If you crack the top of the V2 or the V2.5, are you getting a rush of bubbles at the juice flow ports? If so, then it’s either the wicking or the juice not wicking properly due to the heat as @eStorm suggested. I’ve had this issue-As a matter of fact, I just had it with my V2.5 yesterday. Here’s what I did to resolve the problem.
After placing the wicks and juicing them up, after you’ve placed the chamber ring on the deck, take a piece of 24 gauge or folded 26 gauge wire, poke it through the wick where it touches the chamber ring and go all the way through to the juice flow port. I’ve had to do this since the heat really came on, since the juice is so thin it blocks air from travelling from the chamber to the tank via the wick. Poking thru the wick will give a small channel for air, but should be small enough that you won’t have any flooding issues(I usually do all 4 ports just to ensure air passage/proper wicking)
If this isn’t really clear, let me know and I’ll snap a few pics and post them here or on imgur. Good luck!
I’ve been having issues with juice getting too thin from the heat(Normally use 70/30 VG/PG, switched to 80/20) and getting dry hits. I’m thinking that since it’s less viscous it’s not playing nice with my routine wicking. Ensuring that there’s a little extra air channel thru the wick has been helping my RTA’s wick better.
Oh there’s no logic behind this, neither does common sense apply here. I’m not kidding it’s like magic lol.
Someone would assume having ultra thin juice would wick better right? But somehow it doesnt.
As I mentioned above a 80/20 all the sudden looks like a 50/50 and the moment you then heat the tank, that juice becomes thinner than even water. I know impossible but that’s how it looks like.
I always say the cotton has nothing to grab onto at that point, leaving you with what looks saturated wicks, but after a 3 second hit, this turns into dry. Not sure why but it does lol.
Only way of fixing it is raising vg/pg, thinning out cotton and yes I understand normally that will cause the opposite but not in this heat, or vaping at extremely low wattage, like a 0.3 normally at 42watts, now at 28 kinds bs lol.
@5prock3t I don’t think this applies to you, BUT, had to drop it anyway. Had a friend with an IDENTICAL situation. Different setup, used cotton only, BUT, out of the BLUE, totally stopped wicking. Same cotton, same coils, no o-ring problems, one had had been vaping on for almost a year. HE made the mistake when cutting his cotton (pads). Accidentally cut AGAINST the grain !!!
You said you were not using cotton, but switched back to it, to no avail. His symptoms were EXACTLY what you are experiencing. Not sure how he started rotatng his cotton pads against the grain, then cutting off wicks from it, but he did. As he grew more and more frustrated, he didn’t even notice. I asked from some pics, and we cleared it up.
@paingawd I can see an issue if you’re raising your VG level, but even then… I’m surprised that going from a 70/30 to an 80/20 can have such a big impact. The only time I’ve ever experienced issues like that was with commercial coil heads, especially the ceramic ones.
@eStorm I was just asking because I have have no clue what you’re talking about. I’m not saying I don’t believe it or anything, just that I don’t understand. I do have the experience that in winter, wicking is a little bit harder if you spend a lot of time in the cold… but even with temperatures of 38°C that we’ve had here the last few days, I’ve had no issues with the viscosity of my liquids (70/30). On more normal days, let’s say around 20°C, a tank that is vaped is getting way over 40°C so I’m really a bit puzzled by that the ambient temperature would cause so many issues.
No worries, I wasn’t implementing that you don’t believe it, I was trying to explain in a somewhat funny way, the situation.
Because trust me it sounds stupid I know, should seen my face, especially since my brain was telling me that this makes no sense and in reality it really doesnt. But I guess I just stop trying to find a explanation and take it as is lol.
Here we sadly get heat waves from 40c up to 45c in some regions. I’m sure Arizona is even worse lol. I sometimes miss the day as it was 35c max and I thought that was hot. Also this humidity doesn’t make it better.
