Refilling Techniques

[gaijinman]

So, I've gotten good at filling blank carts. However, I can't say I'm any good at refilling. I haven't gotten refilling to work for me yet.

I've heard some say that they refill a cart 100 times. However, in my experience the carts I have refilled taste, well, quite terrible. My guess would be that anyone who refills more than 3 times is inhaling gunky burnt juice combined with filling material.

Anyway, I've got quite a growing stack of one-time used carts and I'm not quite sure what to do with them. Should I toss them? Am I wasting juice to refill them to only get a terrible taste when I vape?

Who's got a good refilling technique that really works?

Yeah I'm already spinning. Yeah I tried using the same cart and dripping more in it later to keep it going, but juice came out the battery end and it started tasting bad soon after, and it just didn't seem to work for me. No I don't want to boil my carts, and I guess boiling them wouldn't really do anything unless I was changing the juice flavor which I'm not.

 

[markfm]

On an active carto I always just use the condom method -- juice in the cap, push carto in battery side down slowly, blow through from battery end, then blow through from the mouthpiece end. It works for a couple refills, then I either clean them or toss. I don't vape them dry -- once I see vapor production going down I do the top-off.

 

[gaijinman]

Got it. So in other words you get 2 so-so refills, then toss.

 

[Tekn0ph1sh]

Check out the video blogs. There are some nice how to's in there.

 

[markfm]

I'll do one cleaning round, get about 80% fine to reuse through another round of full fill and several partials. They are disposable, and it's a case of time vs. $. I'm willing to batch clean about 10, use what comes out good.

 

[Desertfremen]

Okay. This is how I refill cartos.

First I spin any remaning juice out of them that I possibly can. I do this by taking the mouthpiece out of the carto and putting a condom on the end of it just enough to hold it on so there's room to catch the excess. Any juice in the condom gets thrown out.

To refill I plug the battery end and then drip. I do one drop at a time and wait for it to soak down before the next drop. I do a total of 35 drops. If the juice begins to pool on the top of the filling before I hit 35 drops then I'll spin what's there down and continue till I hit 35 drops. Then I'll do one last spin and put the mouthpiece back in. Then I remove the battery plug and use a large paperclip I straightened to clean out the middle of any juice.

At this point it's ready to vape or to be capped for future use. However, you mentioned that flavour gets icky. Yes it does. With the original juices and the WOW juices I find it takes about 10-15 refills before the taste starts going off. With the Premium juices it seems to only take 4 or 5 refills. When this happens I wash them. I use a turkey baster and hot water. I flush the carto out with hot water till the water runs clear out the battery end. Then I do a few dry blows to get most of the excess water out of the carto. Then I'll flush vodka through the carto with the turkey baster about 2 or 3 times and again do some dry blows to get the excess vodka out.

I generally try to let the cartos dry for at least a week before using again but sometimes I can't wait and refill immediately after spinning to make sure I can get all the moisture out that I can. When I am filling a washed carto or a new blank I use 45 drops of juice.

This is the method I've been using for about the past 5 months with great success. Rarely do I get a cartos that needs to be trashed after only a couple of uses. I've got some cartos that have been through over 20 uses.

HTHs.

 

[gaijinman]

Okay. This is how I refill cartos.

First I spin any remaning juice out of them that I possibly can. I do this by taking the mouthpiece out of the carto and putting a condom on the end of it just enough to hold it on so there's room to catch the excess. Any juice in the condom gets thrown out.

To refill I plug the battery end and then drip. I do one drop at a time and wait for it to soak down before the next drop. I do a total of 35 drops. If the juice begins to pool on the top of the filling before I hit 35 drops then I'll spin what's there down and continue till I hit 35 drops. Then I'll do one last spin and put the mouthpiece back in. Then I remove the battery plug and use a large paperclip I straightened to clean out the middle of any juice.

At this point it's ready to vape or to be capped for future use. However, you mentioned that flavour gets icky. Yes it does. With the original juices and the WOW juices I find it takes about 10-15 refills before the taste starts going off. With the Premium juices it seems to only take 4 or 5 refills. When this happens I wash them. I use a turkey baster and hot water. I flush the carto out with hot water till the water runs clear out the battery end. Then I do a few dry blows to get most of the excess water out of the carto. Then I'll flush vodka through the carto with the turkey baster about 2 or 3 times and again do some dry blows to get the excess vodka out.

I generally try to let the cartos dry for at least a week before using again but sometimes I can't wait and refill immediately after spinning to make sure I can get all the moisture out that I can. When I am filling a washed carto or a new blank I use 45 drops of juice.

This is the method I've been using for about the past 5 months with great success. Rarely do I get a cartos that needs to be trashed after only a couple of uses. I've got some cartos that have been through over 20 uses.

HTHs.

