Why don't I like my Squonker

[bombastinator]

So after reading this (very interesting) discussion, I would have given squonking another shot (with another atomizer, obviously), except for this:

I never thought about that, even though I wondered why my last bottle of pure VG took on a color so quickly. I must have accelerated the process by (almost?) oversquonking all the time, in a desperate attempt to get a bit more flavour, but to me it this is a design flaw - I don't see myself being able to guess exactly how much squeezing is needed to avoid back flow, each and every time. I will still use the atomizer, since I'll be starting to DYI mix soon (hopefully), and a dripper will probably come in handy to test flavours during mixing.

RTAs to a degree have a similar problem in that the juice is in constant contact with the wick. It’s not one you can actually get away from except by pure dripping which of course has is own issues.

The “suck back” feature is actually a design improvement which prevents oversquonking. You weren’t “almost oversquonking” you were actually oversquonking. The mod/atty just fixed it for you. If you don’t like this feature just use an older atty that doesn’t have its juice input port on the very bottom of the deck. I squonked a big lock 454 and its juice port is actually the positive post wire holes. It squirts juice from near the top of the atty.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

Doesn’t prevent over squonking. It prevents juice pooling up and pouring out your drip tip when you go to take a hit. You can still over squonk, which with a little practice, is easy enough to avoid. If there is crud inside your RDA, there is crud inside your RTA! The crud comes from the same source.....a cruddy coil!

 

[Dudeman]

So after reading this (very interesting) discussion, I would have given squonking another shot (with another atomizer, obviously), except for this:

I never thought about that, even though I wondered why my last bottle of pure VG took on a color so quickly. I must have accelerated the process by (almost?) oversquonking all the time, in a desperate attempt to get a bit more flavour, but to me it this is a design flaw - I don't see myself being able to guess exactly how much squeezing is needed to avoid back flow, each and every time. I will still use the atomizer, since I'll be starting to DYI mix soon (hopefully), and a dripper will probably come in handy to test flavours during mixing.

Tanks wick both ways in a tank. Just sayin'.

 

[bombastinator]

Doesn’t prevent over squonking. It prevents juice pooling up and pouring out your drip tip when you go to take a hit. You can still over squonk, which with a little practice, is easy enough to avoid. If there is crud inside your RDA, there is crud inside your RTA! The crud comes from the same source.....a cruddy coil!

Depends on how oversquonking is defined. There is the oversquonking where you leave a pool of juice in your atty and it spits and behaves badly, and there the oversquonking where you push so much juice it overflows out the side holes. By removing the pooled juice it prevents one and helps resist the other somewhat, in that by reducing the pool to zero each time it makes it harder to do by building up a little bit with every squonk. But no, it’s not perfect.

 

[Punk In Drublic]

Depends on how oversquonking is defined. There is the oversquonking where you leave a pool of juice in your atty and it spits and behaves badly, and there the oversquonking where you push so much juice it overflows out the side holes. By removing the pooled juice it prevents one and helps resist the other somewhat, in that by reducing the pool to zero each time it makes it harder to do by building up a little bit with every squonk. But no, it’s not perfect.

Over squonking is an action of squeezing the bottle either too hard or too many times. Sucking excess juice back into the squonk bottle does not prevent either action. There is a learning curve to over squonking for the actions involved can be different depending on the RDA.

 

[Zaryk]

If you are contaminating your juice enough to discolor it by simply squonking, I think you should be cleaning or changing coils more often.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but one way or another that juice has to come in contact with a coil in whatever device you choose. So if juice making contact with a coil grosses you out, vaping in general is not going to be your thing.

 

[vimagreg]

I'm reading this thread since it's beginning and wondering how interesting it becomes. So I would like to make a contribution on my own.

As everybody here knows I'm pretty new to vaping (just look at my joining date). Because of that I'm still into the process of discovery of new kits, attys and vaping styles. Actually I think I'm very far of knowing all vaping possibilities. For me, as a hobbyist who never smoked, vaping is all about best possible flavour and greatest possible clouds. That's the way I vape at home and that's what I look for when I try and buy new kits. Only exception is for devices bought to be used in transit or at work. These, for me, need to be pod systems because of its discretion and easy of carry. I always accepted that to be able to vape at work, in the car or with friends and colleagues, I would need to make some compromises on flavour and clouds sides. For me that was always a very natural thinking: perfect kits at home; compromised pods outside. Very well and perfect. But...

