Yes, you’re no doubt already aware; vaping’s not just a massively healthier alternative to smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes, but cheaper too. Yet, what you may not know is it’s possible to ensure it’s even cheaper – and, along with that, possible to enhance the flavour and quality of your vaping experience. It all concerns an e-cig device’s coil, which needs to be sporadically replaced over and again as it’s used and worn out – but what if you could lengthen its lifespan? Well, that’s exactly what you can do…
How long does a coil last?
The way in which you vape and the way your handle your e-cig device’s coil can dramatically lengthen the latter’s lifespan. For the most part, a new coil will likely last between one and two weeks but, by breaking in a new coil and using it with due care and sensible maintenance should extend how long it’ll naturally last – and this, obviously, will also save you mone over the long-term, as well as generate a fresher, better flavour when you vape that exciting new e-juice.
The importance of breaking in a new coil
Once, through use of your coil, you begin to experience a sensation or full-out taste that’s burnt, it’s definitely time to replace the coil. Contrary to popular belief, this replacement process can’t simply be carried out by just screwing off the coil, then screwing on a new one and merrily carrying on; instead, for a long-standing, satisfying, high-quality vaping experience, it’s necessary to prime a coil each and every time you put it in your device in replacement of an old one.
Priming a coil
So, prime a coil, first off, you need to dispose of the old one before screwing the next one into the device. This should enable you to grip the larger tank base when it comes to saturating the wicking material, which is your next step, during which you’ll need to identify the juice holes on the body of the coil’s head (it’s necessary to do so in order for the wick to make contact with your e-juice). So then, take your vape liquid bottle and – delicately does it – add a drop of the liquid in each of the coil’s holes so you might satisfyingly saturate the wick, while not forgetting to add a drop too inside the coil’s head so the wick’s centre is also saturated.
Now the device has been filled as it ought to be, you need to reassemble its tank, attaching it to the battery as you do so, before taking four or five dry hits – but be sure not to fire the device via it’s ‘fire’ button (to reiterate, the hits ought to be dry ones). Why do this? So, the vape juice from the tank can be siphoned on to the wick’s cotton.
And now having successfully saturated your e-cig’s wicking material, you’ll need to break-in the wiring. Note that the coil’s wire’ll naturally expand when it’s heated and then contract when it cools, so when it comes to using it for the first time, you’ll want to gradually ease it into its expansion phase. How to do this? Well, you should start out at a lower wattage than you usually would and take a number of shorter hits, before you steadily build up the wattage and length of the drags until they reach what’s normal for your natural vaping.
Good practices to increase a coil’s longevity
To ensure your vape coil lasts even longer, be sure to enact the following suggestions:
- Avoid burnt or dry hits – a hit that’s either unsatisfactorily burnt or dry will doubtless occur when you’ve not enough e-juice to in the tank so the coil can heat correctly, meaning then the coil (whatever its quality and type unfortunately, even Aspire coils aren’t immune) will end up heating the wicking material, inevitably then using it up faster and resulting in a less than desirable vaping experience. To avoid this:
- 1.Enact the priming tips mentioned above
- 2.Don’t over-press the firing button – should your vaporiser have ‘puff timer’ tools, use them; work out when to hold and release the firing button and be attentive of when your vape’s good to go so you recognise the sweet spot
- 3.Wait between three and five seconds between hits – the coil’ll need to cool and absorb more e-juice before it’s ready to generate more vapor; so, if you’re firing too fast, you might be leaving the coil dry rather than wet between hits (not good!)
- 4.Don’t run the tank down to empty – allowing the tank to drain all the way to its bottom before refilling it is simply asking for trouble, so try to remember it needs refilling at around the quarter-tank mark; that way, you should avoid dry firing
- 5.Whenever possible, remain at lower wattages – unless you’re working at a trick or competing (i.e. cloud-chasing), there’s not little need to vape at 200w-plus; you should be able to perfectly get by with 55-80W for most everyday vaping.
- Regularly clean the vape coil – just because your nice, new coil’s been installed, it doesn’t mean you can get away with ignoring it thereafter; yes, depending on how much you like to vape, you’ll find the coil’ll often tend to collect gunk, so forever vaping without cleaning the gunk off it is bad news, as I’ll inevitably affect the flavour and the taste. You can easily clean your coils by:
- 1.Blowing out any excess juice – removing as much juice as you can is paramount in getting the cleanest possible coil
- 2.Rinsing the coil under hot water – so you can wash away any leftover debris or half-heated e-juice that’s sticking to the coil’s sides
- 3.Shaking out the water – gently does it; shake out any excess water lying between the coil wraps, then let the coil dry on an absorbent material (being sure to give it a fair amount of time to dry thoroughly)
- 4.Attaching the coil to the vaporiser – replace the coil in the device and press the firing button until it totally heats up. Just as would when building the coil at first, be sure it heats evenly across all of the wraps
- 5.Repeating the heating process – allow the coil to cool for four or five seconds and then fire again; this should enable the coil to expand and contract, ensuring it’s fully cleaned before it comes into contact with vape liquid once more
- 6.Rebuilding your vape – finally, fill the tank up and get back to vaping as you naturally, happily would.