Wow! 4 or 5 refills? That's amazing! 10 - 15 refills? That's unbelievable. I wish I could just get 2 or 3 refills.
When I fill a blank cool cart for the first time, I am able to get 50 drops in the thing. I haven't had any luck on refills though.

Your saying I should spin the leftover juice out of them, throw it away the juice, and then refill them with the terrance spin. Hmmm, I'm gonna try this right now. I'll report back in 10 minutes or so.

 

[WolfAtTheDoor]

I usually don't wait for a cart to go dry before I refill, but sometimes I come close since the filling looks pretty dry.. add about 10-12 drops and its good to go for at least 3-4 hours... On the Wow Peppermint for example, I can do this for 3-4 days, before it starts to taste a little on the sour side. I don't spin, or let my carts sit overnight or anything like that, but seems to work well for me.

 

[gaijinman]

Just tried that. Maybe I did it wrong, but I spun the juice out of the battery end until no more would come out. Upon refilling was only able to get 20 drops in there with spinning. I then tried to hit it on my V4L regular sized battery 3.7V maybe, and it bubbled (bubbly sound I mean), and yuck, bad taste. I then tried to hit it on my V4L passthrough 5V I think, and bleh, disgusting. Maybe it's just that cart in particular. Anyway, is it really worth wasting so much juice to make a refill work, as opposed to putting the same juice in a new cart and tossing your old cart?

 

[flbutterfly1]

I use 1 carto a week I refill 3 times a day. I clean every few days between refills. I wash it under hot hot running water for a few min blow out, rinse again, blow out. Hold the threaded end with tweezers or whatever works use the blow dryer on high heat carto up on out side and then blow dryer pointed to inside about 2-3 min blow out into paper towel and maybe blowdry again for 2 min. usually takes me 10 min 2x a week. The carto still works good i might use it the next week also for a few times.

 

[gaijinman]

I usually don't wait for a cart to go dry before I refill, but sometimes I come close since the filling looks pretty dry.. add about 10-12 drops and its good to go for at least 3-4 hours... On the Wow Peppermint for example, I can do this for 3-4 days, before it starts to taste a little on the sour side. I don't spin, or let my carts sit overnight or anything like that, but seems to work well for me.

Not sure how you get the thing to go 3-4 hours on a refill. I can't even get a newly filled cart to last me 3-4 hours. A filled cart to me with 50 drops in the thing is like the equivalent of 4 to 5 cigarettes to me. I go through 4 new carts a day, sometimes 5. I have a pile of used carts, but I haven't figured out how to make a used cart give me more than few decent hits after refilling it. I must be doing something wrong, or maybe it's a cool cart thing. Or maybe you vape much less than me, or used to smoke much less than me.

 

[gaijinman]

I use 1 carto a week I refill 3 times a day. I clean every few days between refills. I wash it under hot hot running water for a few min blow out, rinse again, blow out. Hold the threaded end with tweezers or whatever works use the blow dryer on high heat carto up on out side and then blow dryer pointed to inside about 2-3 min blow out into paper towel and maybe blowdry again for 2 min. usually takes me 10 min 2x a week. The carto still works good i might use it the next week also for a few times.

I don't have a blow dryer or I'd try that right now. I'd love to get more use out of my carts than 1 fill. I am gonna take a used one, go over to the sink and run cold water on it Right Now, since my sink doesn't have hot water on it. I'll do that right now and let the thing dry by standing it up, it may take some time to dry I realize.

 

[Desertfremen]

Just tried that. Maybe I did it wrong, but I spun the juice out of the battery end until no more would come out. Upon refilling was only able to get 20 drops in there with spinning. I then tried to hit it on my V4L regular sized battery 3.7V maybe, and it bubbled (bubbly sound I mean), and yuck, bad taste. I then tried to hit it on my V4L passthrough 5V I think, and bleh, disgusting. Maybe it's just that cart in particular. Anyway, is it really worth wasting so much juice to make a refill work, as opposed to putting the same juice in a new cart and tossing your old cart?

I don't spin juice out the battery end b/c you can't ever get enough out. I spin the juice out of the mouthpiece end with the mouthpiece removed and I leave the battery end unplugged when I spin. I spin it for a while (I count to 200 spins, takes about 30 seconds) to make sure I can get all of it out. Usually there's about 3-5 drops of juice that I end up pitching. I won't reuse it because it's just looks icky and dark after being used.

If the carto is tasting that bad you should wash it. There should be no juice to cause any bubbling. If there is then you need to clean the centre out more before vaping.

The juice you just put into the cart should be able to be reused since you've hardly vaped it. As long as the juice isn't dark I'd reuse it in this case. The condom will catch it for reuse.

 

[markfm]

For drying, some people use a fan blowing on them, and/or put them in a dish with uncooked rice.

 

[gaijinman]

Okay, I did that with a used cart. I don't have a fan, so I just put it on my desk mouth side down with now rubber end not in it to let it it dry. This ones gonna take a day to test out I'm guessing.

