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APO is still technically US correct?
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A better way to clean dirty coils?
- Thread starter OBDave
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It is but I don't know if they ship APO...best to call and ask them
Easiest thing for me and only takes a minute is to remove your wick, I hold my Russian 91% deck under running hot water for a few seconds, dry with paper towel, dry burn it til coils glow nicely, wait for coils to cool, hold deck under running warm water and scrub it with a SOFT childs toothbrush. Dry deck with paper towel, fire it a few times til any water dries up then rewick. My coils come out like new!
I just dry burn until they're fairly clean, then brush any excess gunk off with whatever's handy... Paper towel, my finger, whatever. I have one juice I love that can't make it through a tank without destroying the coil, so when I vape it this is necessity.
Yep. that's what I do. Some one above mentioned a soft child's toothbrush. I like those small round toothbrushes for in between your teeth. u can stick them inside your coil.
Hi, Francis(can), I find that fire is the fastest, easiest, most convenient way to clean. My coils, drapes, rugs. curtains. I haven't had the nicest day. But good to see u pop up in my inbox. How's things? Any more competitions?
Nope...been in hospital so I'm taking it easy. I'm home now and feeling much better.
I just purchased a Siggy 100w and a pair of 454 Big Blocks...along with a locally made dual battery, potentiometre adjustable box mod....so I'll be back at it soon enough! Good to see you as well
I just purchased a Siggy 100w and a pair of 454 Big Blocks...along with a locally made dual battery, potentiometre adjustable box mod....so I'll be back at it soon enough! Good to see you as well
Yeah, I always mean to get one of those brushes. Paper towels work, so do fingers, but fingers get burnt if you're an idiot like me and don't wait long enough for the coil to cool, lol.
Ha ha, I've done that
So glad you're feeling better. Lol. I'm just feeling unruly because I just received a long awaited order of juice and it came in ass backwards. I ordered 20 PG / 80VG and I got 80 PG/20 VG! Whoops, I must have dyslexia!Nope...been in hospital so I'm taking it easy. I'm home now and feeling much better.
I just purchased a Siggy 100w and a pair of 454 Big Blocks...along with a locally made dual battery, potentiometre adjustable box mod....so I'll be back at it soon enough! Good to see you as well
Cannae tell you how many times I have done that! I am currently over the moon for "Dori Cake" by Merkury Vapor. Despite the description on the website, it is a SPOT ON accurate Orange Scone...and coming from a born and bred "Heilander" I know this flavour well. Simply brilliant and can handle .2ohms/100w without even breaking a sweat.
I keep a dropper bottle of distilled water handy.Dry burn, drip water, repeat. Then I use an old-fashioned cotton pipe cleaner to scrub inside & out of the coil. (Not the chenille stems that you get at the craft store- they'll melt if your coil is still hot. I use the ones that are cotton & used to clean pipes. Walgreens sometimes have them with their tobacco things)
And... I dry burn the BVCs. I carefully dry burn the BDCs, too. After I dry burn, if they smell or taste burned, I soak them in Vodka to take the taste out, then make sure they are dried well, so they don't rust. I use them over & over doing this.
And... I dry burn the BVCs. I carefully dry burn the BDCs, too. After I dry burn, if they smell or taste burned, I soak them in Vodka to take the taste out, then make sure they are dried well, so they don't rust. I use them over & over doing this.
Joshua Parnell
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You couldn't pay me to do this....when you rapidly heat and then rapidly cool metal (faster than just letting it sit), you're submitting it through a process called "tempering", which softens up your metals. The hotter it is, and the faster it cools, determines how much it is tempered. This can bring a springyness to your coils and make them more susceptible to hot legs and shorts.
