The “Cola” Method Taken to Another Level That Works

[Majestic]

So what is it about pop that is supposably killing atomizers?

I've haven't heard of this as well. I do a cola soak on my atomizers for a minimum of 8 hours without any ill effects.

I assume it's due to not being cleaned properly after the "acid bath" However, for those who currently have a pepsi in the fridge and canned air at their disposal, couldn't this be avoided by the following steps

1.) acid bath the atonmizer an hour
2.) Wash out the atomizer with hot water thoroughly
3.) Use canned air 5-7 strong bursts to clear out the atomizer

<snip>

There really isn't much to do after a cola soak. I rinse mine with hot water and then blow out any remaining water with my mouth. I don't really see a need for compressed air and given how fragile the coil can get with age I can't see the risk of damaging it with a strong force of air. I then let the atomizer air dry for an hour or two then prime and vape.

Click here for a another thread in which I posted pictures of my cola soak atomizer after it died. (Scroll to the end of the page for my post) The ashen deposits are similar to those on a atomizer that has been dry burned.

 

[framitz]

I've never heard this claim... But, I haven't been perusing these forums like I was a few months ago. Are there a lot of people claiming pop is killing their atomizers?

I haven't heard about pop killing atomizers, but I have seen people complain that using pressurized air has destroyed a few.

I used to work with delicate electronics and electromechanical devices... One of the first rules when cleaning with air was to never use over 5 psi.

Pressurized air or 'air' in a can isn't needed at all for this application.

 

[kgonepostl]

I've haven't heard of this as well. I do a cola soak on my atomizers for a minimum of 8 hours without any ill effects.



There really isn't much to do after a cola soak. I rinse mine with hot water and then blow out any remaining water with my mouth. I don't really see a need for compressed air and given how fragile the coil can get with age I can't see the risk of damaging it with a strong force of air. I then let the atomizer air dry for an hour or two then prime and vape.

Click here for a another thread in which I posted pictures of my cola soak atomizer after it died. (Scroll to the end of the page for my post) The ashen deposits are similar to those on a atomizer that has been dry burned.

Thanks for the link. According to your post it could have possibly been the soda in fact

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...ethod-prolonging-atomisers-15.html#post410830

 

[Majestic]

Thanks for the link. According to your post it could have possibly been the soda in fact

I don't attribute the atty dying to the soda at all. If anything, the wire had weaken with age like Pete experienced in his dry burn thread. In my case I suspect the wire broke due to the temperature shock of being hot/warm and then immersed into a cold cola solution. I have since started letting the atty and the cola get to room temperature before soaking. What impressed me with the cola soak was the presence of ash on the coil. Prior to cola soaking, the dead attys' coil looked like a solid wet blob of gunk.

 

[kgonepostl]

Thanks for your input majestic! I'm gonna go buy a liter of coke and stick my 15 atomizers in there overnight! Total ownage!

 

[robk]

Has anyone tried bleach? I tried it last night and this morning had lots of .... in the bottom of my container.It seems to work great,just don't know how the wick came out. I am checking that now with a bad atty I took apart but won't know results for a while.Hope this helps,it looks like it could possibly be the answer to atty cleaning.

 

[Majestic]

Has anyone tried bleach? I tried it last night and this morning had lots of .... in the bottom of my container.It seems to work great,just don't know how the wick came out. I am checking that now with a bad atty I took apart but won't know results for a while.Hope this helps,it looks like it could possibly be the answer to atty cleaning.

When you check your test atty, look at the crud build up on the coil to see if the bleach is actually dissolving it. The "...." residue you are seeing maybe coming from the wire mesh and not from the heat coil itself.

Secondly, I would have a concern with the bleach leaving behind a residue that could be inhaled. Not too mention the lingering bleach odor unless you have found a way to neutralize it.

Best of luck on your experiment.

 

[Majestic]

Thanks for your input majestic! I'm gonna go buy a liter of coke and stick my 15 atomizers in there overnight! Total ownage!

