Isopropyl Alcohol

[bcartervol98]

Ok I have been using Iso to clean coils and tanks since I started cleaning coils and tanks a while ago. I keep seeing people refer to this as "bad" and I am not sure why. If i am doing something that will harm me or my wife I would like to know. When I search on Google there are a lot of people that recommend using Iso for this.

What I do is soak the coils-tanks-whatever I am cleaning in Iso. With coils, I keep a cup of it near my filling station and whenever I start to get that gunked up burned taste I drop my coil in there and put a new one in. I let it soak until I get 5 or 6 in there then I rinse them very good, put them back in fresh Iso, let them soak a few days, rinse very well with hot water and let air dry for several days. Then I put them in a cup for "hard times". I havent been using them much, but I did use one to see if it came clean and tasted fresh, which it did. It even seemed to last longer than new out of the pack.

With tanks I let them soak overnight then rinse with hot water and let them dry a couple days OR dry them myself with paper towels and Q-Tips if I need to use them immediately.

Is there something wrong with doing it this way? Not to sound like an ***, but I would prefer facts to opinions on this one. All I can find anywhere online is a lot of people saying to do it this way, and a lot of people saying to not do it this way.

[Aquatroy]

I will have to withhold as all I know is what I have picked up along the way, so probably of no use to you ......

But yes not rinsing is bad for you.....

[Tam]

I'm also interested in learning more about this. All I use is premium vodka and it works very well for me.

[bcartervol98]

I'm also interested in learning more about this. All I use is premium vodka and it works very well for me.

For KPT coils I would think the cost of cleaning with premium vodka would be greater than the cost of just using a new coil each time.

I am not concerned about cleaning tanks with it, I know they are rinsed thoroughly and there is nothing "absorbant" to hold onto the Iso. Its the coils that prompted my question. Every time I explain "how I do it" there is someone to say "Iso is bad for you" and I just want someone to explain why, where they learned that, etc... I am pretty resourceful and I cannot find anywhere that states this is a bad practice outside of opinions in the forum world lol.

[Mrwaylon]

Ok I have been using Iso to clean coils and tanks since I started cleaning coils and tanks a while ago. I keep seeing people refer to this as "bad" and I am not sure why. If i am doing something that will harm me or my wife I would like to know. When I search on Google there are a lot of people that recommend using Iso for this.

What I do is soak the coils-tanks-whatever I am cleaning in Iso. With coils, I keep a cup of it near my filling station and whenever I start to get that gunked up burned taste I drop my coil in there and put a new one in. I let it soak until I get 5 or 6 in there then I rinse them very good, put them back in fresh Iso, let them soak a few days, rinse very well with hot water and let air dry for several days. Then I put them in a cup for "hard times". I havent been using them much, but I did use one to see if it came clean and tasted fresh, which it did. It even seemed to last longer than new out of the pack.

With tanks I let them soak overnight then rinse with hot water and let them dry a couple days OR dry them myself with paper towels and Q-Tips if I need to use them immediately.

Is there something wrong with doing it this way? Not to sound like an ***, but I would prefer facts to opinions on this one. All I can find anywhere online is a lot of people saying to do it this way, and a lot of people saying to not do it this way.

The only thing I could find is this

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopropyl_alcohol

[bcartervol98]

The only thing I could find is this

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isopropyl_alcohol

Yea I read that. Thing is, everything I have read has talked about how it is dangerous to "huff" or "Drink" Iso, but to use it to clean coils and tanks seems safe to me as long as you rinse thoroughly and let dry. I mean if someone were to soak it in Iso and take it directly into their tank and vape I am sure the results would be bad. I just cannot see how a well rinsed coil or atty soaked in iso, thoroughly rinsed, and allowed to dry completely could possible be dangerous. Plus its the only thing I have found that gets all the residual flavor out of a coil to be reused.

I also wouldnt think there would be the number of places recommending using Iso to clean your vape gear if it were known to be a dangerous practice. I usually err on the side of caution, but I personally think it is perfectly fine to use....but that is just an educated guess based on facts I know not a statement of absolute fact. I have tried Vodka, just hot water, and Everclear and none take the flavor out of a coil like a few days soaking in Iso, a good rinse, and a full air dry, at least for me.

And like I said before, unless I hit hard times or coils become hard to get, I may never use any of these anyway since I always have a ton of coils on hand.

[Bebop]

As llong as you are rinsing after soaking it's fine.

But it is technically a solvent. Soaking for a few minutes will yield about all of its benefit so it might be overkill to soak longer than that.

While it is pretty mild as solvents go it is harder on plastics than metals. It can make plastics brittle (as well as o-rings) causing cracking.

