knurled base while the Visions's have two air holes drilled in the non-threaded part of the 510 connector stem.

The Boge's silcone cap for the head has a metal piece with a small tube that protrudes through the hole in the top. The Vision's have a cone on the top of metal piece in the silicone cap and it does not protrude through the top hole.

I haven't had time to see if I can tweak the Visions to give up their evil juice goo-ing ways and wouldn't have the first clue as to the reason(s) if I were to be successful. Perhaps someone a lot more clever than I with a little time could try. The Boge's are only $7 and, at worst, you get something that is more juice friendly than the Visions.