First of all, your posting does not show one iota of originality since this is nothing other than a slightly modified HighPing rinse and burn which has been discussed ad nauseam with some 350 posts.
Secondly, there is no question that dry burning on a de-bridged and de-wicked atty works pretty well because there is very little place for the gunk to collect other than in the ceramic cup since you have removed a lot of the surface area; moreover, by removing the fiber wick you remove a major conduit for the juice to get to the mesh around the ceramic base, bridge, and eventually the cup with its coil.
UNLESS YOU DRIP OR USE A BOTTOM FEEDER LIKE THE REO, DEBRIDGING AND DEWICKING AN ATTY WILL ACTUALLY MAKE USING A CART IMPOSSIBLE! I SPEND A LOT OF TIME DRIVING BETWEEN MY OFFICES FOR WORK, AND I DRIVE A STICK SHIFT. IF DRIPPING WERE MY ONLY OPTION, I WOULD STILL BE ON ANALOGS.
I assume you have taken apart attys and tried to rebuild them, or have you? I too have been at this over a year and have dissected and rebuilt attys as a survival skill in the event of a ban (PITA to do, I buy them). us who know has such superior mental acumen and doctorates in Chemistry and Engineering which enables this genius mind to understand the theories of mass transfer, solubility chemistry, organic chemistry, and electrical engineering as apply to the atty. That education far surpasses my lowly Masters in Chem. Eng., PE (also have an MBA, PE).
However, I CHALLENGE the universality of the dry burn for non de-bridged, de-wicked attys and deep tube attys like the 810 and 910 since you have so much more surface area to deal with; additionally one is also dealing with a huge variety of juices as well as voltages and
vaping habits. You have everything from bacon and eggs to tobacco to cheesecake to fruits with different concentrations of flavors, nicotine, and PG/VG ratio. Some use maltose as a sweetener which has a caramelisation temperature of 356F; others use fructose which is 230 F. PG vaporizes at 188 F; many different temperatures to deal with and each temperature has a different meaning: boiling point, oxidation, carbonization, etc. The chemistry is very different and very messy. This is why you will never get agreement on the best cleaning method.
Once the atty starts to cool down, all that flavor, sweetener, etc. starts to separate out from the residual vapor. It is a small amount, but it accumulates each time you vape. You can see the beads of liquid on your cart, and it slowly starts to accumulate in the mesh and on the walls of the atty tube. A practical demonstration is to fill a glass with hot water and slowly add sugar or salt. The sugar or salt with go into solution, but keep adding the sugar or salt and you then reach a saturation point and the grains will fall to the bottom of the glass. Now carefully skim off some of the clear solution, put it in another glass, and place the glass in the fridge. Come back an hour later, and you will see grains collecting on the bottom of the glass. Its the same thing that happens inside your atty when it cools down. These compounds collect as gunk in all the nooks and crannies of an atty, and there are plenty of places to collect: the mesh, the tube, and the chamber below the ceramic cup.
Its the gunk that makes your atty taste bad and messes up with the performance.
Here is the reason why all this is important: the only place that gets hot enough inside an atty to reduce the gunk to ash is the coil. It only produces about 3 watts give or take a watt or two which is not enough to heat up the rest of the atty very much. The ceramic cup is an outstanding thermal insulator. A Coil will start to glow red at around 450 F. Using us who knows cycle of on followed by 15 seconds cool down, the hottest I could get the surface of the atty was around a 100 F using a SR 510 at 4v on my ProVari. It went up to about 120 with a HV cranked up to 6v. As instruments I used a Fluke thermocouple and a IR pyrometer. The tip of the bridge only got up to 140. These are temperatures that are not hot enough to reduce anything to ash other than us who know arguments. All the extra heat does is cook the gunk even further.
In conclusion:
1) Dry burning with a wash works best when dealing with a debridged/dewicked atty or 306 style. It is not ideal for deep tube 910,810, and non de-bridged 510 because of the added surface area where condensate can collect and degrade with each application of mild heat to form gunk.
2) Dry burning does not get the atty hot enough to remove any other gunk that may have accumulated in areas other than the inside of the ceramic cup where the coil is embedded. Other parts of the atty do not even get up to the heat required to vaporize PG.
3) The cleaning method also depends on chemistry of the juice you use. With the huge variety of concoctions out there, IMHO it will be hard to come up with a universally successful cleaning method. You may need to supplement your dry burning with a hot water/steam wash, or a more aggressive oxidant like denture cleaner, baking soda, etc. Ultrasonic cleaning works as well. There are two types of chemistry involved here: reactive and solvent. Sugars, for instance, do not really dissolve well in alcohols or other organic solvents, and most sweeteners are forms of sugar (fructose, maltose, sucralose, etc.). Since I use a lot of sweet/fruit/choc. flavors, steam, denture cleaner, and ultrasonics with a dry burn work best for me. In general, I do not like alcohol chemistry for cleaning attys. Some like Cola, which will also work because of the phosphoric and carbonic acids.
4) IMHO, dry burning by itself might actually be worse for an atty. The gunk can actually cause a coil to overheat and fail. A glowing coil can handle small amounts and turn the gunk to ash. A water rinse might reduce the level of gunk to the point where the coil can handle it. Its safer to take a mild oxidizer/ultrasonic route first. Again, there are simply too many variables here to come up with a universal rule.
5) Why waste time cleaning a dead atty when a multimeter for less than $10 will spare you the effort. It always amazes me that the so called experts never recommend the use of such a simple to use and inexpensive device. Of course, some people still think that their "resurrection" method will miraculously weld/solder a broken coil .
T
