Anybody Use Ispopropyl Alcohol To Clean Coil Heads?

I have seen very different explanations of vapor production on ECF, sometimes quite weird. So, I decided to clarify a bit the process.

Disclaimer: I am not involved in any e-cig research, but I have some background in physics.

Aerosol – a cloud of tiny particles (for us – liquid droplets) in air. Each droplet is too small to be visible individually, but it reflects a tiny amount of light in odd directions and all droplets together look like a cloud or fog (clouds and fog are water aerosol).

Solubility. Solubility could be full (infinite), like PG in VG or alcohol in water, or limited, like salt in water. If solubility is limited, then saturation point exists – excess of salt will not dissolve in water, will stay on the bottom of the cap. If we leave a cap with solution, water will evaporate with time and more and more salt will settle on the bottom (like in Great Salt Lake). The same true for air. For example, water is soluble in air, but its solubility greatly depends on temperature. If after a hot humid day we have a cold night, amount of water which was good for air at high daytime temperature will become excessive for low night temperatures and excess of water dissolved in air should “settle” somehow; the result we usually see is dew or fog.

Human lungs are famous for their wetness and they provide exhaled air with a lot of water in gaseous state at the temperature of a human body. But when a human body is outside at low temperatures exhaled gases (warm air + gaseous water) are chilled and will contain excess of water, which will “settle” as tiny droplets, i.e. aerosol, and we will see clouds of exhaled breath. Nice evaporator, always with us (just add a cold room)…

Boiling. Easy explanation for single liquid system (like water). Heated to boiling point temperature water will boil and produce water vapor. A bit more complicated is boiling of two component liquid, like PG-VG mixture. Liquid will boil as a single system (no separate boiling of its components) at a temperature between boiling points of its components and it will produce vapor of both PG and VG.

Now to vaping. Coil heat liquid supplied by a wick and transfer it into gaseous state (by boiling). But this vaporized liquid can stay in gaseous state only in small area of hot air surrounding a coil. Air draw is chilling this gaseous mixture and PG and VG form tiny aerosol droplets, our beloved clouds.

What’s wrong in my simplified explanations. When multicomponent liquid boils it produces more vapor of its components with lower boiling point, sometimes much more. For example, if we vape 30/70 solution of PG/VG, then PG (boiling point 371 F) will evaporate much faster than VG (477). If things were going as I described above, pretty soon we will be vaping almost pure VG (PG will be gone). It could be even worse. Suppose we have a third component – raspberry ketone (raspberry flavor) with boiling point of just 284 F. It should be gone in no time and most of the tank will be left flavorless.

Fortunately things are a bit more complicated then were described (a bit more complicated than my ability to comprehend them fully). In reality we have a mild overheating and a mild undersupply of liquid by a wick, plus mostly unidirectional liquid movement along a wick. In these conditions boiling produce vapor which is much closer in it composition to composition of a juice.  

Hey all, I have just upgraded to the Nautilus tank and my first choice of juice was a peppermint candy cane that I made. It's very good however I am getting burned out on it but when i tried to clean everything and put in a new coil it still tastes and smells like peppermint. I have tried everything, grain alcohol, hot water soak nothing seems to work!!! I love my tank and want to use different flavors but this is really starting to pee me off! I am half tempted to use a mild solution of bleach just get the flavor out!! but that I think would not be a wise decision

anyone got a solution to try?  

I've read many of the hysterical posts about the wick material in Aspire BVC coils. But I've gotten used to all the chicken little hysterical threads on ECF over the years. In the case of Aspire BVC coils I believe the hysteria to be unwarranted. If you believe it then read no further.

I've been using a Nautilus and Naut mini for a few months now. I can afford the BVC coil replacement cost but decided as an old school vaper to try to recycle them rather than just tossing them. I realize that some have managed to rebuild them but I decided to attempt simply re-using them in stock condition. I certainly don't expect many people to adopt my method but here it is for those who might. You'll need an ultrasonic cleaner.

In retrospect my first step was likely overkill but I'll find out with the next batch. My first step was to force warm water through each coil assembly with a dental water pik. I then placed all the rinsed assemblies in a small ultrasonic cleaner having filled the tank with hot tap water. The ultrasonic cleaner was purchased a few years ago in an attempt to recycle cartos. That attempt was doomed to failure.

My inexpensive ultrasonic cleaner runs three minute cycles and shuts off. Given that I probably went through enough cycles to equal 60 minutes total cleaning cycles with 4 or 5 water changes. When the tank water started to remain clear the coils were allowed to air dry for ~48 hours.

The result is that I am vaping one of these recycled coils and the performance is identical to a factory fresh coil. The first 10 or 12 hits carried a somewhat off taste but then cleared completely. This is FWIW. YMMV.  

With a "special" shout-out to Michael Bloomberg, Trump and Alex Azar.

