I want to write about tank systems. Well, not exactly "write about"---more accurately, I want to complain about tanks. I'm posting this rant here on the RY4 thread rather than in the General Discussion forum because, well, this thread is where my friends are, and when we need to vent and gripe, our friends are who we want to do that with.
Way back in November of last year, I began buying CE2s, which were touted as The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread. Over the next couple months, I eventually bought 50 of them, 25 stainless steel and 25 clearomizers, and I went through the whole purgatorial punishment of jumping through hoops trying to get the damned things to perform properly. I did all the recommended fixes---I burned and fluffed the wicks, cut the cup slots deeper, did syringe mods and larger home-made syringe tanks. Besides the endless wicking problems and total lack of throat hit, what aggravated me most was that all but four of them leaked like sieves. That's 92% that leaked. Another product that looked good on the drawing board but doesn't work in the real world.
In fairness, most of the time the CE2s didn't leak at the seals. They leaked down the center tube that's attached to the coil cup and out through the hole in the connector. Eventually I got so angry at the hundreds of wasted hours that in March of this year I pitched every one of them into the trash.
After a hiatus of some months, during which I discovered the brilliance of dual-coil cartos on variable voltage mods and correctly ignored all the hype surrounding the various ego-tank systems, I noticed that a lot of individuals and vendors were making and selling 2nd generation large-capacity tanks---MAP tanks, Stormy tanks, JonboyUSMC Lava tanks, Liquinators, etc.---and people were praising them to the skies.
I already knew that tanks using CE2s sucked eggs, but then I saw that new tanks were being offered that used slotted dual-coil cartos. And when Electronicstix had a sale recently on their 5ml dual-coil J-Tanks, I was seduced again. The posts I read and videos I watched made by enthusiastic and thrilled users all stated unequivocally that there was no leaking with these new tanks. You'd think that I would have known better, but nooooo.
Fool that I am, I bought four J-Tanks, since they were half the cost of some other pricier tanks. With considerable anticipation, I got out my trusty dremel and cut slots in a dual-coil carto, assembled the first tank, and filled it with about 3ml of Bounty Hunter. Not five minutes later, I had a tank that gurgled loudly with every draw on the flooded DC carto, causing it to leak badly.
Same problem as the CE2s. No leaks at the seals, and no leaks when I filled them, but terrible leaking down the center tube of the carto and out the hole in the 510 connector when I vaped them.
Over the past week, I have been through the mill with these implements of torture. I tossed out the double-slotted dual coil that was flooding and switched to a single-coil XL 1.7 ohm Resurrector, thinking that one coil might draw less juice than two. No luck. I also stopped cutting two slots, went to one slot, then gave that up and began punching only a single tiny hole in the carto to try to stop the flooding. No matter; they still flood and leak. I filled a tank with only 1 mil of juice (which does sort of defeat the whole purpose of a high-capacity tank), just to see if the flooding was caused by siphoning and might stop with less liquid in the tank. Apparently not. I tried very slow and shallow draws to prevent flooding the cartos. They flood anyway. I tried running them on my VVs at lower voltage, all the way down to 3.0 volts. All that did was give me a leaking tank that performed badly. I even cut down one polycarbonate tube and positioned the hole in the carto inside the seal to constrict juice intake.
Nothing works. I now have four J-Tanks that occasionally function as they should, but after vaping them for awhile invariably start gurgling as the carto floods and leaks juice down the center tube and out through the connector. Then I have to unscrew and remove the tank, invert it and blow out the over-saturated excess juice (which wastes juice like crazy), then clean up the juice that has pooled around the connector of my PV. After all that, the tank works properly, but only briefly. Twenty minutes later it's flooding and leaking again. What a nightmare!
I don't feel that this flooding/leaking problem is unique to J-Tanks, so my ire is not aimed specifically at this particular brand. J-Tanks are well made and don't leak at all from the seals. I can see no other conclusion, however, than to assume that any similar tanks will flood and leak in precisely the same way. And I have had enough of this nonsense.
Having blown $63 on four J-Tanks, I have now ordered ten 4ml-capacity clear eGo Mega Dual Coils and four 510-to-ego adapters to allow their use on any of my mods, along with a five E-Power Mega Duals just for good measure. Cost? Only about $3.50 each with the adapters. And I know from experience with regular mega duals that those will probably perform like champs and won't leak a single drop.
Anyone want some almost new 5ml dual-coil J-Tanks for cheap? Just kidding---I won't foist off lousy products on my friends.
If this turns out to be user-error, I will post a mea culpa retraction later. But this isn't rocket science, or at least it shouldn't be.
End of rant---for now, anyway.
