I think I am going to write up a 'How To Dry Burn' post soon and just link to it rather than type this out everytime
OK so dry burning is actually really simple. When you use a coil sometimes not enough liquid gets to the coil and it overheats the juice. this causes the coil to 'gunk up' over time and it gets coated with a layer of carbon which is basically burnt e-liquid. Carbon is a good insulator so when a coil gets gunked up it keeps more of the heat inside the coil and doesn't transfer it to the e-liquid to turn it into vapour. what most people do when they notice their vape getting a bit weaker is to turn up the power a bit and this makes it worse.
Dry burning is using the hot coil to burn this gunk and turn it into ash, that you then blow away.
Atomiser coils get to several hundred degrees C unless they have e-liquid on them but the coil itself can withstand much higher temperatures so (usually) dry burning won't damage it and a silica wick can withstand temperatures of over 1000C before it melts or burns. that said everytime you dry burn you are wearing the coil out a little bit more, so eventually one day you are going to melt it so much that it will break and thn you need to replace it. Given the alternative of throwing it away dry burning is a good plan
This is the procedure for a ProTank/EVOD other tanks will work a similar way, though how you expose the coil is different for different atomisers. To do this properly you will need replacement 'flavour wicks' - about 2cm of 1mm silica or 1cm of 2mm silica.
1: Take the tank off the base and set to one side (careful if it still has juice in it) and take the base part with the coil attached to it off the battery.
2: Unscrew the head just a little bit, and then while gripping the base pull off the centre sticking up post part (it's easier to do this if it's still screwed into the base) now unscreww the head from the base (it's easier to do that if you start unscrwing it before you pull the top post off)
3: There are 2 1mm thick short pieces of wick lying on top of your coil, take those off and throw them away (it's far too fiddly to try and wash these too and 1cm of new silica costs about 1p)
4: Rinse the head under running water to wash out as much of the e-liquid in it as you can.
5: Gently dry everything in paper towel and screw the head back onto the base and screw it onto a battery. (use a half used battery ideally or just turn the power down to a low setting if you can)
6: Push the fire button, you will hear a hissing noise. that's the water you rinsed it with evaporating. Keep firing the coil for 3-4 seconds. Let go of the fire button and blow across the coil. Wait a couple more seconds.
This is one cycle.
7: Keep repeating this cycle. First the hissing will stop as the wick dries out and then you'll see a little smoke coming off the coil. That's the gunk burning. This is a good thing. With each cycle you burn more of the gunk and blowing will blow off the ash you're creating. Keep going until the wick looks mostly white again and the coils are visible and shiny. Some heads are just too far gone for this to work with. If your head is really black and really gunked up it's probably better just to rebuild/replace it. Some juices, especially steeped tobacco juices, gunk up much faster than others.
8: cut some new flavour wick and lay over the coil and push the top post part back on. Make sure that the rubber seal on the top of the the part that the coils live in is pushed down so that the bottom of it touches the wicks. Trim the wicks to fit nicely.
9: replace the cleaned head in the tank and you're good to go.
10: If you turned the power on your battery down to do this then make sure to adjust the settings back to how you like them afterwards.
you should dry burn heads approximately every 2-3 tankfuls of liquid for best results. It'll take less time the less gunk is on there.
