Tank cracker CD test

[Necrosis]

(I don't adhere to the scientific process, more of a mad scientist approach)

Been trying to come up with a way to test juices for tank cracking properties, after ransacking the house looking for anything made from Type 7 polycarbonate plasic unsuccessfully, I discovered that CD's have a polycarbonate substrate layer on the bottom that the lazer shoots at, so I grabbed a blank CD-R and a few random juices I have and dabbed a drop of each forming a 3x2 matrix.

Starting from the upper left, like reading in english, the juices had respectively:
1) 9% orange cream
2) Dulce de Leche/caramel/ry4 (should be all safe)
3) 20% cinnamon from madvapes, very harsh stuff that should blow up any tank
4) juice w/ 3% cinnnamon danish
5) 8% cola syrup, 8% energy drink
6) 14% pineapple


24 hours later, this is what it looked like, first shot at room light second with the flash on. The cinnamon changed colors, at the start it was the same transparency as the other 5. I was expecting the pineapple beneath it to react as well but it was no change.

So I cleaned the juices off via special techniques (breathing on it and wiping with my shirt until it was nice and polished). What resulted was a... normal looking CD.

Upper image at room light shows what it looks like to the eye normally. The flash actually makes the cinnamon spot visible. When I fog it up with my breath, it has the same drop discoloration. And it's very obvious when fogged up, soon as it clears it looks like a shiney new CD again and easy to lose the location of where the experiment took place without breathing all over the thing again to find it.

--


Hard to reach a conclusion at the moment, thankfully the cinnamon DID show results, so I feel I have a proof of concept going here. I want to repeat this process again using cinnamon, pineapple, orange cream, energy drink + cola syrup, and at least one control, and then proceed to heat the CD up somehow. I suspect that alot of this may rely on a reaction happening at above room temperatures, since any tank/juice will rise in temperature as you vape. If my espresso machine wasn't in seattle being serviced right now, I'd just stick it on the cup warmer. I'll try boiling water in a bowl and resting the CD on top so the steam can heat it, see if that gets hot enough.

More to follow later depending on results.

 

[serenity21899]

Not to discourage your "science", but wouldn't it be easier just to buy a glass tank and not worry about this stuff?

 

[Necrosis]

Not sure what your question has to do with this. Yes, it would be easier if they would make glass tanks for my kayfuns. It would be even easier if I could see through steel and know my juice level on the metal tank. Well, it would be even easier if I didn't vape at all and eliminate all these variables completely. What's easier is not the point of my thread. Not that I need a reason, but I have people that I send juices to, and I want to have a more definitive answer as to whether or not it's safe to use in their equipment. I don't want to be responsible for damaging a friend's equipment

 

[Jonathan Tittle]

Not sure what your question has to do with this. Yes, it would be easier if they would make glass tanks for my kayfuns. It would be even easier if I could see through steel and know my juice level on the metal tank. Well, it would be even easier if I didn't vape at all and eliminate all these variables completely. What's easier is not the point of my thread. Not that I need a reason, but I have people that I send juices to, and I want to have a more definitive answer as to whether or not it's safe to use in their equipment. I don't want to be responsible for damaging a friend's equipment

Mt Baker Vapors KB / Wiki has a long list of flavors that are known to crack tanks, which would give you a general idea of what to expect with similar flavors from other vendors without having to go through the trial and error process. These are based on their own findings and from customer reports. Since they use Flavor West for their flavors, you can take the list of flavors and mark them down for your own use.

E Juice that may break a plastic tanks | Mt Baker Vapor WikiMt Baker Vapor Wiki

Most citrus, cinnamon and mint flavors tend to crack tanks. Not all, but most. For those that prefer to vape these types of flavors, a glass tank is always recommended. Given most will spend $10-$15 on a plastic tank, spending an extra $4-$10 on a glass tank that won't crack should be a no-brainer for someone that wishes to continue vaping.

As for the Kayfun, that is one drawback. I own one too and feel that, given the price, glass should have been the first option, stainless the second and plastic should never have been brought to light.

 

[Necrosis]

Whoever comes out first with a kayfun style atty using glass is going to make a hell of a profit. That such a thing doesn't exist yet is surprising. Steal a glass genesis tank design, steal the kayfun base/chimney design, mass produce and collect your pay.

But yea, there's several lists like that around for juices or flavors that "might" crack tanks, but I'm nowhere near satisfied with that. Been various citrus, menthol, and cinnamon types of juices I mixed and tossed into the kayfun with the pmma tank installed that did just fine. Most of the juices I mix contain at least one ingredient that could potentially crack (only 4 juices of my finalized 16 recipies contain all safe ingredients), so I'm interested in finding a way to test and measure this without guesswork. If it's as easy as a few drops on a CD, how great that would be.

Of course, this is aimed at PC, and the only plastic tanks I own are the kayfuns w/ their PMMA, so what works or doesn't work on PC may not apply to the PMMA in the end. But if this turns out how I'm hoping, it should be easy enough to reproduce by buying some acrylic tape or whatnot.

 

[serenity21899]

IBTanked does custom tubes. All of there stuff is Pyrex.

22mm to 32mm OD

Personally, I just use the metal tube on my Kayfun, but I really don't us it that much.