 

[WolfAtTheDoor]

Not sure how you get the thing to go 3-4 hours on a refill. I can't even get a newly filled cart to last me 3-4 hours. A filled cart to me with 50 drops in the thing is like the equivalent of 4 to 5 cigarettes to me. I go through 4 new carts a day, sometimes 5. I have a pile of used carts, but I haven't figured out how to make a used cart give me more than few decent hits after refilling it. I must be doing something wrong, or maybe it's a cool cart thing. Or maybe you vape much less than me, or used to smoke much less than me.

I don't really understand it myself, since most people say they go through 3-5 carts a day... sure, I use a couple different flavors at one time on different batts. I tested it once and wrote down the results of using a fresh, full pre-filled cart and taking 8-10 inhalations each time i used the cart, it lasted about 8-10 hours, before it started losing flavor.. and that's taking the inhalations I'd saw at least every 15 min.. so that's 32-40 inhalations an hour.. maybe my inhalations aren't long enough 4-5 secs each time to drain my cart that quickly? So, I'm not sure how people can go through that many carts in a day, but then again, I've never claimed to be normal.

 

[gaijinman]

I don't really understand it myself, since most people say they go through 3-5 carts a day... sure, I use a couple different flavors at one time on different batts. I tested it once and wrote down the results of using a fresh, full pre-filled cart and taking 8-10 inhalations each time i used the cart, it lasted about 8-10 hours, before it started losing flavor.. and that's taking the inhalations I'd saw at least every 15 min.. so that's 32-40 inhalations an hour.. maybe my inhalations aren't long enough 4-5 secs each time to drain my cart that quickly? So, I'm not sure how people can go through that many carts in a day, but then again, I've never claimed to be normal.

Yeah it's not normal. You have got to be burning filler doing that, or you have super carts.

I only hold the manual button on my battery for 3 seconds tops for each inhalation (hit). I take 20 hits every hour. By the third hour one cart isn't working well enough for me and not putting out as much vapor to satisfy me, so I switch to another one.

 

[kpax]

Just tried that. Maybe I did it wrong, but I spun the juice out of the battery end until no more would come out. Upon refilling was only able to get 20 drops in there with spinning. I then tried to hit it on my V4L regular sized battery 3.7V maybe, and it bubbled (bubbly sound I mean), and yuck, bad taste. I then tried to hit it on my V4L passthrough 5V I think, and bleh, disgusting. Maybe it's just that cart in particular. Anyway, is it really worth wasting so much juice to make a refill work, as opposed to putting the same juice in a new cart and tossing your old cart?

Hi, have you tried a different battery? I find I am getting burning on some carts with manual battery. Much different on auto. (although you have to be sure carts aren't dripping any fluid) Also would like to add that the V4L batteries hold a charge longer but seem to cause/crackling/popping that you are decribing. My carts can be used over and over on my original smoketip kit batteries. I don't know what size they are.

This has been a very frustrating problem for me too. I had to play around for quite a while before I figured this out. And I am still learning.

Also I alternate the condom/cap method with dripping after I remove white cap. I have 4 of my original cartomizers that are still good after 10 refills.

 

[gaijinman]

Hi, have you tried a different battery? I find I am getting burning on some carts with manual battery. Much different on auto. (although you have to be sure carts aren't dripping any fluid) Also would like to add that the V4L batteries hold a charge longer but seem to cause/crackling/popping that you are decribing. My carts can be used over and over on my original smoketip kit batteries. I don't know what size they are.

This has been a very frustrating problem for me too. I had to play around for quite a while before I figured this out. And I am still learning.

Also I alternate the condom/cap method with dripping after I remove white cap. I have 4 of my original cartomizers that are still good after 10 refills.

Well, seems like I need to try the auto batteries and see if there is any difference then. I would imagine that they should be the same though.

 

[Desertfremen]

I don't really understand it myself, since most people say they go through 3-5 carts a day... sure, I use a couple different flavors at one time on different batts. I tested it once and wrote down the results of using a fresh, full pre-filled cart and taking 8-10 inhalations each time i used the cart, it lasted about 8-10 hours, before it started losing flavor.. and that's taking the inhalations I'd saw at least every 15 min.. so that's 32-40 inhalations an hour.. maybe my inhalations aren't long enough 4-5 secs each time to drain my cart that quickly? So, I'm not sure how people can go through that many carts in a day, but then again, I've never claimed to be normal.

Yeah, I don't understand how people can go through that many carts myself. On pre-filled carts I go through 3/day max. On refills I max out on 2.5 since I can fit more than 1mL in a cart. I can't even fathom running through a new pre-fill in under 4 hrs. Perhaps they are not vaping a high enough nic? The only way I can go through 4-5 carts in a day is if I was vaping 24mg instead of the 36mg. When price wasn't a concern I smoked 3pad.