Who knew a drip tip could screw up my vaping experience.....

[NICnurse]

Hey vaper friends..

I am prone to stupid bone head moments with vaping. Had a real idiot moment with a faulty bottle on a REO a little over a year ago. Well, apparently bone head moment of 2013 has arrived.

I have been having stiff draw and weakened vapor issues again over the past couple of months. No longer use a REO, so knew it wasn't a bottle issue. Troubleshooting it led me to try different tanks (phiniac, mom n pops, liquinator, VVV), different mods (MVP, Provari, Gripper, twist), different cartos purchased at different random times (All were 2.0 boges, but purchased anywhere from last summer to this past November). Thought it was a center pin issues on some of my boges. So I put a spacer from madvapes on all my mods. Then thought it was the great "bogegate" cartos I purchased last summer causing the problem. Changed O-rings on my tanks. vaping wasn't totally bad per se, it just wasn't great. I wasn't getting the plumes and plumes of vapor that I was accustomed to. I DIY the same juice all the time, so knew that wasn't the problem. It was getting kinda frustrating. For the past 2 years, I have used the same stainless whistle tip drip tip on all my mods. Never had a problem before.

I pre-ordered a Billet Box. In anticipation of its arrival, I ordered some new drip tips. Shortys, pawns, black whistle tip. I was off work yesterday, so I decided to pull out some random cartos and see if one batch worked better than the other. I filled up 2 tanks, 2 new cartos, put my trusty whistle tip on one and a super shorty on the other. Started vaping. Whistle tip one worked good, not great. Shorty tip tank and carto worked AWESOME!!! So, popped the shorty drip tip off and put trusty whistle tip on. Wasn't vaping as good now. Tried to vape through it, but frustration took over. So, went back to the carto and tank that originally had the whistle tip on it and put the shorty tip on it and it ROCKED WITH AWESOMENESS! Huh. Interesting. So now I put the whistle tip on both carto/tanks, used the same mod, same volts, and neither worked great. Huh again. Put the shorty on both carto/tanks with the same mod/volts, and both ROCKED!!!

Problem all along........trusty whistle tip of 2 years has failed me. The bone head moment? This is the second time that something trivial and stupid has affected my vaping experience. WHY oh WHY did I not think to try one of the 8,765 drip tips that I have amassed over the years when this problem started? I am not sure what caused the drip tip to fail, I suspect an air leak around what is probably a faulty O-ring with 2 years of daily use. And the narrow opening of the drip tip is maybe restricting some of the vapor coming off the carto and I have just graduated to the big leagues of needing a wider drip tip opening. (insert dirty minded comment here)

The lesson learned? Even veteran vapers do stupid bone headed things. And sometimes the answer is as simple as a stupid drip tip.

 

[darkhood]

Glad you got that outta ur system...sometimes u just need to let it out

 

[UncleChuck]

I'm still a bit confused on how a drip tip could possibly be causing such drastic differences in vape quality.

If the center hole is super tiny, it can potentially tighten the draw, although considering the hole in a carto is only a few mm, unless the center hole in the drip tip is even smaller than the carto's center airflow hole it can't possibly restrict airflow. Even if airflow was changed a tiny bit that just makes you draw harder on the device, could possibly make the vape hotter due to less cool airflow, but in no way should reduce the amount of vapor coming out of the device.

A damaged o-ring on the drip tip could potentially make the draw more airy as it would be drawing in fresh air instead of pure vapor from the coil. But to have the o-ring damaged severely enough to cause that type of reduction in vapor I'd imagine the damage would be incredibly easy to spot, if the o-ring was still intact at all. I have a few really old drip tips that have o-rings which are torn to shreds, very easily visible chunks taken out and so fourth. They still seal 100% perfectly. Even a drip tip with no o-ring at all shouldn't be affecting it that much.

And, as you already said, your issue was a draw that was too tight. If the drip tip's o-rings were damaged, allowing fresh air into the draw, it would also make your draw extremely easy, not super tight as yours was.

That's not to say drip tips don't change the feel of the draw and can affect flavor depending on materials, but I still find it odd that your two drip tips would vape so drastically different.

Whatever the cause I'm glad you've got a setup that makes you happy, though!

 

[xanderxman]

Just goes to show that even a "veteran" still has things to learn. A good lesson in vaping and life in general.

Glad you were able to find and fix the problem.