How often do you change cotton?

[Lushen]

Hi All

I use a sub tank mini and an iStick. And juice is e-liquid project. I'm addicted to Cowboys Apple Pie and Daddler...

Is it normal to have to change cotton every 3 days in the RBA?

I'm currently using organic cotton from Dischem and I vape about 3ml's a day


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[Lushen]

And tips on getting the wicks to last longer would be greatly appreciated.

It's a PITA to have to change wicks every 3 days sometimes...


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[Viper_SA]

I change the Dischem cotton every day. Sometimes twice a day. Think a lot of vapers will drop a fresh wick in quite regularly.

 

[Rob Fisher]

Try Rayon... you will find it lasts a bit longer... I used to change cotton every tankful and found that Rayon would last longer and with my juices the flavour was crisper. Ekowool will last even longer and ReadyXwick (if you can get it) much longer!

 

[Tom]

every 2 days, or with every flavour change and that is sometimes everyday. But I use nowadays only my 3 FeV's.....wick changes are a breeze.

 

[Ashley A]

I change with every new tank which is daily. Good thing about the Dischem cotton coming in such large quantities at such a low price .

 

[Smoke187]

Rayon does it for me, I change maybe every 2 days, depending on which juice I use, higher VG and darker juice kills the wick quicker for me. I dont know how I did it or if its normal, but 3m Rayon lasted me around 6 months, but also taking into consideration I used to wick every 3-4 days before. Same thing goes for Vapowire, previously used to re-coil every 3 days with a wick change, but now vapowire lasts me around 2 weeks and then I get bored and recoil again...lol
Also taking into consideration I vape between 0.2Ω - 0.5Ω dual coils

 

[ZeeZi169]

I change mine every 2 days, thats normally when i notice a drop in flavour

 

[Dubz]

I use Japanese Cotton and change my wicks every 2 days or at a flavour change.

 

[Lushen]

Thanks for all the response guys, much appreciated.
Rayon has been ordered

Guess I should start a new thread on what's the easiest RBA to work with.

Now I understand why bottom feeders are the better option I just dislike the fact of charging batteries everyday.


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[stevie g]

Once per day.

A note on Rayon.

It dry hits easy compared to cotton and really burns up quickly. A dry hit on rayon is infinitely worse than cotton, I could go into detail but it seems pretty boring a topic. You will find out yourself soon enough.

I used to use rayon religiously but now I don't even want to touch the stuff.

 

[JW Flynn]

Then i'm one of the few that actually change very little... LOL

Ran puff Japanese cotton once for two weeks.... still ran like a charm.. but clearly you taste a big ass difference after a two week change, hehe

usually i change every week... same with my wife's subtank mini...

Think of it this way.... those guys on tanks, did they change coils every day?? LOL I don't think so... but the best would be to test it yourself.. just make sure you have it juiced up all the time so it cant get burnt... once it's burnt you really cant do much, and a change is needed asap

This one I think is very subjective... give yourself a couple of days and test it, see how it works for you... every vaper is definitely not the same

 

[stevie g]

True... and again very dependent on the juice you use.

 

[Alex]

Last night I pulled out the wicks and rinsed them under the kitchen tap, got em all nice and clean, did the twist and squeeze maneuver to get most of the water out, between dry burning the .2ohm coils. Shoved em back in and loaded Ambrosia liquid... Winning.

Almost forgot, this was with rayon wick.

 

[Divan Smit]

While on the topic of changing things, did anyone notice that a coil, after 2nd time wicking and coil dry burnt clean, the coil seems to 'packup' quiker than the first time of use, or am I doing something wrong...

 

[Lushen]

I guess it is a preference thing and I will only learn from trial and error. I just dislike admin of tinkering daily but love vaping...

@Rob Fisher I did some research on ekowool and ordered that as well.
I will post my findings on how it works in the sub tank mini after testing it for a while.

Ordered some ribbon kanthal as well to work with the ekowool




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[Alex]

While on the topic of changing things, did anyone notice that a coil, after 2nd time wicking and coil dry burnt clean, the coil seems to 'packup' quiker than the first time of use, or am I doing something wrong...

I dunno man, I can have a coil last for weeks easily. Just dry burn that sucker to remove any gunk. Followed by a quick dunk under some cold water.

What type of kanthal are you using?

 

[Andre]

I guess it is a preference thing and I will only learn from trial and error. I just dislike admin of tinkering daily but love vaping...