If those 15 attys were already in use you might consider a longer soak with a occasional cola change to freshen the solution since there maybe an extensive crud build up on the coil. When I started my cola soak routine I started with a new atomizer with the intent on keeping the crud from building up on the coil. Kind of a pro-active approach to atty maintenance.

 

[e-pipeman]

Bleach products often contain chlorine. Inhalation of chlorine is not a good idea.

 

[Applejackson]

Has anyone tried bleach? I tried it last night and this morning had lots of .... in the bottom of my container.It seems to work great,just don't know how the wick came out. I am checking that now with a bad atty I took apart but won't know results for a while.Hope this helps,it looks like it could possibly be the answer to atty cleaning.

NO WAY would I use bleach for this.8-o

 

[rbonie]

sv;
Did you dilute solvent at all??
Found a local supplier

 

[grumpster]

After reading all 551 posts in this thread in one day, one thing is clear. I HAVE GOT TO GET A LIFE!

In summary from what I've read this method works very well on attys that have vaped VG, but no so much on attys that have vaped PG. A number of people have reported success with VG attys in anywhere from 12 to 36 hours. To me that is more than acceptable if your rotating 2 atomizers.

I've read a number of reports of some improvement with PG attys with suggestions of longer soaking, but I don't recall any one reporting final results. I would be interested in knowing if longer soaks of 5-7 days produces good results or not.

Also, after all of this time this thread has ran, has anyone had success with extending the life of their attys with a regular maintenance cleaning every week or two and how much success have you seen?

Also, with the metallic paints, one person reported pealing. Has any one else had this problem?

Thanks to everyone that has put so much work into this.

Grumpster.

 

[Majestic]

<snip> Also, after all of this time this thread has ran, has anyone had success with extending the life of their attys with a regular maintenance cleaning every week or two and how much success have you seen?

Also, with the metallic paints, one person reported pealing. Has any one else had this problem?

Thanks to everyone that has put so much work into this.

Grumpster.

Well I've found the only thing that has given me consistent atty life has been a daily cola soak. Prior to my daily cola routine my atty life was averaging 13.3 days. Some attys would last 15 or 19 days while others died after 2 or 3 days of heavy vaping. With the cola soak my atty life is averaging 30.66 days. That figure is based on 3 attys so far, one of which I am still using after 36 days.

The paint problem is more related to the cheap Chinese paint job than it is with the cleaning solution. The surface is poorly prepared for painting and in most instances stainless steel attys are just painted over with no buffing of the surface so that the paint has something to adhere to. Prior to using any cleaning solution I was experiencing minor paint loss on colored attys with just a hot water or steam rinse. In the case of a cola soak, the paint loss is greater, but then again back in my water only days I wasn't soaking them in the water which may have increased the paint loss as well.

 

[kinabaloo]

Well I've found the only thing that has given me consistent atty life has been a daily cola soak. Prior to my daily cola routine my atty life was averaging 13.3 days. Some attys would last 15 or 19 days while others died after 2 or 3 days of heavy vaping. With the cola soak my atty life is averaging 30.66 days. That figure is based on 3 attys so far, one of which I am still using after 36 days.

The paint problem is more related to the cheap Chinese paint job than it is with the cleaning solution. The surface is poorly prepared for painting and in most instances stainless steel attys are just painted over with no buffing of the surface so that the paint has something to adhere to. Prior to using any cleaning solution I was experiencing minor paint loss on colored attys with just a hot water or steam rinse. In the case of a cola soak, the paint loss is greater, but then again back in my water only days I wasn't soaking them in the water which may have increased the paint loss as well.

Do get some american painted stuff, thow them in cola and see what happens ...

 

[kinabaloo]

After reading all 551 posts in this thread in one day, one thing is clear. I HAVE GOT TO GET A LIFE!

In summary from what I've read this method works very well on attys that have vaped VG, but no so much on attys that have vaped PG. A number of people have reported success with VG attys in anywhere from 12 to 36 hours. To me that is more than acceptable if your rotating 2 atomizers.

