The Echo Thread

[StartLifeEndLife]

Echo nightmare today. Both my working cartos gunked up earlier today. Didn't have time to clean them so I opened up a new carto that the coil appeared perfect on. Filled it let it sit 20 min before heading out. After the third puff on it that harsh bad taste/TH appeared. Had to go out dripping on my lil 510s.

All will be well once I have an hour to dedicate to fixing these cartos, but man am I pressed for time lately.

One good thing though, since the new carto I have filled has the coil clearly in the center and hasn't been used for more than 5 minutes I should be able to diagnose exactly where my "harsh chemically" exhale is comming from. I suspect the coil might be too low and close to the silicone seal in the battery connection. As I have seen signs of slight melting in my other cartos.

My desk currently looks like the aftermath of a carto war with dismantled cartos and coils and wick all over lol. Definitly need to find that hour soon!

Also I quickly took apart both of the "gunked" cartos. (Wiggle only, worked on both and it was their first time) One was just gunked like I thought, but otherwise will be fine after a careful dryburn. But the other was a DCC and the filler was burned through a bit and one of the coils was hanging far out on one side but the actual coil was spaced so far that the other side of the coil was touching the carto wall :banghead:

 

[Charlz]

There is definitely something just off with this stealth battery. With my regular echos, all have responded with the slightest whisper of a touch. The stealth does this if I draw directly on the battery. But the moment anything is attached, it takes a determined draw to get the light and it may or may not decide to give me any vapor. I came home and used it on all my turbos. Some teased me with something, some gave me nothing. All perfect on my regular echos. Post contact is definitely being made. Grrrr....I'm an agrivated boy right now. Worked when I left. Now reads 3.7v so there is no reason it should be producing so little vapor.

Switched to a regular echo battery and I'm being soothed lovingly to sleep.......

 

[StartLifeEndLife]

I'm still away from home, but I took apart the new echomizer with the wiggle method, and the coil was maybe too close to one side of the center tube. Moved it over a bit and reassembled. Taste is much better, was dirty sock. Still harsh TH but I'm not sure that is not just the breaking in process as it is less "burny" than before. Going to vape it carefully and keep checking it and see what happens.

But I'm considering doing a video on the wiggle method as I'm getting better at it. This time holding the carto in the middle worked very well with a strong steady push forward and then backward.

Edit/update:

Noticed on that carto that the positive or negative end of the coil wire leading into the battery connection was TOUCHING the white center tube wall in a real bad way. After I got home I checked one of my other "bad" cartos that give the same harsh burn. Sure enough the wire was also touching the tube wall. Was able to bend it away from the wall with a toothpick. I "think" its better now.

Furthermore, in one of my oldest bad cartos there is actually a burn mark in the tube wall right along that wire. No wonder centering the coil from the top with a tooth pick never worked for me:The problem was just below the coil and out of the line of sight from the top. If this truly turns out to be my issue it would explain why it takes a minute for my "harsh burn" to appear in a carto, the single strand of resistance wire needs a little time to get hot enough to start doing damage.

--will update after i sleep and do a full dis and re assembly with pushing that coil wire further in away from the tube wall. I have hope, as the main problem i was having was no matter how center i got the coil the bad symptoms were still there.

 

[Cyrus Vap]

There is definitely something just off with this stealth battery. With my regular echos, all have responded with the slightest whisper of a touch. The stealth does this if I draw directly on the battery. But the moment anything is attached, it takes a determined draw to get the light and it may or may not decide to give me any vapor. I came home and used it on all my turbos. Some teased me with something, some gave me nothing. All perfect on my regular echos. Post contact is definitely being made. Grrrr....I'm an agrivated boy right now. Worked when I left. Now reads 3.7v so there is no reason it should be producing so little vapor.

Switched to a regular echo battery and I'm being soothed lovingly to sleep.......

so sorry you're having troubles. for all my ....ing about subtle differences in draw on sealed batts and what not, these things have been performing like beasts for me. I don't even think I've brought one to half drained, no where near deep cycling, and the response on draw is flawless

The only exception to this is sometimes I get a bit of air escaping btw the carto and batt, but its just a noise, not a response issue. And with a slight wiggle or quarter turn of the carto, it corrects.

