The Next Big thing.... Porous Ceramic Wicks
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Okay, let's face it vaping has rivalries, and prejudices,we defend our style of vaping each style swearing their style of vaping is the best.....I admit I am a ceramic nazi....period....but I have a fustration with ceramics, that I am trying to solve....namely....can you really clean a ceramic wick....can you clean it to the point of performance it was new...I think I've tried all methods at one point or another, boiling,soaking in water for a week, soaking in grain alcohol for a week. dry burning,torching the whole wick.....but honestly I don't know if any of them brought the wick back up to peak performance.....it seems the pores of the ceramic just get clogged and stop absorbing as much liquid and that the juice just runs down the wick to the coil...which isn't terrible bad but still not optimal.I guess my initial thought is we need a ceramic that has a larger grit size than 60, making it easier to flush out...i remember Boden cautioning against torching as he felt it sort of just turned the sugars into a carbon that clogged up the wick, and he was a proponent of long soaks, but I've soaked wicks for like 7 days in ever clear, and I thought it was a pretty good cleanse....still not up to new though.
That being said I pose the question.....how do you find is the best way to clean a wick, and how many times can you clean it before the vapor and flavor output diminishes to much for you.
That being said I pose the question.....how do you find is the best way to clean a wick, and how many times can you clean it before the vapor and flavor output diminishes to much for you.
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I too have a hard time giving up my ceramic. I have migrated away from gennys onto TGTs, but I still use AO inside. (Good idea for a sticker "AO Inside!").
I have had decent results with simply cranking my Mod up to 20w and firing it until the AO glows red, then a few seconds more, repeating until the AO is snow white when cooled. Occasionally I have to trash a stick because the performance just wont restore, but that is rare, usually this process works fine for me. As short as the pieces inside of a TGT are, I dont worry about stress cracks from heat, I have never broken an AO wick in a TGT yet.
I like to take them out torch them and then hold them under the tap to thermal shock any carbon residue away. It works well and hasn't cost me a birdhouse yet. They get back to near new pretty easily. I do find ceramic rather fiddly though, so it takes 2nd place to mesh for me, for building, setting up and cleaning. I did try cotton even but got rid of it after a day. It was too temporary and actually made more mess than the rest, so not for me.
what do you mean "thermal shock" any carbon away...what's the thinking behind that method.
Do you find the Taifuns alot like the vape from Kayfuns....I appreciate the kafuns,but their vape is not to my taste.
Yes, the vape is very similar, but the TGT is a lot easier to build. If you dont like the Kafun vape then you probably wouldnt like the TGT.
Been using a Russian 91% lately (Kayfun clone — and a damn good one at that) with hemp and find it to be on par with AO and, the jury is still out, perhaps better. Would like to get my hands on some of that ramie fiber and give that a test-run.
Like asdaq I simply dry burn until the AO is glowing. I've gone for months with that and haven't noticed a huge drop in performance. Could be the juice I use/make aiding to that as well.
However to be honest my AO attys have taken a back burner to the kayfun for no other reason than portability/leak resistance.
Sent from my ME173X using Tapatalk 2
However to be honest my AO attys have taken a back burner to the kayfun for no other reason than portability/leak resistance.
Sent from my ME173X using Tapatalk 2
Get it glowing and dunk it under a stream of water from the tap. You hear a sizzle and it knocks particles loose, like a mini explosion. For mesh it works well too, but a lighter is all that is needed there and the coil can be left on. When using a torch on the AO I take the coil out first.
torching ceramic wicks to glowing really doesn't work very well, for the simple reason..... that bringing the wick up to that temprature is higher than the temprature the wick was made at... the end result is though you may, and I say may, clean the wick..by heating the wick that hot you begin to destroy the bond and wind up with a wick that is even far more fragile than is useful.
If you can bring it to glowing in situ great, but if you try and rewrap a wick that you've torched the chances are they break...even when you bring them to glowing in place alot of times the wick will crack at the hieght of the deck of the atty. or where the last wrap is.
If you can bring it to glowing in situ great, but if you try and rewrap a wick that you've torched the chances are they break...even when you bring them to glowing in place alot of times the wick will crack at the hieght of the deck of the atty. or where the last wrap is.
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I've torch glowed many of these wicks and they simply break more easily. I haven't used AO wicks recently because of playing with cotton and silica but I will start chopping my blocks that I have stashed somewhere.
There's no need to glow the ceramic white hot to clean it. I torch it lightly to a dull, barely glowing color, which should be below 1000°F. Over time, this still compromises the integrity of the wick, but it's not the heating, it's the cooling that creates stress fractures. When the sintered ceramic blocks are fired, they get cooled in a very controlled fashion, over many hours, and with long pauses at the appropriate phase-transition temperatures to allow the material to reach equilibrium and relieve stress. Every time we air cool the wicks (or worse water cool) all that stress accumulates and eventually leads to failure.
Well that could explain the mysterious 'snaps' at the deck height that sometimes happens. I've typically dry-burned in place to clean it up. Sometimes I've taken the entire coil/wick out and torched it just enough to clean it. When torching just when it (the wick) started to glow I'd back off on the heat, then repeat.
Interesting... I seem to recall some early attempts to use fused alumina reported in this thread. Fused ceramics are basically a quartz matrix interspersed with alumina particles.
IIRC, these worked to some degree but were exceedingly fragile and would become soft if heated red with a torch.
IIRC, these worked to some degree but were exceedingly fragile and would become soft if heated red with a torch.
The only medical approved e cig uses ceramic
thermovape . com /technology/
ecf forum censoring is not allowing link
They would rule if they release a regular wick. maybe mod one of theirs but its as hard as a diamond goodluck if try, I guess it could be, may be, the sauce, next big thing..
thermovape . com /technology/
ecf forum censoring is not allowing link
They would rule if they release a regular wick. maybe mod one of theirs but its as hard as a diamond goodluck if try, I guess it could be, may be, the sauce, next big thing..
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I remember looking at those like a year ago..if it's what I think it is, but it was for vaporising dry herb wasn't it. not a wick/liquid set up.
It also works with regular e juice. They cover both bases..
Expensive too, but it does not chuck the vapor like us veterans like it chucked
The do or did(2012) have a 510 atomizer on the market with a ceramic element.
Was just looking/wondering at the ceramic wick and how it can be torch cleaned and almost impervious to breaking, maybe modding it, we need that wick for our gennies, drippers, etc..
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