Mac I switched over to rayon a few weeks ago and have only noticed what you experience with two juice types, NET's and mentholated juices. Although both juice types start out tasting exactly as they should the menthol begins losing the coolness (the menthol) after about a day. The NET's begin losing the woodsy or earthen notes after about a day.
Sweetness is enhanced across the board, sometimes a good thing..sometimes not (juice dependent).
F1ve I like the sweet, so I'm biased that way. Definitely saw a pickup in that while seeing diminution of some flavor notes. Didn't make sense. But you're right it's not universal. I'm more sensitive than most so pick up on the broader attenuation.
Here's what, in one of my first posts on CC I noted that vaporization seemed to be getting ahead of the wicking. Like juice transport was not keeping up. That wasn't it. There's good flow. And I've had it confirmed by several builders I've shared samples and juice with. The repeated observation after several days was that juice is retained away from the wick. I build a reservoir bed, a small
donnut of cotton around the pos post, on singles which I favor for testing flavors. This slightly denser wrap serves to direct fluid from the alternate well back towards the coil and tufts of wick strategically placed to support the wick ends. So the wick enjoys a constant contact with the reservoir. You'd think there's no way the wick could run dry. You'd be right. I've used it with Nextel, Eko, cotton, KGD and hybrids of these builds and it works. With common cotton though I've experienced this situation with some juices that you get ahead of the vape. Look in the drip and you see juice retained away from the coil. This is something I'm seeing with CC about 3-4 days in depending on juice as it appears to reach a saturation peak. However, CC starts to exhibit this from day one. It's just not as acute. And doesn't happen with all juices. Just the more heavily pigmented fluids.
A footnote postive for CC is that it doesn't seem to start tasting anywhere as foul as cotton, any variety, as it gets there. And flavor remains constant at that point (even with my gunky Trident Johnson Creek tests). So does vapor for the most part. But flavor has diminished. And throughout I personally start to detect the
chalky texture I mentioned earlier as the wick vacates. But this effect is not as pronounced for me as the ever imposing taste of cotton. There always seems to be a tradeoff with organics.
So I'd say it's quite a useful media. It can spotlight certain flavors in spectacular fashion, footlight others that might have gone unnoticed and so deserves a place in the inventory. If for nothing else but the exploration of our favorites it's a great option. But like Nextel, there's definitely a learning curve and coil Ø/power/wick density criteria that needs to be better understood for those particular juices to really take advantage of the wick. Nextel's quite a bit easier to sort out for me. It's performance characteristics uniformly broader. Cotton was almost instinctive in a dripper. Just knew the right everything for it.
All this tells me f1ve is that it's all the more important for newcomers to learn at least the fundamentals of a proper electrical wind and that includes comparisons to less efficient conventional configurations of straight, twisted, etc. Because to me I believe more each day that vaping most resembles cooking than any other activity. Just a little bit of knowledge here with proper circuits and you can whip ... on any juice far and away easier than most would hatch winners in the kitchen or bbq. So I'm for making master chef's out of all those comin' up. And CC will definitely be a boon to many.
I'd be really interested to see someone whose been good with it run in it at 5/64" on an Aero or Mega. I think that would be instructive for many, especially on the density.
Thanks your feedback f1ve. Take care and vape lucky.