----EDIT----
Well, guess I'll have to eat my words. Rip Trippers does this every couple days, and he's a personality I trust. Not like Kanthal isn't cheap anyway
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Tempering springs made of metal at very high temperatures is done post-hardening to increase durability and decrease brittleness. It does not so much as "soften" the metal as it does increase it's life. When performing this process in the context of coils, one must compress the springs at the same time in order to "set" the shape. Unless you are building a coil on steel mesh...shorts are a non-issue. As for hot legs, this is a matter of electricity looking for the lowest resistance in a coil, which in the case of "contact coils" is the coil itself. If you have hot legs, then you have spacing in your coils, which has nothing to do with the temper of the coil itself. In summation, I completely disagree with the above post.
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Those little dental brushes do a very nice job. And I am taking about the teeny tiny ones that you use to get the gunk from between your teeth. Think of a small toothpick with bristles. Just make sure your coil is cool before using or you will melt them.
When the coil is still hot from the dry burn and the water hits it and flashes to steam it blasts the crud off. I don't dip my coil in water though. Instead I dip a q-tip in water and just after the red glow fades, but the coil is still hot, I rub the wet q-tip against the coil. It sizzles a little, breaks loose the crud and then the q-tip wipes the gunk off. No burned crud residue at all is left. I repeat it a couple times until I get it all cleaned off. Looks like new and using a wet q-tip makes it easy to control what I'm doing.
You want some gunked-up rejuvenation?
How's this mess from an accidental auto-fire with my Fogger v4:
That was from a full tank of Caramel Mocha juice going off for IDK how long.
I came back from the kitchen to find a puddle of juice under the rather warm Copper Panzer mod...Aieee!!!
I immediately pulled the battery and let everything cool down. TY Vaping Gods for the Samsung 18650 25R batteries. It wasn't even that hot as all of that copper acted as a giant heat-sink.
The 25R battery had gotten ran down to an incredible 1.13V before it stopped firing, but it still ended up charging right back up to 4.20 again. After checking internal resistance and volts, I put it in my I4 Intellicharger for a just a few seconds at a time. Took measurements as it trickle charged up to around 2.4v where it then charged normally...for a LONG TIME. Internal resistance is still normal.
I had big Cellocotton (the top-snip/stuff down style build) wicks in there, they were just gone.
Burnt to a crisp - quite literally. You can see how it utterly carbonized the stuff so badly, that it was fused to the coils. The block insulator got a bit singed and nearly melted, but is still serviceable.
After picking off the loose bits and a power wash under the bathroom faucet, I let it dry over night.
Today, I started dry burning under my range rood fan so my smoke alarm didn't freak out.
Alternating the dry burning with with picking/scrubbing with a jeweler's screwdriver, as well as brushing with a small moistened brush I'd mentioned before.
I'd say it worked nicely.
Vaping it again now - not on the Panzer however, until I find stronger magnets for it.. ;-)
How's this mess from an accidental auto-fire with my Fogger v4:
That was from a full tank of Caramel Mocha juice going off for IDK how long.
I came back from the kitchen to find a puddle of juice under the rather warm Copper Panzer mod...Aieee!!!
I immediately pulled the battery and let everything cool down. TY Vaping Gods for the Samsung 18650 25R batteries. It wasn't even that hot as all of that copper acted as a giant heat-sink.
The 25R battery had gotten ran down to an incredible 1.13V before it stopped firing, but it still ended up charging right back up to 4.20 again. After checking internal resistance and volts, I put it in my I4 Intellicharger for a just a few seconds at a time. Took measurements as it trickle charged up to around 2.4v where it then charged normally...for a LONG TIME. Internal resistance is still normal.
I had big Cellocotton (the top-snip/stuff down style build) wicks in there, they were just gone.
Burnt to a crisp - quite literally. You can see how it utterly carbonized the stuff so badly, that it was fused to the coils. The block insulator got a bit singed and nearly melted, but is still serviceable.
After picking off the loose bits and a power wash under the bathroom faucet, I let it dry over night.
Today, I started dry burning under my range rood fan so my smoke alarm didn't freak out.
Alternating the dry burning with with picking/scrubbing with a jeweler's screwdriver, as well as brushing with a small moistened brush I'd mentioned before.
I'd say it worked nicely.