I've read a number of reports of some improvement with PG attys with suggestions of longer soaking, but I don't recall any one reporting final results. I would be interested in knowing if longer soaks of 5-7 days produces good results or not.

Also, after all of this time this thread has ran, has anyone had success with extending the life of their attys with a regular maintenance cleaning every week or two and how much success have you seen?

Also, with the metallic paints, one person reported pealing. Has any one else had this problem?

Thanks to everyone that has put so much work into this.

Grumpster.

There does seem to be some correlation between deposit ease of removal and base, with VG deposit being easier to clean.

NOte that VG itself creates about half the deposit whereas PG itself contributes nothing to the deposit.

So deposit from VG based juice will be greater, even if easier to remove.

Why it is easier to remove? Might be something chemical, but more likely is to do with the higher (at times)running temp of the VG atty - partial dry burn-like partial deposit removal, greater expansion keeping the deposit from sticking to the coil so strongly, somethng like this.

 

[nubee]

And here are some of the other beverage choices....

Product.....................Acid.Low=BAD..........per.12.oz.
Pure.Water..................7.00.(neutral)
Barq's......................4.61
Diet.Coke...................3.39
Mountain.Dew................3.22
Gatorade....................2.95
Coke.Classic................2.63
Pepsi.......................2.49
Sprite......................3.42
Diet.7-Up...................3.67
Diet.Dr..Pepper.............3.41
Surge.......................3.02
Gatorade....................2.95
Hawaiian.Fruit.Punch........2.82
Orange.Minute.Maid..........2.80
Dr..Pepper..................2.92
BATTERY.ACID................1.00
Source:.Minnesota.Dental.Association.*.The.threshold.pH.for.enamel.dissolution.is.5.5....

 

[Majestic]

Do get some american painted stuff, thow them in cola and see what happens ...

Very true, now that you've mention it. I recall back in the 90's when GM had a problem with paint peeling on several of their models and they weren't even soaked in cola. 8-o

 

[grumpster]

I used to do paint and body work back in the 90's. I made more money off the GM cars. Ford had a blue they used on their minivans that flaked off too. Funny thing was the primer under the paint would last forever.

 

[TheUltimateG]

And here are some of the other beverage choices....

Product.....................Acid.Low=BAD..........per.12.oz.
Pure.Water..................7.00.(neutral)
Barq's......................4.61
Diet.Coke...................3.39
Mountain.Dew................3.22
Gatorade....................2.95
Coke.Classic................2.63
Pepsi.......................2.49
Sprite......................3.42
Diet.7-Up...................3.67
Diet.Dr..Pepper.............3.41
Surge.......................3.02
Gatorade....................2.95
Hawaiian.Fruit.Punch........2.82
Orange.Minute.Maid..........2.80
Dr..Pepper..................2.92
BATTERY.ACID................1.00
Source:.Minnesota.Dental.Association.*.The.threshold.pH.for.enamel.dissolution.is.5.5....

So what your saying is Pepsi would be the best choice if using the cola method?

 

[grumpster]

Someone had mentioned lemon juice a few times so I thought I'd give that a try. After 48 hours my PG atty showed no difference at all that I could see. I was able to pick up the ice machine cleaner today. Dropped the coil into that this afternoon. I'll let it soak for a while and see how it works. I'll let you know in a few days how that works out.

I've also got some new attys in the mail (assuming they ever get out of China). I'll take 2 of them and rotate them using each for a week and cleaning the other as a maintenance cycle. I don't know if one week of use will be too long or not long enough. I'll clean one for 24 hours and the other for 48 hours. Once they fail I'll do a post mortem on them to see how they worked out. I'll post the results as they come in.

BTW. In all cases I vape only PG so all of my tests will be based on that. From what I've read we already know this works on VG attys. Question is how well it'll work on PG attys and finding a good maintenance cycle.