I really wonder wtf is going on with your unit...the mystery continues

Is this draw issue a constant for you, or did it all start after the 1.5 DCC incident?

EDIT: it censored me! LOL....that was supposed to say "for all my w a n k ing..."

EDIT # 2: From what you're saying, it honestly sounds like a sticky switch issue. It seems like anything but perfect airflow and seal is giving you an unresponsive switch. Especially if you're getting light activation without vapor/minimal vapor. The only batts I've ever had this with were V4L unsealed autos, and I exchanged all of them. Even with the ones I have and am happy with, there are variations along this spectrum.

But never with a gen 2

 

[Cyrus Vap]

take a look at the post hole! is it aligned?

 

[Cyrus Vap]

I'm still away from home, but I took apart the new echomizer with the wiggle method, and the coil was maybe too close to one side of the center tube. Moved it over a bit and reassembled. Taste is much better, was dirty sock. Still harsh TH but I'm not sure that is not just the breaking in process as it is less "burny" than before. Going to vape it carefully and keep checking it and see what happens.

But I'm considering doing a video on the wiggle method as I'm getting better at it. This time holding the carto in the middle worked very well with a strong steady push forward and then backward.

Edit/update:

Noticed on that carto that the positive or negative end of the coil wire leading into the battery connection was TOUCHING the white center tube wall in a real bad way. After I got home I checked one of my other "bad" cartos that give the same harsh burn. Sure enough the wire was also touching the tube wall. Was able to bend it away from the wall with a toothpick. I "think" its better now.

Furthermore, in one of my oldest bad cartos there is actually a burn mark in the tube wall right along that wire. No wonder centering the coil from the top with a tooth pick never worked for me:The problem was just below the coil and out of the line of sight from the top. If this truly turns out to be my issue it would explain why it takes a minute for my "harsh burn" to appear in a carto, the single strand of resistance wire needs a little time to get hot enough to start doing damage.

--will update after i sleep and do a full dis and re assembly with pushing that coil wire further in away from the tube wall. I have hope, as the main problem i was having was no matter how center i got the coil the bad symptoms were still there.

the single coil I got from cropduster...i looked down the hole and couldn't even see coil

I wiggled it off (really easy!) and sure enough it was all scrunched on one side. I centered it.

Haven't re assembled or vaped yet, i'm too happy with the DCC, but will report

I think a video is a great idea, perhaps it can be the OP in our Echo rebuild thread You seem to have a great grasp of how to do this, and the multiple things that can and will go wrong, and how to fix it

 

[Cyrus Vap]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand WTF

charlz now one of my batts is acting exactly like yours......

 

[Charlz]

Well....today it's fine again. I just don't know. Leave it alone for awhile. It is being blamed on battery pinhole led. there is a chance that I had condensation from the beer in my hand last night when I pulled it out of the kuwako. I'm curious to see if there will be issues when the humid weather comes. I may have to get another kuwako and just never take it out. LOL!

I'll report later on. Gonna go do some work outside.

 

[Cyrus Vap]

Mine is still shot, and I have no condensation to blame lol

 

[Charlz]

still rockin! I just switched up to my refurbished 1.7ohm dual. The thing's still cooking. Goes to show how much better these things were just a couple of months ago. This pipe blend really likes a short repeated stoke on a hot coil. I ordered 5 echomizers from cropduster. 3 singles and 2 duals. I'll pull them apart when I get them to see how they look.

 

[Cyrus Vap]

I snapped the wire connection on the single coil I got from Tony while centering the coils (see above) lol

I'm tempted to load up but I'm too in love with my various clearos right now to care much, and the DCC I have from tony is rocking

I'm gonna send the screwed up batt back to victoria. still can't get my head around your batt going back and forth charlz, wierd stuff

Could one of you guys school me on coil/wire connections at the base of these things? I see the wire seems to go between a plastic seal and the metal base at 12 and 6 o clock respectively, I don't see it doing much after that, but I haven't dissected further.

