Regular Atty Drippers (A Dying Breed?)

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Mr.Mann

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I also prefer to drip. I am kind of new to the forum. there is alot of posts in this thread. this question may be in there already. My favorite atty is a cisco 306 1.5omh. I always come back to this atty. My question is, I use this atty on a ZMAX VVW mod. I moniter the ohm reading. It always starts out as 1.5 but after a couple of days it stats to go down 1.4, 1.3, 1.2...... My mod is usualy at 3.6. Average time till it burns out is about a week. I would like to get more life out of the atty. Am i doing something wrong? Should I blow it out more often or clean it a special way?

It may be the mod itself telling you one thing when it's another. That may also mean that you end up hitting the atty with too much heat. I dunno as I don't have a ZMax. That said, I have generally gotten short(er) life from low res, and shor(er) life, generally, from 306s. Even still, a week is rather short and I don't care whose name is attached to an atty, a week is too short of a life span, unless it's an anomaly -- if you consistently get short life, I'd look elsewhere.
 
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hippieben

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I also prefer to drip. I am kind of new to the forum. there is alot of posts in this thread. this question may be in there already. My favorite atty is a cisco 306 1.5omh. I always come back to this atty. My question is, I use this atty on a ZMAX VVW Mod. I moniter the ohm reading. It always starts out as 1.5 but after a couple of days it stats to go down 1.4, 1.3, 1.2...... My mod is usualy at 3.6. Average time till it burns out is about a week. I would like to get more life out of the atty. Am i doing something wrong? Should I blow it out more often or clean it a special way?
That really doesn't seem right at all. In my experience when the ohms drop like that it means you're getting carbon build up at the ends of the coil. Not sure why it does that, but it does seem to work like that. Cisco 306 atties are my favorites as well, and end up lasting me months! I typically run them at 4.3 volts. I'm not sure what you're doing wrong to have them only last a week or two.

I typically blow mine out once a day, or when I change to a drastically different flavor. I typically blow it out, then flood it with some PG, blow that out, and repeat once or twice. Every now and then I'll steam clean the atty with the steam wand on my espresso machine. That's all I do.

Dry burning will burn off that carbon on the edges of your coil and bring your resistance back up to where it should be, but I don't really recommend that because (for me at least) I don't find the vape to be nearly as good once the wick is burnt.

How often are you blowing out your atty? If you're not doing it very often, you may want to blow it out more often. As you vape juice, you'll build up gunky liquid in the atty which could be what's causing your issues.

That's really all the insight I can offer you, perhaps someone else can add to this and answer your question.

Another thing may be that your Zmax may be a model that's tuned to V-Average rather than RMS, so you may actually be shoving closer to 4.5 volts through your atty rather than 3.6.
 
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billherbst

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That really doesn't seem right at all. In my experience when the ohms drop like that it means you're getting carbon build up at the ends of the coil. Not sure why it does that, but it does seem to work like that. Cisco 306 atties are my favorites as well, and end up lasting me months! I typically run them at 4.3 volts. I'm not sure what you're doing wrong to have them only last a week or two.

Another thing may be that your Zmax may be a model that's tuned to V-Average rather than RMS, so you may actually be shoving closer to 4.5 volts through your atty rather than 3.6.

I agree with hippieben. Something is definitely wrong. Any particular atomizer might burn out earlier than its presumed life-span because of defective manufacturing. Atomizers are cheap, handmade devices, so you'll get a bad one every so often. Cisco 306s aren't considered especially robust (no regular atomizers are), but they are manufactured with reputable quality control. If you're getting premature burn-outs over and over with different atties, then the problem is more likely somewhere else in the vaping hardware chain. My gut reaction to your description is that cleaning won't help, and that your 306s are being killed prematurely by too much voltage/amperage.

So, as ben noted, if your ZMax is set to V-avg mode rather than RMS, then the displayed 3.6 volts will actually be considerably higher. Exactly how much higher I can't say (that depends on the pulse modulation percentages programmed into the controller chip), but a 1.5 ohm atty is designed for 3.7 volts. Much more than that, and the coil will "pop" (burn out) relatively fast.

Please understand, however, that problems such as this are impossible to diagnose easily or accurately in an online forum, because far too many unknown variables could be contributing to the problem.
 