My opinion is it's relatively safe if rinsed thoroughly and allowed to dry. Any residues left are of insignificant quantity to cause harm

That being said I dont do it. I just dont think it's necessary as normally rinsing with filtered water does enough for me

[bcartervol98]

As llong as you are rinsing after soaking it's fine.

But it is technically a solvent. Soaking for a few minutes will yield about all of its benefit so it might be overkill to soak longer than that.

While it is pretty mild as solvents go it is harder on plastics than metals. It can make plastics brittle (as well as o-rings) causing cracking.

My opinion is it's relatively safe if rinsed thoroughly and allowed to dry. Any residues left are of insignificant quantity to cause harm

That being said I dont do it. I just dont think it's necessary as normally rinsing with filtered water does enough for me

I noticed with some of my cheap drip tips it turned them white and cloudy so I can see what you are talking about, and it could explain my o-ring breaking like it did.

I guess I have always been under the impression just using water will not get the residual flavor out of the tank and especially the coil so some sort of solvent, alcohol wash, vodka wash....something would be needed. Being completely honest, I have never tried just cleaning my stuff with water because of this.

I am not sure why I clean coils anyway since they are so cheap and readily available. I guess in the back of my mind I have this image that something could happen that would render things hard to get, especially when the government gets involved.

Edited October 12, 2013 by bcartervol98

[bcartervol98]

Maybe just soaking the coils in water for a few days, swishing them around and changing the water each day might be just as effective at getting the old flavor out.

I am not sure if you can tell, but I am pretty anal about stuff like this. I want to know and learn everything there is to know and sometimes I get to the point of being redundant.

[rcoe]

I'm still pretty new, but I've yet to find a juice that a hot rinse, dry burn, hot rinse doesn't take care of. Even for the tanks and glass a good 30 seconds under the hot tap a couple of times gets rid of everything. It's worked on coffee flavors and black licorice...never tried on a cinnamon, but doubt I'll ever buy a cinnamon flavor...

Can't imagine what your doing is bad for you, considering the rinse and length of dry time you describe.

[Bebop]

No, I know. I'm kinda the same way.

There are def some flavors that are tough to wash out - melons, citrus, mints - but if its that bad I just chuck the coils.

I do soak my tanks in warmm water and a little bit of soap, a non scented ( very important) hand or dish soap with no additives softeners or BS. Some of those scented soaps are overpowering

[spydre]

For KPT coils I would think the cost of cleaning with premium vodka would be greater than the cost of just using a new coil each time.

I am not concerned about cleaning tanks with it, I know they are rinsed thoroughly and there is nothing "absorbant" to hold onto the Iso. Its the coils that prompted my question. Every time I explain "how I do it" there is someone to say "Iso is bad for you" and I just want someone to explain why, where they learned that, etc... I am pretty resourceful and I cannot find anywhere that states this is a bad practice outside of opinions in the forum world lol.

Maybe just soaking the coils in water for a few days, swishing them around and changing the water each day might be just as effective at getting the old flavor out.

I am not sure if you can tell, but I am pretty anal about stuff like this. I want to know and learn everything there is to know and sometimes I get to the point of being redundant.

Well, since I also had tanks that held onto the flavor or Inferno and Jungle Juice (nasty stuff, two hits and I was done with it), we decided to go the vodka route - this became especially, well, almost necessary once I started switching tanks left and right because I couldn't taste stuff anymore - rinsing chocolate or rich french vanilla out of a wick doesn't work so well, but the vodka soak worked. I have a bottle sitting on my counter, with a container next to it. I'll rinse coils out as need be, and then when I have several that need soaked, I drop them all in the little container, and put the vodka in, letting them soak a minimum of 8 hours, then I let it air dry. Then they go into the spot in my tackle box designated for used coils ready to be re-used. I'll put them in anything but the Davide, since the Davide is possessed. Granted, I wouldn't say I use "premium" vodka, it's not the stuff that's locked in the cabinet at the store, and it's grain vodka, not potato vodka, but it works well enough. The only time I had a problem was the first time I used vodka, and that was a little bottle I picked up at the gas station, and it did NOT do the job (but it was a .99 bottle).

[kitsune]

In the medical profession we use iso alcohol(or a derivative there of) to clean many, many things. we use it in a foam base to clean our hands.....many dozens of times a shift for the last 10 years (hasn't killed me yet). most chemicals are absorbed through the skin one way or another....at this point alcohol based hand cleaners are used for best practice.

To the best of my knowledge, unless ingested (drank or huffed) it is not harmful in smaller amounts..such as cleaning coils. since you are rinsing them well than would remove any remaining possibility of inhalation risk (minimal risk at worst).

In the hospital setting the only types of iso alcohol poisoning I see is by ingesting the contents of the bottle(Highly not recommended).