@Rob Fisher I did some research on ekowool and ordered that as well.
I will post my findings on how it works in the sub tank mini after testing it for a while.

Ordered some ribbon kanthal as well to work with the ekowool
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Ekowool has never worked for me in the subtank mini type of devices, but is great for some drippers. Looking forward to your findings.

 

[Divan Smit]

I also dry burn my coils for weeks, wat I noticed is that when you build a new coil, it seems to take longer to get dirty than a used dryburnt/cleaned coil. I mostly use 28guage kanthal on my tanks and 24 guage kathal on my rda's.

 

[Andre]

I also dry burn my coils for weeks, wat I noticed is that when you build a new coil, it seems to take longer to get dirty than a used dryburnt/cleaned coil. I mostly use 28guage kanthal on my tanks and 24 guage kathal on my rda's.

I think that is just to be expected - one can never get it so clean that it is like a new coil, which makes it just a little bit easier for gunk to accumulate.

 

[Yiannaki]

It's juice dependant for me :

With light to medium juices - every 12 ml or so

With darker juices - about every 6ml

I move around between rayon, kgd and native wick. They all seem to get me quite far before I notice flavour drop off.

 

[BhavZ]

With regards to the Dischem Organic Cotton (Softi brown label transparent bag) I change cotton wick every 5ml - 10ml

For lighter juices and non-tobacco juices every 8ml-10ml (will notice a degradation in the flavour)
For darker juices (atomic grasshopper as an eg) and tobacco juices (Bobas as an eg) I would change every 5ml-6ml (will notice a degradation in the flavour)

I hope that helps.

Please note that any dry hit, regardless of how quick/small will significantly degrade the vape quality. Also leaving your wick in juice for too long (eg in a tank that has been standing with juice in it for a week) will also degrade the quality of the vape.

 

[ShaneW]

Using jap cotton I change every 2nd day or so, that's about 6ml. Unless I'm on the road then maybe 3-4 days (9-12mls) but by then it's lost alot of flavour and not tasting so good.
I've never bonded with rayon, has a strange taste to me. Personal preference I guess

 

[RoSsIkId]

Every 2days i rewick the rm2. I kinda have it worked out to about 15min with clean and wipe down. I am on darker juices and can def taste the diffrence after 2days

 

[Silver]

And tips on getting the wicks to last longer would be greatly appreciated.

It's a PITA to have to change wicks every 3 days sometimes...


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Hi @Lushen

You are asking a good question and raising a relevant issue.

Some people love "tinkering" so for them changing things is not a chore.
Others dont and just want the lowest admin vape possible.

Id say I am somewhere in the middle of the above two

What i have found is as @Yiannaki and @BhavZ said, the wick life does depend on the juice you are vaping and how much perfection you want. Darker juices and tobacco juices need more frequent changing. Lighter juices like fruits and menthols last longer.

So thats why having an easy access dripper is such a win. Easy to just change it. If you pre-prepare your wicks it can be done in a minute or two. On tanks it can be more of a pain and it takes me a bit longer and i end up with a bit more juice on my hands etc.

The majority of my vaping happens on my Reo. Its easy to change wicks. For tobaccoes and darker richer juices i use organic cotton and I prefer the flavour I get from that. I usually change the wicks every Reo bottle refill (around 5ml). For lighter fruitier and especially menthol vapes i prefer the slightly more crispness I get from Rayon. Also change every Reo bottle.

For my Lemo, which only has fruity menthol juices in it, I use Rayon. I find I can go through about 4 tankfuls before changing the wick (about 15 or 16ml). But when I change the wick, I always notice the improvement straight away. Cleaner taste , more flavour and crisper.

On my Evod1 which uses standard coils, i get about 20ml before I change. At least that is easy as pie. Just put in a new coil. But I probably only vape about half a tank on it a day, so one coil lasts me about a month. Thats an extremely low admin to vape ratio ! But the vape is not as good as the other higher power devices. I just like it for first thing in the morning and occasionally for a mindless vape.

The problem for me with wicking is that the drop off in flavour is very gradual. One tends not to notice the flavour dropoff because it doesnt change suddenly. So you need to experiment with the frequency of changes for the juices you vape. You need to find a balance that works well for you regarding admin versus vape quality.

I have a few devices so I can go for a few days after a pitstop without needing to tinker. For me thats a good balance. Then when a few of them become ready for a change, I do them all at once if possible.