After refilling a 510 cart and topping off 5 times I noticed that there were two melted notches on the top rim of the cart. So I tried a fresh one and used it once and it did the same thing. Is that normal? Or am I inserting the cartridge to the atty wrong shape wise. I keep the atty cleaned and primed and have used the same atty for a week now. I just did a first clean and dry burn and now I get nothing out of it as far as vapor. Its not the battery cause I tried it with a carto and works just fine. Is my atty dead? I mostly just blow the atty out. I have not tested the other new atty yet against it.
I've had cart tops melt a bit on occasion - esp on lr attys. One thing I check is to see if the bridge is centered and if not, I take a toothpick and nudge the metal mesh to the center. I have also trimmed the top of carts but again, for me this was a rare occurrence.
As far as the atty goes - the best way to check is to have a multimeter. When the ohms on the regular 510 atty drops below 1.5 or go above 3 (on a 510) then you either need to clean it or it is almost dead. Sometime cleaning will bring it back into range 2.1-2.3, sometimes not. If it goes below 1 ohm (and it's still working) then you risk harming the battery. I, at one point, thought that dry burning can kill an atty and if not performed correctly - that can be the case - but if you hold for just 5 seconds, let off, hold again, several times until the vapor isn't as intense, then that does clean the gunk off the atty. Those that die in the process were, imo, already on their way out.
I'm thinking that if the build up was such that the atty was burning the cart that you were in the 'below' normal range and that the atty died from too much gunk that tends to reduce the ohm readings (although it can go the other way too). That said, you should be getting more than a week our of you atomizers - although there are those cases where you get one that goes quickly. If it was an LR then that's more normal depending on use.
