Coil Gunking... or a thread about changing atty heads

[OneDay]

The question of when to change the head on an atty/clearo/whatever seems to come up quite frequently.

There is no one correct answer to this question, except to say change it when it needs changing. This is usually when there's a noticeable drop-off in flavour and performance.

People sometimes query why a head can last anything from hours to weeks. The answer to that one is usually down to the juice you're vaping. Some flavours, especially sweets and desserts, caramalise on the head, causing a build up of carbon on the coil. This can be cleaned off if you catch it early, but in truth it's better to just bin it and go with a new one. Even if you don't rebuild your own heads the cost has come down considerably over recent months and, in my humble opinion, it's not worth sacrificing the quality of your vape for a few pennies.

This is an extreme example, but a real one which I took out of my Penelope. The same thing will happen whatever type of wick/coil/head you're using.

[womble]

Good post

[ginge7289]

Ha, that looks like my dripper after a night with a House of Liquid juice.

[charon]

OneDay

Good informative post there. But OMG what the hell were you vaping to create that monster?

[OneDay]

Oct 16, 2013 13:30:19 GMT charon said:

OneDay

Good informative post there. But OMG what the hell were you vaping to create that monster?

I was vaping a home made juice which Ash posted here called Karma's Chameleon. It includes Graham Cracker and Raspberry and, what I suspect is the main culprit, Natural Maple

[charon]

yup, that will do every time, Only asked out of interest, as it looks lime something I used to find in the bottom of my old vivarium

[ionian]

Great post that deserves a link in the newbies thread - this must be one of the most often asked questions, abd one which I'm only just discovering now! Thanks for the info, it's reassuring that I'm not alone in killing my heads just because I love the taste of bananas and strawberries

[Phoenixflame (Julie)]

Yes in my experience it definitely is the juice - the coils when I vape my homemade chocolate pralines will only work well for 3 or 4 days at most, but I find the same type of coils and tanks used with other flavours can last weeks.

[blakey]

With GVC my coil will look like that inside 3 days, infact 3 days is only if I vape lightly

With Cocomel I'll get 5-7days. No problem though, I've rewicked my gear so many times now that I can do it in the dark

When I have a cold I'll vape arctic honey and that will still be going strong two weeks later

[Chrissie]

Excellent post OneDay & I couldn't agree more with "Even if you don't rebuild your own heads the cost has come down considerably over recent months and, in my humble opinion, it's not worth sacrificing the quality of your vape for a few pennies."

[loobiebloo]

Inspired, OneDay, I thought that when people talked about gunking it was the wicks that were the problem - a picture is worth an awful lot of words.

[dreamylittledream]

I work on the rule of thumb of cleaning my coil heads between tanks and if it still tastes funky time for a new one

Must be my selection of juices though (not a huge fan of the really sweet stuff so this maybe why) but I normally get a few weeks out of a coil - certainly get through less than a box of five a month.

Very little beats the first few vapes on a fresh coil with a favourite juice mind