The ProTank II & iTaste VV 3 is Killing Me - Looking for Help

[Coastal Cowboy]

Remember that you can't always "taste" when you're frying your coils. They can turn hard as rock/glass and will not wick or atomize properly even though you may not taste burning. When this happens, you will get leaking and flooding, and have to replace the coils really too frequently. There is a temperature on every juice where the juice atomizes at a "sweet spot" and you get the best flavor and vapor. Generally, this is a bit cooler than warmer. Most juices start to burn at 8 Watts. I used to vape when I started around 8.5 and 9.0 Watts. When I lowered it to 7 Watts, I was surprised that it tasted better, with a more saturated flavor and vapor and that the coils worked better. I think you are doing the same thing and that is what is causing your problems. More heat rarely equates to more flavor, in fact, the opposite is generally true. Play around with it and don't be afraid to go even lower than 8 Watts, particularly if you're still getting leaking.

Remember, it takes time for the heat to ruin the coil/wick, so you can start off vaping fine, then, after a while, the leaking starts. That's because you are carbonizing and caramelizing your coil. From that point, you will have nothing but problems. Remember, most juice burns at 8 Watts, whether you taste it or not. Some juices cannot be vaped higher than 6.5 Watts, others require 9.5 Watts. Be sensitive to the 7.0 to 8.0 range, often called the sweet spot. You may think you are low at 8.0 Watts, when, in fact, you're still on the high end for most juices. Just experiment until you find what works for you and where the Protank stops leaking. If it doesn't stop leaking, replace the coil and lower the Watts. Trust me, I've seen this hundreds of times on this Forum. Good luck!

Spot on advice, as usual.

For most BCC's the sweet spot is somewhere between 7.0 and 8.0 watts, with the occasional liquid needing a little something lower or higher. That's only discoverable through experimentation.

I can't vape a PG based liquid above 7.5 watts and it actually tastes great at 6.5. On the other hand, I can't vape Boba's Bounty below 7.5 watts.

 

[dataangel]

Hey Sambuca ... You mentioned the Tank Air Flow Controller. I checked out your link. Not clear though - It appears that this part is used in addition to the protank base; is that correct?

Can anyone comment on the use of this item.

 

[Jonathan Tittle]

I'll keep things set at 6.5-7 and see how that works for me. I actually prefer a cooler vape, I was simply going higher based on some others commenting (off-site) that 8-10 works well on the Protanks and should work well for most all juices. I keep to a 50/50 blend and probably always will just because based on the issues I've had, going higher on PV may be more trouble than it's worth unless I go to an RBA.

 

[Jonathan Tittle]

So far, keeping in he 6.5-7.5 range seems to be working for the most part. I get the occasional burnt taste from the T3S's, but the Protank II's are working pretty good with the reduced wattage. Not yet tried replacing the wicks with cotton, but as soon as my package get's here this week or next, I will as I'll be using my own blends. Dropped by Wizard Labs to pick up some supplies. Pretty good pricing from what I can tell, so it'll be interesting to see how things fair.

The only minor issue is with the level of juice. I can't really vape out the tank - I have to replace juice at the 20-30% full mark.


Any ideas on a truly good tank that will work with the iTaste? I don't mind spending more than $22 on a tank, the Protanks were simply all that I had locally, so I bought a few. If I can find a better one that isn't going to suffer from such minor issues, I'd be on it in a heartbeat!

 

[Coastal Cowboy]

Hey Sambuca ... You mentioned the Tank Air Flow Controller. I checked out your link. Not clear though - It appears that this part is used in addition to the protank base; is that correct?

Can anyone comment on the use of this item.

That is correct. It is a 510-to-510 adapter, with two sections threaded together. Seat the airflow controller comfortably into the 510 threads on your mod, then seat your tank into the 510 threads on the controller. You can then screw and unscrew the top section of the controller and gain better control over the draw of your tank.

 

[dataangel]

Thanks for the additional information about the Tank Air Flow Controller, it's appreciated.