DC2

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Dry burning will burn off that carbon on the edges of your coil and bring your resistance back up to where it should be, but I don't really recommend that because (for me at least) I don't find the vape to be nearly as good once the wick is burnt.
Silica wick does not burn.
 

jrenae4

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Okay so stumbled upon this thread yesterday ... I've been using a LR 306 atty from Empire Mods. I've been loving it! Wanting to get the Aurora BFT, watched PBusardo's vid and decided to jump the gun and get a couple of stingray atty's, one open bottom one not - they came in yesterday. Figure can't hurt to try more as the 306 has been my main source of vaping right? Well this Stingray is HOT! I keep getting hot sizzling liquid on my lips and I don't like it at all :( Should I have gotten the long barrel one? Or maybe I'll try the 306.
 

Johnnie Price

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Alright well I guess I'll keep trying although it immediately got put away after that LOL

Spitting seems to be a part of a good atomizer. My .357 and my i06 also spit at me. It does occur less as the atomizer breaks in. That's the case with my Stingray anyway. I'm still working on the other two.
 

hippieben

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Silica wick does not burn.

ehhhhhhh it does though. Burn may not be the correct term, but the flavor is definitely different once you dry burn an atty. If you look closely at the wick after dry burning you'll notice that under the coil it will be white but right outside the coil it will be black and "charred." the "charring" is burnt juice, not burnt wick, however, the silica will be a dull white color rather than it's native shiney white and will also be brittle. Either way, I find the flavor of an atty to be much less enjoyable after dry burning.

Should I have gotten the long barrel one? Or maybe I'll try the 306.

Long barrel is always the way to go in my opinion. Have you seen the drip tip that I use? haha
 

jrenae4

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Spitting seems to be a part of a good atomizer. My .357 and my i06 also spit at me. It does occur less as the atomizer breaks in. That's the case with my Stingray anyway. I'm still working on the other two.

The 357 has been on my radar for quite some time too, just haven't bit the bullet.
 

Johnnie Price

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I'm still breaking in the .357. The one I have is very prone to flooding, even on my VMod, so I only work with it when I'm off work.

It's good, so far. My only complaint is that in my mind it's trying to do too many things at once. The airflow is awesome, the taste is good and the throat hit is okay. But I get a stronger throat hit on the Stingray, so the jury is still out on it.

You can lessen the juice in mouth issue if you fire it up for a couple of seconds before you draw in it. And as I said, after a few days the spitting goes away.
 

Mr.Mann

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ehhhhhhh it does though. Burn may not be the correct term, but the flavor is definitely different once you dry burn an atty. If you look closely at the wick after dry burning you'll notice that under the coil it will be white but right outside the coil it will be black and "charred." the "charring" is burnt juice, not burnt wick, however, the silica will be a dull white color rather than it's native shiney white and will also be brittle. Either way, I find the flavor of an atty to be much less enjoyable after dry burning.

I feel you. Me no likey that taste! Bleh!
 
I feel like a rookie. I thought I knew alot about vapping. You guys are very good with this stuff. I think your right. I possibly got it on the wrong settings. Thinking about it used to use the 306's on standard 3.7 battery. The attys lasted for months. Thanks for all input. You have now got me interested in some of the other attys mentioned. I see the 357 mentioned as a top atty, but is it worth the money? When the cisco is working it realy puts out alot of vapor.
 

Johnnie Price

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When I first joined the forum, before RBa's became popular, the hh.357 was seen as the king of all atomizers. Now that I have finally tried it, I can say it is a really good atomizer. Whether or not it is worth the money will depend on how long it lasts.

I just put the .357 back onto my VMod since I took tonight off. This is the third time I've used it, and in between uses I soaked it in vodka overnight. The first time I used it, the throat hit was anemic. The second time, it was a little better though still below the Stingray. This third time, the throat hit is much better than yesterday. It is unlike any atomizer I've ever tried. The draw is very open, but unless you take a very hard draw it is extremely gurgly (sp?). It's very hard to describe.

I'd say if you have $25.00 to spend on one atomizer, then go for it. But it does require several uses, at least for me, before it really starts to shine. Otherwise, stick with the Cisco or even try out a Vapage Hybrid or House of Vapor Stingray or Ikenvape.
 
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peraspera

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^^^ HH.357s ship with no nic primer fluid which is lacking throat hit. I tried blotting the primer out of a couple of new HH.357s but found there was still enough primer left to be highly annoying. Since I discovered I could safely dry burn my HH.357s I've rinsed and dry burned all my new HH.357s before using them to avoid the primer issue.

HH.357s should produce a crackly, not gurgly, sound when they are working right. Unless you are getting poor vapor production and flavor the HH.357 is not flooded.

I use HH.357s because I'm crazy picky about maintaining the broadest spectrum of layered, nuanced flavor possible. If throat hit was my thing I would stick with rebuildables since throat hit adjustable.
 
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