Anyways I stop talking so the OP can get some more help and maybe finds a solution.
The first time I cut a swath of cotton from a pad, I did the same thing as your friend-went perpendicular from the grain rather than cutting parallel with the grain. I couldn’t understand why the wicks wouldn’t thread thru the coils, as every time I tried to pull them through they’d break in half. I gotta say, your friend’s wicking game has GOT to be pretty damn strong if he could coax wrongly cut cotton through a damn coil!!!
Not to confuse things here or add additional variables but I had a similer experience about 4 months ago. The same issue; dry hits occasionally. The difference is that my problems were across 3 different atty types, KayFun v5, Nautilus full size (at work tank) and a Merlin MTL. 50/50 liquid is all I vape.
I would get 5~6 good hits then a taste that the wick drying - I would open the tank using the fill port, a couple of bubbles come up - back to normal. I took the Nautilus out of the mix due to using recoiled heads, had the JFC on the KF so loose I was afraid the tank would fall off the deck, swapped o-rings (original and O-Ring store versions). Nothing helped, same issue on every MTL designated tank I had.
I thought I tried every wick method known to man (and woman) to no avail. Logged more hours on YouTube than I care to admit. I actually believe I watched every coil wick video on the system (except for Rip’s)
What I finally decided on the root cause was that I had overtime increased my draw/hit, to a point I was messing with the way the tanks were designed to operate. Too much vacuum or negative pressure, whatever you call it. This issue started happening on all of my attys - I was not about to go to a ‘sub-ohm’ style tank due to the ones I had tried in the past were way too airy for my vape.
My simple fix was to put the largest diameter coils (additional wick) I could fit in each atty as the problem arose and also went to a Scottish Roll of KGD. These changes didnt fix the issue but have stretched out having to ‘burp’ a tank to about 2 or 3 hours. I can live with that for the time being. Still looking for my next perfect tank.
I don’t do a lot of tank vaping, except for MTL. Anywho, I won a Geek Vape Zues Dual Coil. It is really very easy to build and wick. First try and it vaped like a champ. Every build and wick after that has been the same.
Sounds more like a vapor lock situation. Especially if you can crack the juice fill and see air bubbles coming from the bottom juice ports. Maybe the o-rings deteriorated in a way that let your seal it up air-tight and now it can’t get that tiny backwards release of vacuum that allows the juice and air to swap out inside the coil zone. If you have a baggie of spares just swap em out
Oh and @5prock3t it’s great to see you back in here!~
I think you may be on to something about vapor-lock…and I will look closer into this.
With that said, its felt like Ive been slowly breaking in my wicking all weekend and it never really priming.
Today I got to thinking about my adv mix that I mixed up before all this happened. I think Shisha Strawberry may have gotten away from me…I taste a shit ton of white/green strawberry and zero crunch/dairy.
I also notice I used PEG400 by mistake and this made up 15% of my mix…and Im not certain what effect this has.
@Dan_the_Man thank you for the recommendation. I looked into this last night. Its fairly inexpensive on some sites. I will probably put an order in this weekend.
I never would have thought of doubling up the coil/wick to alleviate my problem.Duh…
I would think if it wasn’t a problem before that was properly designed to start. I’m looking at what could have changed over time. I have some tanks too with top fill O-rings. When I screw down it doesn’t seem to fit so tight metal to metal (Cap to tank) and that o-ring is the only actual seal to prevent juice escaping but a little vacuum to release. Maybe a little less torque on the juice-fill? (don’t know what your atty looks like or how it fills?)
I think most of us have experienced the “burp” when you open to add juice. A little vacuum is necessary to prevent leaking from the airflow
Be sure to check which one you’re getting. There is a single coil Zeus and a dual coil Zues, two different tanks. Anywho, mine came with a couple 32 guage nichrome braided coils that were really nice coils, I was quite surprised.
Good luck on your search. Oh, and just in case you don’t know about the deals thread…