Currently I have four RTAs, two sub-ohm tanks, five regulated mods. And I'm completing my second week with my first ever squonk kit, the USV Mach ON3 (review soon!). I have, too, two pods. And I think I have some personal thoughts about this matter, yet. For me, as a flavour crazy guy, there's no question my RTAs are great, but the RDA on my squonk kit is, still, greatest. This Mach ON3 provides me the best flavour I ever tasted, and dense clouds I could only dream with when I had just RTAs. Period. But (yes, another one)...

The difference in flavour between all my RTAs, this new RDA and my pods are by no means so big. No at all! Actually, I find my Breeze 2 better in this regard than my Zeus X (which can be defective, though - I'll contact Geekvape) and only marginally inferior than my Mach ON3, the best of all. Obviously clouds are another very different story, I think there's no possible fight as this RDA is simply insane, but in regard to flavour, yes, my brand new RDA is a par with the Breeze 2 and, even, with my Orion. Than you add to the sum the price difference (30 bucks one, 99 bucks the other), the size and weight difference, the portability... And, yes, I completely can understand who abandoned bigger mods in favour of the pod systems. That's not me, at all. I still prefer so much my bigger kits, using pods only when outside. But when I think about the difference between them now, and consider that pods will continue to evolve continuously for the foreseeable future... Yeah, maybe in future pods will become the definite mainstream, and bigger mods will become something like niche products.

I'll be in that niche, though, together with my pod systems armoury.

 

[bombastinator]

Over squonking is an action of squeezing the bottle either too hard or too many times. Sucking excess juice back into the squonk bottle does not prevent either action. There is a learning curve to over squonking for the actions involved can be different depending on the RDA.

You are talking about action. I am talking about effect. The reason it’s “too hard” or “too many times” is because of the effect. Squonk bottles aren’t the holy hand grenade or anything.

 

[MyMagicMist]

My pet peeve with Bottom Feeders is, the inconsistent vape! You squonk it, get a few good puffs & then it falls off,

It competes with that all day, every day.

Every Hit! What a hassle Your juice gets sucked back down after it comes in contact with your messy coil & wick, every Hit!

Significant amounts of juice getting sucked back means you squonked up more juice than necessary.
Over-saturated only happens if you over-squonk.
Sounds to me like you've never developed the correct touch.

I'm in agreement with @Rossum. I don't squonk every hit though, it is more like every eight to twelve, or so for me. Not too clamoring to return to tanks. For me a decent RDA can out perform a tank any day.

Currently sitting here with something different for myself. Read someone using SS wire here and thought it might be suitable to try again. Guess this time round, I figured out the secret to it.

26 awg simple single strand wrapped round 3.5 mm ID for a .35 ohms rating. That pushes my puny little 18650 celled mech to a whopping 15 watts at 2.3 volts. I'm a vaping now! Yee ha! I think Mr. Gorge Rda has won.

I also agree with the point that you've not developed the "touch". If you had, you'd not need to over squonk. I get where @Rossum is at in his squonking each hit, can respect that even if it's not the way I do it. I can feel/sense/ otherwise tell when my wick needs juice, not everyone can. Not sure how I do it myself lacking smell, maybe it's a mystical thing, dunno dun care.

Well my piece said I'll step out again and ponder this notion of squonking like sex, or vaping like sex, either way there's hopefully fun for everyone.

 

[KurtVD]

Tanks wick both ways in a tank. Just sayin'.

If you are contaminating your juice enough to discolor it by simply squonking, I think you should be cleaning or changing coils more often.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but one way or another that juice has to come in contact with a coil in whatever device you choose. So if juice making contact with a coil grosses you out, vaping in general is not going to be your thing.

I use very sweet juices, so my coils get dark and "dirty" very quickly, even after a few draws, which means that each time I accidentally oversquonk (which is a lot), my reservoir gets a little darker, and that's just not very appealing (for lack of a better word). I know that ultimately I'll be vaping an equal amount of "dirt", but I prefer that my liquid stays clean in my tank as long as possible.
But if I had had a great experience (flavour-wise) with my RDA, that wouldn't have deterred me from squonking, it's just another one more reason.

 

[Layzee Vaper]

@KurtVD

I think you need to resolve the build issue first. Getting the kind of vape / flavour you want is the priority. Some experimentation will be required. Perhaps a different RDA, but experiment with the build first, Most people pick up how often and how much to squonk pretty quickly. It soon becomes something that is pretty much automatic. Some people find that pulling the drip tip out and watching while they squonk helps at first until they get a feel for how hard, long and often they need to squeeze the bottle.
Once you get the hang of it, squonking is easy Good luck.