Personally, I use iso to clean any of my coils/tanks....great for cleaning the connection on the tanks and batteries too. I trust iso or vodka/etc for cleaning my coils etc.

I don't know that you will find concrete proof of saftey....But in my profession we use it for alot of things.

I know opinions are not facts, but.....hasn't done me in yet.....

[Rixter]

I use Everclear Pure Grain Alcohol, which is available at your local package store, is really cheap, and is not poisonous to ingest (or no more so than any other alcoholic beverage).

Probably the best reason not to use isopropyl alcohol to clean your vaping gear is because it sometimes contains ingredients that make it unpalatable to prevent people from drinking it. Those ingredients are bound to affect the taste of your juices.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Rixter

[skoony]

to clean my ce4's and 5's i rinse under hot water to clean out the juice.

shake or blow off excess water.

i then place them in a small tupurware like container and swoosh them around

in a shallow 50/50 solution of iso..

let soak for 5 to 10 minutes.

shake a or blow off excess solution and squeeze the wicks.

set in front of a fan and the"re dry in less than an hour.

iso evaporates a lot faster than water.

burn in the coils,assemble,and away you go.

residue if any left by the iso is so small it cant possibly hurt you.

regards

mike

[spydre]

I'm still pretty new, but I've yet to find a juice that a hot rinse, dry burn, hot rinse doesn't take care of. Even for the tanks and glass a good 30 seconds under the hot tap a couple of times gets rid of everything. It's worked on coffee flavors and black licorice...never tried on a cinnamon, but doubt I'll ever buy a cinnamon flavor...

Can't imagine what your doing is bad for you, considering the rinse and length of dry time you describe.

Oh, I've had several now. Inferno, citrus, French Vanilla Tobacco (that one is really rich), and though I've never put chocolate to the test, I just automatically so the vodka soak on just about anythingg now, since I'm using it anyway.With Ijferno and "jungle juice" (nasyy weird citru thing), even though the jungle juice hadn't been in the tank a full 24 hours, I even had to do the vodka treatment on the evod and Pro Tank assemblies, the taste clinged so badly, especially to the absorbant areas, like o-rings.

[irwink]

I think a lot of vape lore that warns against using iso alcohol for cleaning came about when people were trying to clean and reuse filler cartos. In that case it was believed the filler would retain small amounts of the iso that would then be vaped. I got used to using vodka for cleaning stuff back then but probably wouldn't worry too much now using iso for kpt coils provided I then rinsed them with water afterwards.

[spydre]

Oh, I've had several now. Inferno, citrus, French Vanilla Tobacco (that one is really rich), and though I've never put chocolate to the test, I just automatically so the vodka soak on just about anythingg now, since I'm using it anyway.With Ijferno and "jungle juice" (nasyy weird citru thing), even though the jungle juice hadn't been in the tank a full 24 hours, I even had to do the vodka treatment on the evod and Pro Tank assemblies, the taste clinged so badly, especially to the absorbant areas, like o-rings.

Okay, I seriously need to apologize for all the typos in this....and almost any other late night posting I make (except last Friday night/Saturday morning - I was up until 4 am). If it's a "school night" and it's near or after midnight, that usually means I'm using my Nook to post. I was using my cell phone to post, which was less error ridden because it had predictive text (but you had to CHOOSE the correct word, you don't get stupid auto-correct fails that result in totally wrong and dirty messages, and I think I would have ADD some of those words to my phone's dictionary), but the net on my phone, even using wi-fi, sucks the battery up like no tomorrow, and that's my alarm in the morning. The net on my Nook however, barely uses the battery, and I could surf the web (or forums) all night without a problem. So, I'm apologizing now for that HORRID post, and any others that appear in the middle of the night, or when I'm in the living room because the three of us (or the four of us when my oldest is home on the weekends) watching TV together during the commercials.

EDIT: Rixter, another reason I don't use ISO, and I only found this from research, it can cause ketosis, or at least ketones in the urine. They used to think the only reason that happened was from diabetes, but further research have shown other reasons for it, but I've had problems with it in the past. One cause for ketosis can be low/no carb diets (what your body is using for fuel affects ketones in the urine), but that's why they say only do Atkins or low carb diets for no more than six months at a time, too many ketones, or ketosis for too long isn't good for you.

Edited October 15, 2013 by spydre

[DarthV4per]

You shouldn't be using everclear, or vodka, you need to use 99% iso, soak them for a day at least, give a little shake, take them out and soak them in fresh iso again, and not wash off with water, just let them take them out, let them evap overnight, then put them on some kind of hot plate or in the oven on low. No iso will be left, you don't want any water to touch the coils(oxidation, residue from non reverse osmosis filtered water), and even everclear/golden grain is 5% water.

Edited December 15, 2016 by DarthV4per