Is that all it takes? slip one end into each side and voila? positive and negative aren't determined by anything?

 

[Charlz]

It's the same concept as the turbos. Take out the center post and silicon divider. One end goes next to the threads, the silicon sleeve get's replaced. (Make sure the wire is secure....gently. Pull too much and you'll start over.)
Put the other end in the center of the silicon and replace the center post. Make sure the wire is secure there too. Pull up wick a little so it's not resting on the silicon. Unless you want to join that wonderful burning silicon flavor club that SLEL and I are in.

PS. Enjoy your exercise in patience...........it's a little frustrating working with the small tails of the stock coil.

Make sure the wires don't poke out the other end. If they touch the battery, they screw with the pos/neg loop and cause a short. Enjoy!

 

[Cyrus Vap]

so the end that sits between the silicone and threads touches metal

the end that goes through the silicon should actually touch nothing?

which is pos/neg?

 

[StartLifeEndLife]

As far as i know, and what has been working is that one end of the wire goes on the inside of the silicone seal and one goes one the outside, since you busted it feel free to pull out the metal center post from the bottom (tweezers pliers anything works, comes right out) and then you can pull out the silicone piece as well. Upon reassembly one end will be between the silicone and the metal of the carto and one end will be between the silicone and the center post, that is the trickiest part of the rebuild so far.

But having the wires separated by the silicone seal is what separates pos and neg wires. I guess that also decides which end is which.

oops doubled on the answer. The end that goes through the silicone will be touching the center post after you put it back in.

 

[Cyrus Vap]

my GOD that is HARD

I wet my finger with VG which helped keeping the wick from disintegrating, got it wrapped, but I can't for the life of me get the wires tucked as above LOL

you guys are magicians if you pull this off on the regular!

 

[StartLifeEndLife]

my GOD that is HARD

I wet my finger with VG which helped keeping the wick from disintegrating, got it wrapped, but I can't for the life of me get the wires tucked as above LOL

you guys are magicians if you pull this off on the regular!

Theres a reason why I have one working refurbed carto right now and not 8 lol. Putting the wick on a needle before you wrap it helps a ton. Also, I cant manage to attach the wick without removing the center tube. But the actual tuck is easy for me, its tucking the wires so the coil is at the right height that is harder for me. I think Charlz is right in pulling the coil up after you attach that should be much easier than trying to attach the coil at a floating height.

Also, be sure you are starting the tuck with the center post and silicone removed. I line up the first wire against the metal of the thread connection, slide in the silicone, then line up the second wire inside the silicone and slide in the center post.

 

[Charlz]

Still don't have my wire. I got an email saying it was shipped on wed. So it will have to be here any day now. The one I rebuilt I took a loop out and left the tails longer. It was easier to put the silicon back with tails sticking through. Before the final push to get the silicon back in place, I snipped off the ends of the wire. Then I pulled up slightly on the coil to get it off the silicon. I wound up with a 2.5ohm echomizer. Initially it measured lower but now it reads steady at 2.5. Not sure this wally world multimeter is 100% accurate but as long as I'm above 2.0 on my readings, I'm ok with it.


Yes....yes. The tuck is as we both described. Stick the tails through first, then insert silicon trapping one end of the wire against the threads while one slips through the middle. The center post should trap the other end between the inner hole of the silicon and the center post.

 

[Charlz]

Well....the battery is at it again. I used it since 1:00pm and it's 8 now. It's reading just over 3.7v. If this 1100mah battery is only good for 7hrs of light to moderate use, this just won't do. I'll slap it on the charger and see what happens tomorrow. If it does the same thing, I'm going to have to send it back.

 

[lulu836]

I thought I was going to order a couple more iTurbos but now I'm not. They leak like a sieve. Thank gawd for sealed batteries.

 

[txtumbleweed]

I thought I was going to order a couple more iTurbos but now I'm not. They leak like a sieve. Thank gawd for sealed batteries.

Did you have the driptip screwed on good? That is the only time mine have leaked is when the drip tip was unscrewed a little.