 

[Jonathan Tittle]

I've vaped quite a few of the known-to-crack flavors as well and while they didn't do any immediate damage, that doesn't mean they won't long-term. Most of the reports are from multiple tank fill-ups, not just a single.

That being said, plastic tanks have their place, IMO, at the very bottom of the vaping world. They're cheap and they target those who don't want to spend $20+ on a tank. I understand not everyone has the cash for a real Kayfun (I bought I clone myself - money is tight with a newborn!), but at $20 vs 2-5 plastic tanks in a span of months, I'd rather lay down the $20 and cut my losses . This way I can vape whatever flavor I want and not have to worry about it. Plastic is great for new vapers, but if you plan on sticking with it, glass is the best way to go if it's an option (whereas with the Kayfun, it's not - but at least SS is).

I love the Kayfun, don't get me wrong, but the fact that it's not glass and there's no viable option for a glass tank makes me think twice about buying a real one, or a Russian anytime soon. If/When they do, I'll be one of the first to pre-order.


I'm not arguing with you by the way . Any type of testing is nice, but the only sure-fire way to confirm any of the data would be to test on various tanks and report back. A CD, while plastic, is made up of more than what most tanks are. They're still cheap, but if it cracks a CD, it doesn't confirm whether or not it'll crack a tank and vice versa. That said, it'd be expensive to carry out real-world testing unless someone wanted to fund it and way too many tanks come out to make that a viable option for anyone unless you have disposable income .

Whoever comes out first with a kayfun style atty using glass is going to make a hell of a profit. That such a thing doesn't exist yet is surprising. Steal a glass genesis tank design, steal the kayfun base/chimney design, mass produce and collect your pay.

But yea, there's several lists like that around for juices or flavors that "might" crack tanks, but I'm nowhere near satisfied with that. Been various citrus, menthol, and cinnamon types of juices I mixed and tossed into the kayfun with the pmma tank installed that did just fine. Most of the juices I mix contain at least one ingredient that could potentially crack (only 4 juices of my finalized 16 recipies contain all safe ingredients), so I'm interested in finding a way to test and measure this without guesswork. If it's as easy as a few drops on a CD, how great that would be.

Of course, this is aimed at PC, and the only plastic tanks I own are the kayfuns w/ their PMMA, so what works or doesn't work on PC may not apply to the PMMA in the end. But if this turns out how I'm hoping, it should be easy enough to reproduce by buying some acrylic tape or whatnot.

 

[tonyorion]

Your test has a few problems in terms of the science. Engineers like to use the term ESCR in trying to understand the behavior of various plastics.

It means environmental stress cracking.

In any application, a plastic will see stress from various sources.

Chemical stress is but one of them. Exposing your material to a chemical will only give you a visual indication, and it will not tell you if the plastic has been weakened in many cases.

The second comes from heat. It can get fairly hot in some devices. Vaping habits, power input (function of resistance and voltage), and design (heat dissipation) will all influence how much heat the plastic actually feels.

The third element comes from mechanical stress. In the case of a vaporizer, most of that stress comes from the differential rate of thermal expansion between the plastic and the metal. Design can play a very large role in how this can impact the behavior of the plastic.

While polycarbonate is used for lightweight armor protection and crash helmets, it will only work once. One hard impact and you need to replace it.

If my clones from FT ever clear customs in Chicago, I might be able to play with them to see how they behave.

Not trying to confuse anyone with techno babble, but you did ask the question. There is actually more, but this is already too much information for most people.

 

[suspectK]

That wasn't techy at all, tony. Good and clear points. A lot of people don't consider heat being a large factor in how tanks can crack easier.

I think polypropylene or polyethylene would be easier for someone to try to thread on a large scale for kayfun and other vacuum tanks.

 

[Necrosis]

The second comes from heat. It can get fairly hot in some devices. Vaping habits, power input (function of resistance and voltage), and design (heat dissipation) will all influence how much heat the plastic actually feels.

The third element comes from mechanical stress. In the case of a vaporizer, most of that stress comes from the differential rate of thermal expansion between the plastic and the metal. Design can play a very large role in how this can impact the behavior of the plastic.

While polycarbonate is used for lightweight armor protection and crash helmets, it will only work once. One hard impact and you need to replace it.

If my clones from FT ever clear customs in Chicago, I might be able to play with them to see how they behave.

Not trying to confuse anyone with techno babble, but you did ask the question. There is actually more, but this is already too much information for most people.

I addressed the need for heat in the original post and was heating a second batch over boiling water yesterday, though I'm not satisfied with that at all. I need to get this thing hotter, I'd imagine as the plastic gets closer to it's melting point (311F), it's more likely to react to the chemicals. Not like I can stick it in the microwave, and don't want to risk abusing my oven or pressure cooker, so I'll have to figure something out. Too busy today to do anything, so it's going on the back burners for now (pun not intended).

 

[liquidzoo]

Hair dryer? Might work, or a cheap heat gun, but you'd have to be careful that you didn't overdo it.

For another source, you could go to your local big box hardware store (Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, etc) and get a small sheet of polycarbonate for a few bucks and use that for your tests.

Sent from my Kindle Fire HDX

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