Hi Everybody,
I just wanted to share a little of my expertise with all of you. I am a
retired graduate Electrical Engineer who has spent my entire career with Texas
Instruments and Motorola working in a variety of Electro-Mechanical manufacturing
areas in which we used many types of ultrasonic cleaning equipment. I have been
responsible for purchasing many different ultrasonic cleaners some costing in
the ten's of thousands of dollars.
So when I made the journey that led me to switching over to vaping
E-Cigarette's as a substitute for my 45 year smoking habit I ran into the same
problems as all of you, particularly on how to clean and maintain my atomizers.
I had all kinds of trouble with the reliability of these things and have
revitalized many a "tired" atomizer by cleaning. Right from the start
I knew that immersing these dirty atomizers in an ultrasonic bath would
probably be the most ideal method of cleaning and after getting tired of
purchasing so many replacement atomizers for my EGO batteries I went out and
purchased a very inexpensive ultrasonic battery powered cleaner and it works
just GREAT!
As far as choosing a unit to clean these small
light weight atomizers I knew that different cleaning requirements require
different ultrasonic frequencies. Lower ultrasonic frequency means larger
cavitation bubbles and more intense cavitation implosions. At higher
frequencies, the cavitation bubbles are smaller, and although the cavitation
implosions are individually less intense there are more of them. Frequencies
below 80 kHz are commonly used for industrial cleaning applications where
contaminants are relatively heavy and the parts being cleaned are robust.
Frequencies above 80 kHz are more frequently used to clean extremely delicate
parts that require a higher degree of cleanliness and typically these type
cleaning requires more time. I was looking for the very cheapest ultrasonic
cleaner that I could find that hopefully cleaned at a frequency of around 40-50
thousand waves per second.
And I found a bargain that all of you can buy locally. It's the Haier HU335W
Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner- http://www.haieramerica.com/en/product/HU335W?sessid=08b7b908cc53098fa9ffc94f4f0d135e#features
Some of the features I liked about it other than being so cheap! Was the
fact that it had a stainless steel tank and cleaned at just about the frequency
that I thought best. I bought mine at Walmart for just over $20 and it works
VERY WELL and makes cleaning atomizers a BREEZE!
With this unit I went to the liquor store and bought the cheapest bottle of
Vodka that I could buy as a cleaning medium. Grain alcohol would also work
well. I save up my atomizers and place them in a bowl whenever their
performance degrades and when I'm down to having about 1 or 2 clean atomizers left
I clean the dirty ones by immersing them and clean them for 3 three minute
cycles for a total of nine minutes - This unit has an automatic 3 minute
cleaning cycle that I use 3 times. After clean (And they will be!!) I just blow
them out thru the cartridge end and then clog the cartridge end with my finger
and suck on the battery end and "pop off my finger", doing this
several times to remove the last few drops of vodka. And that's it! No need at
all to do a water rinse which takes longer to dry and is not necessary at all.
Let them sit and dry naturally for about a day before using but if you need
to use one right away you can by "dry burning" the atomizer for about
6-7 seconds a couple of times to help dry it out and then prime the atomizer
and use a well saturated filler in your cartridge. It might take a minute or
two to get it vaping perfectly but if you are in a hurry like this it will
take off and vape like perfectly new with just a very short bit of use.
I hope this helps some of you. This method cleans better than any other
method and also has the advantage of being very "easy" on your
atomizers and helps contribute to their longevity.
Thanks Much,
Melvin - "texanandproud"
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Will try to find one of these units!
