When should I throw cartomizers away?

[lostboy]

So I bought some soft tip refillable cartomizers last week and have been using only 1 since then. I've refilled about 6-7 times and decided to clean/wash it. After cleaning it, I refilled it up again and the throat hit is not the same. I still get some vapor but its harder to draw than before.

So my question is, when do I throw it away? Or should I have just let it completely dry before refilling? I don't taste any burn taste, just harder to draw and less to little throat hit. I also notice it getting hotter than before. I hear some people say cartomizers lasts them 20-30 refills but mines didn't even come close to that number. Should I just let it dry completely and test it again? Or is it dead?

 

[THE]

So I bought some soft tip refillable cartomizers last week and have been using only 1 since then. I've refilled about 6-7 times and decided to clean/wash it. After cleaning it, I refilled it up again and the throat hit is not the same. I still get some vapor but its harder to draw than before.

So my question is, when do I throw it away? Or should I have just let it completely dry before refilling? I don't taste any burn taste, just harder to draw and less to little throat hit. I also notice it getting hotter than before. I hear some people say cartomizers lasts them 20-30 refills but mines didn't even come close to that number. Should I just let it dry completely and test it again? Or is it dead?

As far as I'm concerned, it's not dead until it gets "burned".. I dry mine in the oven, otherwise they never seem to dry at all. How long did you wait before filling it?

 

[lostboy]

I refill it when I get the burning taste. Usually refill 2 times a day. Sometimes 1.

 

[juicefreak]

sounds like it's wet. blow into the mouth piece and out the battery hole and see if it's soaked. no vapor on a flooded carto.

i throw mine out when i've push pinned the battery hole so many times (to line up the hole) it's pretty well toast. or i can't get the last bit of life out of it even on a 5v PT.

i stuck a paper clip in there one time when i was in a hurry the other day and out came the brass tube and connector. found a great way to disassemble them at least

 

[acorn54]

in my short ten days of vaping with cartomizers i have found a few reasons to toss a carto.
1- after awhile,no matter how often i top up i will get a burnt taste
2- after awhile they seem to get "stuffed" and it is harder to draw on them

my speculation, but higher quality cartomizers might have a longer life. i have had the experience of using "discount" cartos and find they just burn up on my pass thru running at five volts, but are okay at cooler 3.7 volts.
fwiw i break in a blank carto by using the condom method and putting twenty or so drops of ejuice in it. then i top off every twenty or thirty drags with five to seven drops. this seems to work out to give me the longest life from my cartos.

 

[v1John]

If the carto deveolps an uncomfortable hot spot on the outer casing throw it away. I am finding that it's because the inner wick is dysfunctional, and a small hole has started to form in the direction of where the hot spot is.

I have only recently started to look into it, but it does look like that will be the case. In the picture below, for example and to illustrate, I pulled the contents out and so far everytime a hot spot forms, there is a burn and hole [a malfunction] that clearly corresponds with the hot spot on the carto shell.

I'm starting to think that the filler should not be disturbed. If possible, use the cap filling method so the needles will not damage the filler, and vape it carefully to try to keep things from burning.

 

[oettinger]

in my short ten days of vaping with cartomizers i have found a few reasons to toss a carto.
1- after awhile,no matter how often i top up i will get a burnt taste
2- after awhile they seem to get "stuffed" and it is harder to draw on them

my speculation, but higher quality cartomizers might have a longer life. i have had the experience of using "discount" cartos and find they just burn up on my pass thru running at five volts, but are okay at cooler 3.7 volts.
fwiw i break in a blank carto by using the condom method and putting twenty or so drops of ejuice in it. then i top off every twenty or thirty drags with five to seven drops. this seems to work out to give me the longest life from my cartos.

MINE last for weeks, I throw them away when they stop working. I disassemble them when they stop, and have NEVER found one to be burnt on the inside, Maybe I am just lucky, or maybe the "burning" just happens to everyone except for me.

I go through about 3ml of juice a day, and use the SAME carto refilling it through the day until it quits. Then I dismantle it to look for the burning, never find it, and just toss them. I seldom wash and reuse them. I bought 3 packs of Cool Cartomizers from V4L a month ago, and have yet to go through the first pack.

I use a few because I have a few diff flavors I like, but they last like Army TANKS.

 

[lostboy]

Thanks for the replies. I decided to wash mine out and then air dry it out totally for a few days. In the meantime I opened up a new one and hopefully it'll last longer. I will let you guys know later when I try the one that is being dried. If its still the same, then I will dissect it like you did in your pic v1John.

 

[v1John]

The one in the pic above was also a V4L, but that one I had already refilled 3 times, and sometimes I had it on the 5.1v PT. Most of the ones I get are from V4L, but lately I started noticing the hot spots on about 3 out of ten so far. I'm being more careful with them now (and no more 5.1Volt vaping), hopefully that will make them last even longer.

One last thing to note, in the carto above, I had not had any burnt taste out of it that I noticed. I pulled the contents ONLY because I was starting to get upset about the frequent outer hot spots, otherwise it was vaping great and wonderful. I think the reason for this could be that once the inner wick fails, the blanket (what you see in the pic wrapping the wires) takes over the role of the inner wick and possibly causes it to switch to overdrive (great vaping but with hot spots and dysfunctional inner wick).



___________________

 

[lostboy]

Just replying back with an update. After air drying it out for 2 days and using the cleaning method listed here http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/tips-tricks/41440-how-clean-refill-cartomizers.html the cartomizer is back up to par! I'm not sure how long this particular cartomizer will last but it has already done its job considering it was a mere $2 and it has lasted me 2 weeks. I will disassemble it once I start tasting a burnt taste and see what this thing looks like.