Vaping it again now - not on the Panzer however, until I find stronger magnets for it.. ;-)
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RoofMonkey911
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Hopefully you changed that melted insulator in the last photo.
As I said in the post, It did get a bit toasty, but it is still insulating just fine. Of course, I'd checked for shorts before even bothering to clean it fully.
Yeah, it will need replacing, but until I get the money to do so in Nov., it'll be ok.
I'm not sub-ohming on it either so in normal usage, it doesn't get hot..
nice thinkin homie worked perfect
@OBDave
I know this is an older thread. Don't know if you have found a solution or not?
I have the same problem with my coils gunking. I like to use coils, until they totally shit out. What I do is glow them. When they are still a little red, I'll scrape the coils with metal tweezers. It loosens the gunk so I can blow/scrape it off. Works well for me. Sometimes you have to glow coils 2-3 times, but in the end, all the shit comes off for me.
I have went so far as to rinse them under a trickle in the sink, holding the mod sideways to just wet the coils, and not the mod. Doing that will bring them back clean. Most times, I do not do a rinse though, as they are clean enough after scraping.
I know this is an older thread. Don't know if you have found a solution or not?
I have the same problem with my coils gunking. I like to use coils, until they totally shit out. What I do is glow them. When they are still a little red, I'll scrape the coils with metal tweezers. It loosens the gunk so I can blow/scrape it off. Works well for me. Sometimes you have to glow coils 2-3 times, but in the end, all the shit comes off for me.
I have went so far as to rinse them under a trickle in the sink, holding the mod sideways to just wet the coils, and not the mod. Doing that will bring them back clean. Most times, I do not do a rinse though, as they are clean enough after scraping.
Yep, decided this was the solution a year or more ago. I'll dry burn a couple times and blow the crud off, then a couple more times and dip under the faucet set to a trickle. Good to refresh a coil four or five times at least, though with all of the fancy wires available pre-wrapped these days I'm also less afraid of the work involved in re-coiling...
Why stress the coil with water quenching? As MKPM was helpful enough to clarify, tempering is not whats happening. To get basic, 'heat-treating' with a 'full-quench' is what most seem to be suggesting. Since there are too many unknowns, like temp, carbon content, etc.. to achieve a positive effect on the coil, you end up changing the properties 'Craps' style, rolling the dice. There is a better way, your coil will thank you.
20-years of cleaning smoking implements and accessories tells me this, the best way - is to clean your coil at room temperature, in either 91% ISO alcohol, which if made anhydrous cleans better and/or anhydrous acetone. Agitate while soaking the unit a couple times over 30-min., brush off with cheap-stiff 3-for-a-dollar Dollar Store toothbrush, then rinse under warm tap water. Repeat if needed. I like a final rinse in organic solvent unless I'm using distilled water to rinse, good ol chlorine, fluoride and who knows what else in city tap water..and then there's the crocodiles....
If you want to get a bit more $$$ with it, get a dental water pick, used for... yup... cleaning teeth. After a soak, these make short work of all remaining gunk. I dry pieces in my convection oven around 200F to speed the drying process along. A quick 1-2 second burn will let you know if it is dry and ready.
ONYX "100% Pure" acetone from Wallmart made anhydrous is very clean. I never use the hardware isle stuff in a can.
Before anyone gets ahead of themselves. Yes, your coil touches your juice when hot. Is your juice made up of water and a couple odd impurities/additives? 'Slack-quenching' in X is not equal to 'Full-quenching' in Y.
20-years of cleaning smoking implements and accessories tells me this, the best way - is to clean your coil at room temperature, in either 91% ISO alcohol, which if made anhydrous cleans better and/or anhydrous acetone. Agitate while soaking the unit a couple times over 30-min., brush off with cheap-stiff 3-for-a-dollar Dollar Store toothbrush, then rinse under warm tap water. Repeat if needed. I like a final rinse in organic solvent unless I'm using distilled water to rinse, good ol chlorine, fluoride and who knows what else in city tap water..and then there's the crocodiles....
