How often should you change/clean an atomiser?

[Midnight]

I've been vaping away on my ego with ce4 clearo and my kanger protank mini for a good couple of weeks now. The ce4 started to make the e-liquid taste burnt so I followed VaperCapers advice on dry burning the wick and it's worked a treat. Great taste and vapour again (Thanks VC). My protank seems fine tastewise but has had the same, if not more, draws than the ce4. Should I be changing the head on it yet? How will I know when I need to? Will I get the burnt taste as with the ce4? It seems fine atm taste-wise but vapour is getting slightly less than when it was new. I have several replacements heads but don't want to waste them if I don't need to. Is the vapour production a good indicator?
Thanks

 

[Soldier Blue]

Just keep on using them and dry burning them until they either 'pop' (won't work at all) or the vapour and taste is just not what you want it to be. It's hard to tell at first because generally new users have loads of different juices and can't really tell the difference but I mainly use just three juices and I can tell when the flavour is diminishing very easily. It's a bit like if you had 10 cans of different lager and one was slightly watered down it would be hard to know which one but if you only ever drank the same lager, you'd know straight away. I've got some heads on my iclear 30's that are 6 months old. All heads will age the same by the way (in regards to gunking up etc') but different brands will take less or longer to age dependant on kanthal thickness, ohm ratings and so on.

 

[Midnight]

Thanks Blue. It's all a big learning curve when you're new to something. I want to run before I can walk
I got an iclear30 with my new itaste MVP today and it's great. Never seen so much wick in one tank. Loads of vapour and taste. I even got the old hiccups at one point so took that as my cue to stop. Strange how too much can give you hiccups. I was the same with the NRT gum and lozenges too. Would have to 'park it' now and then.

 

[Soldier Blue]

I love the 30's - I've tried dozens of different types and other than my Kayfuns they are my number 1 choice for price, ease of use, looks, flavour and of course they hold 3 mil which is always a plus. By the way I've been reading a lot of your posts since you joined us and for what it's worth I think you're going about it the right way - ask lots of questions, read lots of posts and get as much knowledge as quick as you can. Learn by other peoples mistakes and experiences and it will a) save you a lot of money and b) get you to where you need to be quicker. Nighty, night Midnight. Jase. xx

 

[Midnight]

I love the 30's - I've tried dozens of different types and other than my Kayfuns they are my number 1 choice for price, ease of use, looks, flavour and of course they hold 3 mil which is always a plus. By the way I've been reading a lot of your posts since you joined us and for what it's worth I think you're going about it the right way - ask lots of questions, read lots of posts and get as much knowledge as quick as you can. Learn by other peoples mistakes and experiences and it will a) save you a lot of money and b) get you to where you need to be quicker. Nighty, night Midnight. Jase. xx

Exactly!

I don't mind asking lots of questions or 'silly' questions because they are not silly to me or I wouldn't be asking.
I am learning pretty fast by asking questions and it's thanks to experienced and helpful members like yourself who are helping me (and other newbies) get there quicker than if I kept shtum for fear of asking those silly questions. So thanks for that. I appreciate it.
This is a great place to learn. I haven't even bothered joining any other forums because this one has it all.
Cheers Jase ...now go get some sleep before the missus gives you another rollicking. hehe

 

[VaperCaper]

Glad to hear you dry burning worked OK.

The biggest indicator as to when you need to clean a head is lack of vapour/flavour. If you're not getting as much vapour or flavour as you expect then the coil isn't getting hot enough.

Thisis caused by 2 things. i) low power from the battery, either the device is turned down too low, or the battery is about to run flat and not fire at all.

ii) The coil is gunked up and the burnt on gunk is stopping the heat from the coil getting to the juice that's on the wick. (same as if your saucepan bottoms are dirty they don't conduct heat as well so cooking takes longer)

If the coil is gunked up then as well as the coil not getting the juice hot enough the gunk also contains more of the heat in the coil itself, which means it wears out a bit faster and usually what people do to counter this is turn the power up which burns more gunk onto the coil and makes it worse...

If you dry burn clean a coil every 2 or 3 tankfuls then it won't take as long and should keep things nice and clean before you get to the reduced flavour.

As blue says - you can keep cleaning them like this until they go pop. Eventually no matter how careful you are the coil will overheat and break, so when you push the button nothing will happen. That's when you need to throw them away* and screw in a new one.

*If you're using something like an evod or a vivi nova then don't actually throw the heads away - you can buy wick and wire and rebuild them for a fraction of the cost of new heads. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

 

[Midnight]

Thanks VC, great advice as always. I am actually looking at evods now. I have seen a nice little pink set I am sure I will be asking advise on wick and wire sizes etc pretty soon!

 

[whit77]

Thanks VC, great advice as always. I am actually looking at evods now. I have seen a nice little pink set I am sure I will be asking advise on wick and wire sizes etc pretty soon!

Just if you didn't know, evods ce4's etc all share the same threading and will fit on you're current battery's

 

[Midnight]

Thanks whit77.

 

[Midnight]

I've also just found out that my tanks also fit on my itaste MVP that I just bought. Happy days