Whats In There?

[mcquinn]

Could someone who has done a postmortem on a 510 cartomiser give us the 411 on whats in there?I am particularly interested in the filler material .Is it something a person could make a pattern out of and possibly replace when it starts to burn?I know this kind of sounds silly as they are supposed to be thrown away but it does not seem that is what you guys are doing with them.A lot of time has been spent trying to find ways to refill them but I have never seen any posts about restuffing one.I would gues the element should have an equal lifespan as a regular atty.I have just ordered some of the ones with the rubber plugs but have not recieved them yet.Pictures if you can.

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[Resa]

I haven't killed one yet! I thought I burnt one but decided to try cleaning it before I tossed it. I soaked it for a couple hrs in some Absolute, blew it out & let it dry overnight, then filled it... it's vaping like brand new, no burnt taste at all. I cleaned my other one the same way cuz it was getting hard to draw on and got the same result, vapes like new.

Mine have the glued in caps but I used the boiling water method to pry them off so I can swipe them a couple times a day with mouthwash, I was worried about germs. I've been using the same 2 cartomizers since the 12th, so I'm on day 13 with them.

Keeping them filled seems to be the key to long life for these. I'm using tiny 3.75ml glass dropper bottles from eliquidplanet to carry my liquid in, and the dropper tip is small enough to fit in the hole & makes refilling really easy. I just use 1 to 1 & 1/2 droppers of liquid whenever the vapor production seems to die down. No mess!

[Brian]

Here ya go. This one was still working okay @ 5V, but it's one of the first ones I used (one I peeled the black cover off).

What's inside.

The filler is thin layers - not sure what the material is. I had to cut it to get if off.

Trying to fan the filler out so you can see it.

The coild.

The piece of cloth with the hole burned in it was warpped around the coil.

[mcquinn]

thanx those are some good pix.Would you say the cloth is more like a tshirt ,pillow case or tea bag?So what I am seeing is the vapor is created in the filler and you draw through the filler material to the opening in the mouthpiece.Is there a baffle to keep from getting a mouth full of juice?I was expecting the element to be sideways for some reason.

[Jeffb]

Great pics Brian!! Thanks for sacraficing a carto for us.

[Brian]

Here's a few better pics of the filler.

[Brian]

It seems more like... insulation. I'm really bad at expaling this. From the "stringyness" of it, it's more like fabric, but texture wise it's more like fluval. Just pulled out some fluval and what comes stock in the 302 carts and it's somewhat similar to that.

No baffle, but I have yet to be juiced with one of these. I think the filler holds the juice well so you don't get juiced unless you overfill it.

Edited April 25, 2010 by Brian

[mcquinn]

Hmm ,I wonder why they put the piece of cloth with the hole burned in it in there?It is different than the filler but if it is just going to burn away I am not sure why it is there,unless it just keeps the element straight and clean until assembeled.I guess my main question got answered though .It would be way too difficult to restuff one.I do like the suggestion of cleaning them out with alcohol to keep the flavor fresher.

[Brian]

It's a more paper like then the filler material... more like a tea bag (not the PTB, a regular one), but much thicker. I'd go as far as to say it seems like it would be more absorbant. Maybe that's what draws the juice to the coil?

[mcquinn]

Thanks again for giving an atty for the team Brian.I was impressed how clean the coil was all of them I have seen are pretty crusted over.

[Brian]

Quite welcome. That's ones been sitting in my ash tray for a couple of weeks. I've been meaning to try and take it apart, just never got around to it. It didn't work well at all on 3.7v, but did pretty good at 5v. Not big loss.

[ddavelarsen]

I haven't killed one yet! I thought I burnt one but decided to try cleaning it before I tossed it. I soaked it for a couple hrs in some Absolute, blew it out & let it dry overnight, then filled it... it's vaping like brand new, no burnt taste at all. I cleaned my other one the same way cuz it was getting hard to draw on and got the same result, vapes like new.

Mine have the glued in caps but I used the boiling water method to pry them off so I can swipe them a couple times a day with mouthwash, I was worried about germs. I've been using the same 2 cartomizers since the 12th, so I'm on day 13 with them.

Keeping them filled seems to be the key to long life for these. I'm using tiny 3.75ml glass dropper bottles from eliquidplanet to carry my liquid in, and the dropper tip is small enough to fit in the hole & makes refilling really easy. I just use 1 to 1 & 1/2 droppers of liquid whenever the vapor production seems to die down. No mess!

This is very good info Resa! Thanks so much. I'm not big on maintaining attys because it's never seemed to gain me much except -- dead attys. But then, I don't do anything until it's way late anyway.

Brian, thanks for the great pics. I'm kinda with mcquinn on this one, not likely to try to repack one. But it's sure cool to see the tech.

[NeRo9k]

Thanks for taking the pictures. It's always nice to get a little more insight into the products we use everyday!