If you want to get a bit more $$$ with it, get a dental water pick, used for... yup... cleaning teeth. After a soak, these make short work of all remaining gunk. I dry pieces in my convection oven around 200F to speed the drying process along. A quick 1-2 second burn will let you know if it is dry and ready.
ONYX "100% Pure" acetone from Wallmart made anhydrous is very clean. I never use the hardware isle stuff in a can.
Before anyone gets ahead of themselves. Yes, your coil touches your juice when hot. Is your juice made up of water and a couple odd impurities/additives? 'Slack-quenching' in X is not equal to 'Full-quenching' in Y.
haha how is water quenching stressing the coil when you want to use acetone and alcohol.. and what type of material are you speaking of if its stainless steel water works just tine this surely is very thorough way of looking at cleaning however it is extremist and kinda silly
Ah, I've attracted a skimmer. I get it, because you post what looks to be a bunch, so you no longer feel the need to read the actual words in others post, most of all people with low post count. It's alright, almost to be expected these days.
I like bullet points so lets pretend these bullet points are Levar Burton, you know, from Reading Rainbow.
Let us revisit:
- I clarified verbiage so that my contribution was concise. When we all call the apple - an apple, then it's easy to pick out the orange.
- In plain English I stated that one should clean
- Stainless steel isn't a magical metal. Higher quality surgical stainless isn't either, though it does sound cooler and it is shiny. What they have in common with all metals used for coils is the ability of their properties to change under a given set of conditions. Knowing these conditions is how stainless gathered up the desirable properties it has. Heat it up, then quickly cool it and you are physically changing the metal. This is not some Trump, global-warming-isn't-real-so-lets-erase-all-science-data, 'I see dead people', 'Jesus told me to go to war in Iraq' kind of stuff. It is repeatable and observable science. Stainless becomes what it is by process, if you make changes to that process willy-nilly then the safety of that material is no longer assured.
- I spoke, what I thought to be, clearly, against heating the coil for cleaning purposes.
- Oxidization is not friendly. Introducing this into your coil isn't just "tine". Sitting in this or that vape liquid may not be "tine" either, but that is a different animal.
Your point is well taken and is actually interesting my only concern with this process is residual elements left on the coil or tank that could leech into the ejuice. As logical as your points is it begs many questions.
KingPin!
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You'll fit right in on this forum lol you do have a valid point to make here for sure... I did find a decent (all though fairly short) article on the fixation we've all got with dry burning ...I'll dig it out and edit this response with the link
Edit: https://nicotinepolicy.net/miroslaw-dworniczak/5713-e-cigarette-coils-from-a-chemist-s-point-of-view
...although as scary said in the post above this one "will there be any residuals left on the coil" from your method?(especially on some of the coils I build - framed staples etc) loads of nooks and crannies in complex coils.
Whilst I'm certainly not "scared" of handling some chemicles, inhaling them from my coil, well that's another matter and of all the things you said... this is the bit to focus in on especially how you ensure your remove it all
Don't get me wrong I'd be willing to give it a go but would want to understand this bit first
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When mine are really dirty, I first run hot water and use an old electric toothbrush brush to rinse and remove excess build up. Then I dry burn/rinse repeat. Just remember to always make sure the post screws are secure after all this cleaning. Nothing better than a clean wick and coil!
I was under the impression acetone was some really toxic shit?..
I find this very interesting. I clean and rewick my coils several times a week. What I usually do is heat them to burn off the juice. Then I let them cool to warm, but not hot, and use a water dripper to rinse. They are still warm enough for the drops to evaporate. It seems to work very well for me.
Do you think this is the same as running them under water while hot? I am willing to try your method as I am a bit OCD about keeping things clean.
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Nail polish remover is acetone stinks like a gooden, it's widely used in the industry as a solvent and is one of the simplest keytones although recognised as generally safe ...when heated it oxidises will create acetone peroxide
In all honesty think I'll take my chances elsewhere thanks
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