stainless steel mesh as cartridge medium

[Bertrand]

There was a post from a while ago on the .nl forum (now up again) in which someone had tried using woven stainless steel as the cartridge medium. He noted that he could have used a coarser mesh. The stuff he was using is hard to get and minimum ordering quantities were huge.

I tried a coarser and more available mesh, specifically the permanent filter material in a crappy teapot. So far it has been fairly good. The way I was dripping into the "nylon wool", I would only get about three drops in when it was running out. This stuff I get about 10 - 15 drops, so it does seem more comes out of it.

There are a few drawbacks so far:

1. You *need* a small piece of fabric over the top of the stainless steel - I used cheesecloth (a cotton fabric used in cooking.) Without this, it works okay to begin with, but metal does not bounce back, and after it has been pushed down by the atomizer mesh, it stays down. The next time you put it in, they won't connect. Sure, you can rotate it a bit and so forth, but eventually it won't work any more.

2. When you are making this, you *will* cut yourself. If you don't like to bleed, or have haemophilia, I don't suggest doing this.

3. When you are making it, you should use your least favourite eliquid. Apart from using it up, in testing, you will end up having so much of it you will end up hating the eliquid you use in doing so.

I have tested it by smoking it quickly (to test its wicking ability) and it was better than the nylon wool. I also left it overnight (to test its ability to adsorb the eliquid) and it didn't seem to just drain into the mouthpiece.

You will need to play around with it to get it to work - I used it in a DSE901 cartridge (specifically a screwdriver.) It may work better or worse in other models.

I intend on buying a "permanent" coffee filter for those ridiculous "drip filter coffee machines" that are so popular in the US. These come in stainless steel and have a finer mesh than the tea filter. Many of them are gold plated, though, which I am guessing will just flake off and get inhaled when you bend it - I'll see if I can get one without the gold plating.

 

[PeteMcArthur]

Hi,

That's very interesting so I'm going to have a go at it. How did you scrunch up the mesh? Was it rolled into a tube shape or was it just a random crunch? I thing you are right about the coffee filter idea, the tea trainers I've seen have a much coarser mesh.

 

[Bertrand]

Roll it into the shape of the cartridge. You will need a depression in the middle for the atomizer to fit into. It's a visualize in 3d and cut into 2d type thing. If your cartridge is a two piece, rip them apart to get the measurements. You will probably screw up the first few, but you get plenty of mesh in a tea strainer. Actually, I'm not sure you need a finer mesh. E-liquid seems to have quite a low surface tension. (Probably they need some heavy duty emulsifiers to dissolve all the toxic chemicals in there hehehehe.)

 

[Bertrand]

By the way, I found the best tool for rolling it is a very small set of pliers. I did try a sharp set of tweezers, but the pliers worked better. But you *will* cut yourself either way, heheheheh.

 

[MagusSteele]

Slap a small Battery type spring behind it.

 

[Bertrand]

Slap a small Battery type spring behind it.

Good idea. Actually, I think this was in the .nl post. It would make refilling easier. (You don't need to get nicotine all over yourself removing the fabric cover.) Now to find a stainless steel or otherwise mostly inert or non-toxic spring...

There is one issue, though: unless you are very precise, you do need to mash the stainless steel mesh down with a small hammer (or similar device - I used a large pair of pliers). If it goes past the end of the cartridge you are in a world of eliquid-in-the-mouth. I'm sure this is easily overcome with a bit of experimentation, and after all you should only need two cartridges.

 

[PeteMcArthur]

How about the stainless steel at the rear of the cart, with a thin layer of filler at the front? Sort of a hybrid cart. Might be difficult with a 901 but easier with a pen sytle.

 

[Bertrand]

How about the stainless steel at the rear of the cart, with a thin layer of filler at the front? Sort of a hybrid cart. Might be difficult with a 901 but easier with a pen sytle.

That's how I have it setup at the moment. The spring would make it easier to refill, though. Otherwise you need to pull the filler up to refill. (And then make sure you put it back so it doesn't overlap the edge of the cartridge so you don't get (much of) the liquid in your mouth.) It does work okay with the 901 cartridge, though.

 

[SANJP]

some pics of this would be nice

 

[PeteMcArthur]

That's how I have it setup at the moment. The spring would make it easier to refill, though. Otherwise you need to pull the filler up to refill. (And then make sure you put it back so it doesn't overlap the edge of the cartridge so you don't get (much of) the liquid in your mouth.) It does work okay with the 901 cartridge, though.

Sorry I misread your original post, I assumed you had just a single thin layer of cheesecloth. One of my problems will be that the position of the bridge on the atomiser varies between types, about 3mm. This means that on one type of atomiser the wool is really squashed back into the cart, the other type the wool simply has a small indent in it. The spring would be the answer, but more difficult to implement.