 

[MJTP]

Is there any chance that there are a lot of phony Kanger products out there?

I'll be honest, the instruction manual that came with mine looked like it was typed in Asia, stuff like "All the parts is replaceble."

I mean, some people have great experiences with these, some have horrible ones. Are there truly copies out there?

And if they are, how would we know?

 

[Sambuca]

Is there any chance that there are a lot of phony Kanger products out there?

I'll be honest, the instruction manual that came with mine looked like it was typed in Asia, stuff like "All the parts is replaceble."

I mean, some people have great experiences with these, some have horrible ones. Are there truly copies out there?

And if they are, how would we know?

guess where kangers are made?

but, yes, there are clone protanks, esp on fast tech. look for the phrase Genuine Kanger. Kanger Logo if on the base.

dataangel: IBCR Media got ya. page was waaaaay back.

 

[Jonathan Tittle]

Well, quick update .

My local dealer got in some silica wick, so a quick breakdown of the coil head to replace the thin, flimsy flavor wicks with a slightly longer 2mm silica wick seems to have done the trick. The 2mm wick does allow more air to pass through since it's not as tight fitting as the standard wicks included with the Protank Coil Heads, but the extra air flow and the absorbency of the 2mm silica makes for a great replacement and much much better vape.

I'll be replacing all of the coil head wicks with a slightly longer piece of silica from here on. It's a 5 second fix and is going to save me a ton of hassle with the Protanks.


Thanks for ALL the info guys - you've been extremely helpful and I'm glad I finally registered to ask for help!

 

[Simply Red]

My buddy and I have the KT Mini Protank II and he has had no problem with the v3's. Just ordered 2 v3's myself. Hope I don't have problems. Anyone else have the same setup and has issues? Thanks!

 

[planes]

Are you cranking on the threads or manhandling them. I've heard that over tightening/ cranking them to tight isn't good. Are you pulling the plastic washers where the tube slides in off or maybe they are falling out. I had a washer come out when I opened the new PT2 mini.

Or maybe you're pulling the white plastic piece off the coil from on top of where the wick is.

Are you letting the battery touch other none EVOD batteries like maybe other regular batteries. If you touch a pos to a neg post it makes a connection and energy can move from one battery to another or screw with each other. If you take a battery and hold it between two fingers it will get hot. I knew someone that had batteries in their pocket and they mixed with the keys which gave them a hot pocket. It was pretty funny.

 

[p.opus]

IMFire3605

I'm almost positive they're not clones as they all have engravings and I even tried scratching them off; you can tell they're laser engraved in to the metal base. The T3S 's work fine on the iTaste v3, it's the MT3S BCC's that don't fit and don't seem to make a proper connection. The iTaste reports NON when checking the ohms. The MT3S work fine on an eGo-T battery and make a perfect connection, it just seems the iTaste has issues with them.

Kanger Protank II: Droplr • Kanger-ProTankII.png

I hate to make wee wee in your cheerios but the markings on the tanks don't mean squat. I purchased two "authentic" Mini Protanks from a certain vendor that may rhyme with "Pasttech". They had Kangertech markings, instruction cards and boxes. However, compared to the authentic mini protank I received from Sun-Vapers there were notable differences between them and BOTH failed within 3 weeks. It appears that they did not use genuine pyrex glass. One of my "Pasttech" tanks failed within 36 hours sitting on my nightstand.

I have since purchased all of my Kanger Products from Sun Vapers. They are genuine Kanger products and have provided me with worry free performance and have yet to fail. One even rolled off my side table onto my tile floor with no issue, although, I don't recommend you try this for yourself.

"Pasttech" also sells "authentic" itaste vv3's that have had several people complain on their website about the battery. The nature of those complaints are startlingly similar to yours.

I am not saying your vendor purchased fakes, but they are out there and not easy to spot.

