Congratulations!
Did you boil the wick before using? And also, did you apply flame to the wire?
We're in the same boat with the head colds... lame. When I get the material I will report if there is any difference in taste (at least for boba's). What do you think, taste-wise? Better? No real noticable difference? (of course, this could be better answered if you were not sick

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Yes, I boiled the wick (did that a couple days ago) and I ran a flame back and forth under the wire. As far as taste.. I'm using a thrown together mix so I really can't tell much.. that plus I've just started using it. But even with a head cold, I can taste the chocolate and it's good. I noticed last night, with my usual vanilla cookie mix, I was tasting more snot than what I usually tasted LOL. In all of the heads and with the premade coils I've tried, I noticed that the more I used it, the more the flavor came through. I was used to the boges, where they were best the first day or two and went downhill after that.. with this, it gets better with use.. how far it goes I don't really know, like I said, I've not have one go out on me, I've just played around with it. Even with this cold, I can tell a difference in the cotton vs silica wick. The vape seems denser.. more vapor.. and I can only imagine the flavor improvement

Plus I've read a few threads talking about the silica wicks emitting shards of silica. Whether that's true or not or how much silica actually is going into my lungs, I don't know. I've read post after post talking about the difference being so night and day with the cotton so I figured why not give it a try and be safer at the same time. I've got two complete tanks now and 6 heads.
I bought this thing because my carto tanks were working good (and had been for a long time) and I was a bit bored. That plus my favorite mix wasn't lasting as long in a tank before I started tasting the filler. So I gave the VN a try, in hopes that I would get a better flavor. I never expected to have this much success with it! I never expected to be able to rebuild it inexpensively! I never expected them to last as long as they do. And I am more than happy with the flavor that I'm getting.
One thing I have noticed is that it's not rare to get an E1 on the provari.. indicating a short. I've had this happed a couple of times.. once with a premade coil.. I took it apart and installed another one and after wetting the wick, it metered fine. If there was ever a time I was more glad to have my provari than others.. it's now! It'll catch a short and let me know something is wrong. I'd be afraid to try doing this with some of the other devices that might be ruined by a short. I wouldn't want to play around with this if I had, say an ego or a simple box mod. I haven't used it on my vv madvapes box.. it still goes to work with me every day with a carto tank of diy caramel cappuccino.. I guess the strong flavor of the caramel capp drowns out the filler or something. I do have one of the VN tanks sitting on my VV Reo right now but only because it's been used (and deemed short free) for a week now and I've only got the one provari.