 

[Bertrand]

some pics of this would be nice

******** <-- cheesecloth (or similar)
|--__--| <-- stainless steel mesh
|******| /
|******| <-/
\****/
|***|
|***|
-----

stupid wysiwg insists on mangling even courier fonts, but you get the idea.

 

[Bertrand]

I tried the "spring behind the mesh" idea. It doesn't work if you put it behind the mesh. The mesh is solidly in there and will not slide. However if you put the spring between the mouthpiece and the actual cartridge (on the DSE901) is does work (so far).

A few notes:
1. file down the plastic ridges on the cartridge to get it to slide smoothly in the mouthpiece.
2. since there will now be the force of the spring acting on the atomizer/cartridge connector, you will probably need to give the atomizer a bit of the hammer treatment to get a stronger fit.
3. You will cut yourself.

I also need to find a better spring for this. (You can taste the nickel poisoning in every draw.) It would be good to get a weaker spring too - I used one out of a pen.

I've only just put it together, so am not sure if it will start leaking into the mouthpiece or fail to get absorbed into the atomizer.

It struck me while I was doing this how similar the problem is to that of a fountain pen. These have a series of capillary tunnels connecting the reservoir to the nib that are not far off the size of the gaps in the "tea pot" mesh. (I wouldn't mind getting a Lamy e-cigarette...)

 

[Bertrand]

Reporting back on the spring between the cart and mouthpiece. Doesn't work, at least with tea mesh. You end up with liquid in the mouth.

Atomizer mesh covering the tea mesh seems to work so far (no spring.)

 

[Dr. Russell Fell]

Has anyone tried stuffing it with just a rolled up piece of cotton?

 

[angiicat]

Hey anyone have a fix for an atomizer that the steel wool came out of? I'm dying to vape but only have the one atomizer and the steel wool came out and don't want to burn my entire thing up but I'm thinkin an analog is sounding tasty right about now until I get my new atomizer.

Any suggestions?

~the 'misses her vapor' Cat

 

[Bertrand]

Has anyone tried stuffing it with just a rolled up piece of cotton?

Yes. (Cheesecloth again - it's very porous and not as likely to get bits of it stuck in the atomizer like a piece of cotton wool.) It works quite well to begin with, but once it gets saturated it ends up about as good (sligthly wetter - more vapour, more likely to get liquid in the mouth) as the original stuffing, except that it tends to compress more, so you need to keep digging it out to keep contact with the atomizer.

On the tea strainer mesh with atomizer mesh cover, this is working quite well so far. You can still fill it easily (you need to push down with the eyedropper.) I put two eyedroppers full of the smaller JC bottle in each time it empties (which it seems to do completely). Wicking seems pretty good, and none ends up in the mouth. I would expect that eventually it will stop connecting with the atomizer, and at that point you would need to pull the stainless steel mesh up a bit to regain contact, but this hasn't happened yet. This has been the best option I've tried.

The atomizer mesh (which in my 901 atomizer seemed to be the *only* medium for the e-liquid - there wasn't any nylon in there) looks a lot like and feels a lot like aluminium. Probably stainless steel would be preferable, but I'm not too concerned. Aluminium has gotten a bad reputation from its links to alzheimers, but for cooking in aluminium pans you apparently get something in the order of 1% absorption as what you would get from an antacid. I would expect this to be around the same for its use in the atomizer / cartridge.

 

[Bertrand]

Hey anyone have a fix for an atomizer that the steel wool came out of? I'm dying to vape but only have the one atomizer and the steel wool came out and don't want to burn my entire thing up but I'm thinkin an analog is sounding tasty right about now until I get my new atomizer.

Any suggestions?

~the 'misses her vapor' Cat

Drip. The mesh just draws the liquid into the atomizer.

 

[edisme518123]

Has anyone tried taking a sheet of steel mesh, cutting it down to a small square, then cutting at an angle.
You could then roll the sheet into a cylinder starting with the shorter end on the inside to create a dome at the top.
It would look like this:

The atomizer wool would sit in contact with the top of the dome.

 

[Bertrand]

Has anyone tried taking a sheet of steel mesh, cutting it down to a small square, then cutting at an angle.
You could then roll the sheet into a cylinder starting with the shorter end on the inside to create a dome at the top.
It would look like this:

The atomizer wool would sit in contact with the top of the dome.

Yes. The atomizer still deforms the metal, which unlike the nylon filling does not bounce back. It works for a while and then loses contact.

 

[MagusSteele]

Time to buy some real fine Steel Wool and stuff some in there instead.
0000 i think is the finest.
I am not sure about rust, but it shouldnt because of the PG