I bought my first itaste vv3 from Sun-Vapers and because it was a rev 1 device, it did not have an authenticity sticker on it. However I have the utmost trust in Sun-Vapers and it works flawlessly. Due to the number of "knock offs" out there, Innokin has since added the "authenticity" sticker to their rev 2 models with 6 rivets vice 1. The authenticity sticker allowed me to cross reference it to their website and verify it as authentic. It too has performed flawlessly.

Even genuine Protanks and Protank 2's have been known to have some leakage issues when the tank gets below 1/3 full. It is a known issue of the Kanger BCC design due to the size of the air bubble above the liquid which pushes down on the liquid and can oversaturate the wick to cause some gurgling and leakage on lower viscosity e-juices (high PG juices). That is why the Protank Mini's are nice, They have a much lower capacity but can be vaped nearly dry. That being said, I still find a drop of ejuice on my battery from time to time, but I'm using 100% PG juice, and have yet to experience any gurgling or flooding which would indicate more severe leakage.

 

[p.opus]

Is there any chance that there are a lot of phony Kanger products out there?

I'll be honest, the instruction manual that came with mine looked like it was typed in Asia, stuff like "All the parts is replaceble."

I mean, some people have great experiences with these, some have horrible ones. Are there truly copies out there?

And if they are, how would we know?

They are not easy to spot. Here are three photos of my "genuine" vs "fasttech" comparison. The "fasttch" is on the left, and the "genuine" is on the right.

On the first picture, you will notice that the "fasttech" box does not include the Invention Patent information and incorrectly tells the user to fill the tank to 3.5 ml of e-liquid although the tank capacity is only 1.5 ml. The printing on the box is not as sharp either.

On the second picture, you will notice the Kanger branding on both, but the genuine card on the right has numbers in the pictures and the pictures are sharper, where the "fasttech" card's photos are not as uniform, and don't have the numbers on them.

In the final picture, you will notice the genuine protank on the right is slightly taller by a few mm. Also there is more exposed glass on the genuine one. The "fasttech" version is slightly shorter and has less exposed glass. Notice they BOTH have Kanger tech markings on the base, but the genuine tanks markings are more pronounced.



As you can tell, these are very slight differences. And without a genuine article, almost impossible to spot. However, the biggest difference was in quality. My fasttech mini's failed within 3 weeks. One cracked in half while sitting on my night stand, and the other developed cracks during normal use three weeks later. None of my genuine tanks have failed yet.

These were both the "glued" non removable glass mini protank I's. I believe the failure was due to the knock offs not using real pyrex glass. As a result, they developed stress fractures due to expansion during heating and cooling. Pyrex glass is a very low expansion glass and is ideal for use in a clearomizer.

This might not have occurred with the fake mini Protank 2's as they are not glued, but sealed with o-rings and possibly less likely to crack due to expansion due to "give" in the o-rings. However after this experience, I only buy genuine Kanger products from now on from a trusted vendor.

Ironically, I bought the Mini's from Fasttech because they were a dollar cheaper and had free shipping. I ended up wasting 22 bucks to save 4 bucks.....Lesson learned.

 

[Nibiru2012]

Did the iTaste VV have the serial sticker attached to the box? Does it have the little gray area under the serial number which you can scratch off and view the 'verification' number, should be a total of 18 characters; letters and numbers. Groups of 5-4-5-4.

You then go to Best Electronic Cigarette | E Cigarette Manufacturer| Innokin and go to their security verification section on the bottom right hand corner of the HOME page. Enter those characters and it will tell you if it's a 'genuine' Innokin product.

It will look like this:

 

[Innercitydk]

I have bought 3 pt2s from FT and I am having no issues with them at all. I bought one at first, but the glass broke since my SVD fell on the floor a few times and they are most definetly made of glass. The glass had gotten a few cracks and when i disassembled it, it broke into a lot of pieces. I am certain that the PT2s from FT are genuine. Well the ones I got were I bought 2 more to have replacements and they perform perfectly. Since I broke my first pt2 I started putting a rubber band at the top of the glass tube to help soften blows when it falls over, works perfect

best regards