 

[Mordacai]

@KurtVD, no matter what your coil still gets gunked up. No matter what atomiser you use.

And you're getting more than slight discoloration after a few hits? Sounds like your wicking may be a little too tight through the coil and or coils and your singeing or burning the wick slightly due to the wicking not being able to absorb liquid effectively.

Could you please remind me what RDA and liquid or juice your using?

 

[MyMagicMist]

@KurtVD, no matter what your coil still gets gunked up. No matter what atomiser you use.

Ayup, just natural course of vaping no matter if it's squonk, or plain old dripping, using tanks, direct lung or mouth hitting. Do you vape? If so, coils will gunk up.

 

[Rossum]

Do you vape? If so, coils will gunk up.

'Tis true, but what you vape and how you wick both have a big effect on how fast your coils gunk up. When the stars were aligned perfectly, I've made it as long as three months without touching a build, although one month is more typical.

 

[MyMagicMist]

what you vape and how you wick both have a big effect on how fast your coils gunk up.

I concur. I keep swapping builds though worse than a kid in a candy store. *chuckles* I think aside from having to re-wick I ought to get a decent build to last maybe 6 months. I might get fooled and be wrong. If so I'd say so too. But I do think that it's possible. I recall seeing some mention that at times here on ECF some while back. They were not the types to go around spinning yarns & enough said similar for it to not be factual.

 

[bombastinator]

The only guys who say things like that are those with no real world experience

you clearly didn’t read the continuing commentary on that one. Basically what it came down to is “A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.”

Get a BB by SXK and then come back and comment

But I still respect your opinion

So unless I spend a hundred bucks on a product I’m not allowed to talk? Yeahhh... that’s not going to happen. In fact you have guaranteed that it will never ever happen in my personal case.

It might possibly have a degree of merit if this thread were actually about billet box evangelism, which it isn’t.
I mostly said that different people have different requirements, and that for some a given device might fit those requirements more than any other. Those requirements change by user though. Having a hundred bucks of play money to spend on a bare mod that lacks some features is one of them. Being willing to deal with some of the oddities of the billet box is another. Do I think it compares favorably with a lot of devices that cost more than it does? Sure. Making any object, be it a mod or a computer or a car tire is an act of compromise though. Every object makes compromises in one area or another. Cost is one of them though, and from what I can tell with the billet box it isn’t the only one.

 

[KurtVD]

@KurtVD

I think you need to resolve the build issue first. Getting the kind of vape / flavour you want is the priority. Some experimentation will be required. Perhaps a different RDA, but experiment with the build first, Most people pick up how often and how much to squonk pretty quickly. It soon becomes something that is pretty much automatic. Some people find that pulling the drip tip out and watching while they squonk helps at first until they get a feel for how hard, long and often they need to squeeze the bottle.
Once you get the hang of it, squonking is easy Good luck.

Now that I’m thinking about, I remember how it came to this: I got my RDA before I bought the squonk box, and as soon as I started using the RDA with the squonk box, it just wasn’t the same anymore. I only got good flavor out of this RDA when I dripped directly onto the coil, and then only really for one draw. So for now I’m done with the Geekvape Ammit, but I will give squonking another chance: I ‘discovered’ (lol) that I have another RDA that came in the box with the VT inbox, the Maze V2. It has 2 coils, so that alone will be a new experience for me

 

[KurtVD]

@KurtVD, no matter what your coil still gets gunked up. No matter what atomiser you use.

And you're getting more than slight discoloration after a few hits? Sounds like your wicking may be a little too tight through the coil and or coils and your singeing or burning the wick slightly due to the wicking not being able to absorb liquid effectively.

Could you please remind me what RDA and liquid or juice your using?

Actually, the coil and wick in my RDA (Geekvape Ammit MTL) stayed exceptionally clean over long periods of time (months): Due to its poor flavor production, I hardly ever used it, and when I did (because of the large bottle), I didn’t wanna waste my precious juices on it, but instead used a mix of VG, water and a few drops of very sweet juice. And due to my desperate and constant squonking, I regularly washed out the deck with that clear mix (which got darker very quickly), but on the flip side , the wick and coil stayed very clean...lol

 

[Mordacai]

Thanks @KurtVD, so MTL RDA's.

How many ohms is your coil, wraps, gauge and metal?

 

[KurtVD]

Thanks @KurtVD, so MTL RDA's.

How many ohms is your coil, wraps, gauge and metal?

Most of the time Ni200, but sometimes SS316 (both for use with TC), probably 6-8 wraps, resistance between 0.06 to 0.6, depending on the wire used.