‘Banned’ Flavors Are Absolutely Available
Store owners and employees describe keeping flavors on shelves in a variety of ways
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As the moral panic/public health crisis around vaping continues to swirl, these third-party pods are regarded with a high level of suspicion, because no one really knows what’s in their e-juice.
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And from Wikipedia, Prohibition:
prohibition... actually causing the creation of large-scale, well-funded and well-armed criminal syndicates.
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Grape juice was not restricted by Prohibition, even though if it was allowed to sit for sixty days it would ferment and turn to wine with a twelve percent alcohol content. Many folks took advantage of this as grape juice output quadrupled during the Prohibition era.
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To prevent bootleggers from using industrial ethyl alcohol to produce illegal beverages, the federal government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols. In response, bootleggers hired chemists who successfully renatured the alcohol to make it drinkable. As a response, the Treasury Department required manufacturers to add more deadly poisons, including the particularly deadly methyl alcohol, consisting of 4 parts methanol 2.25 parts pyridine base and 0.5 parts benzene per 100 parts ethyl alcohol.[84] New York City medical examiners prominently opposed these policies because of the danger to human life. As many as 10,000 people died from drinking denatured alcohol before Prohibition ended.
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Making alcohol at home was common among some families with wet sympathies during Prohibition. Stores sold grape concentrate with warning labels that listed the steps that should be avoided to prevent the juice from fermenting into wine. Some drugstores sold "medical wine" with around a 22% alcohol content. In order to justify the sale, the wine was given a medicinal taste.[86] Home-distilled hard liquor was called bathtub gin in northern cities, and moonshine in rural areas of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. Homebrewing good hard liquor was easier than brewing good beer.[86] Since selling privately distilled alcohol was illegal and bypassed government taxation, law enforcement officers relentlessly pursued manufacturers.[87] In response, bootleggers modified their cars and trucks by enhancing the engines and suspensions to make faster vehicles that, they presumed, would improve their chances of outrunning and escaping agents of the Bureau of Prohibition, commonly called "revenue agents" or "revenuers". These cars became known as "moonshine runners" or "'shine runners".[88] Shops with wet sympathies were also known to participate in the underground liquor market, by loading their stocks with ingredients for liquors, including bénédictine, vermouth, scotch mash, and even ethyl alcohol, which anyone could purchase legally.
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So I've been vaping 4.5 years now. Really still a low watt tootle puffer. I probably vape 6ml or so a day now and that has been as high as maybe 10 ml a day. For about my first 3 years I vaped 50/50, for the past 1.5 years mostly 70/30. Not one cig and yes, all bad physical signs from ciggies have appeared gone for ages now. All my juice has come from very well known suppliers.

I could/should? have taken a couple pics but I think I can describe the situation adequately.

I drive a 5 door Ponitac Vibe. I got it in Jan before I started vaping in April of 2015. So yes, I did smoke in this car for about 2.5 months. Still, I've Vaped in it Daily for at least 20 min a day for 4.5 years now.

Yes, I AM probably a pig but I still haven't felt the need to clean the inside of my car windows until recently. On the drivers inside window I've noticed a clear, flaky film on my window, bad enough that it's started to actually flake off. Interesting. One important note, I had the full inside tinted the month I bought the car so the windows were essentially sterile when I started vaping inside the car.

I critiqued things carefully. The film was by far the worst on my window. Next came the window Behind me. Next came the front passenger window with the cleanest being the passengers rear window. This makes perfect sense as the car HVAC is 100% aimed at me. There Really Is Nothing Else the flaky film can be but vape residue. Arguably very similar to what has actually been going into my lungs. Again, medically, I have no known respitory issues.

My tint peeps said clean with just warm water with a few drops of Dawn dish detergent. You'll recall that Dawn is what they use to get crude oil off of birds caught in oil spills, how be it much stronger amounts of Dawn than I'm using. So I got some micro fiber and *important* water As Hot As I Could Stand, Easily 130-140F and a dribble of Dawn in about a 1/2 gal container. This again was the reco from the tint folks to not damage the tint when cleaning it.

Now comes the scary part.

VERY Hot Water, light Dawn and Heavy elbow grease with the micro fiber were Barely Able to remove the vape residue. These were WAY WORSE conditions than I EVER want inside my lungs (to clean). Honestly, it took Three Heavy go arounds to get probably 95% of the residue off. Even Worse was honestly, I don't think the Very Hot water and Dawn were effective At All against the film. (??!!) Most of the film came off from elbow grease After the window was dry from any cleaning juice. Pg and Vg are Supposed to be water soluble and Water Soluble IS what you want near your lungs. My personal experience here Does Not bear out the Totally Water Soluble point, at least not to me anyway.

This is pretty damn scary if you ask me. I enjoy vaping but this will have me switching to 3mg juice Soon in preparation for quitting. As I said, I've already been decreasing my vape amounts before this.

I am not a Dr or a Chemist but I am fairly certain of this.

What I was almost not able to remove from glass was definitely vape residue.
It is logical to assume the same deposits that were on that glass are inside my lungs. BOTH have been exposed to vaping the same amount of time.

Honestly, to me, thus means a Much Higher Chance of some serious respitory issues from long term vaping.

Bruce in Ocala, Fl  

I just got my new vape kit and it is a Vaporesso drizzle kit (the small one).
I have easily been able to take the top off but recently I actually noticed the airflow valve that you can open or close, and somehow I never noticed it was there and now that I do, I have huge problems trying to take the cap off also considering its a super small (ring) that you need to twist it just wont come off. I tried the rubber gloves, the alcohol, and the hot water but none of them did anything.  

Hey All,

I just bought this: Sonic Wave Ultrasonic Jewelry Eyeglass Cleaner CD 2800 | eBay

It looks like a basic cleaner with on/off. So I need some help! I did not see the ability to program cycles.

How much should I fill out of the 1 possible pint?
What should I use to clean tanks? A guy who works next door says he uses cheap vodka.
How do I steep liquids with it? One of the main reasons I bought it was for the capability to steep some of my juices with it.  

I can't make myself drink water and coconut water taste like dirt to me. What else is good to keep you hydrated?  

I remember seeing a few threads some time back saying that ultrasonic cleaners are awesome for almost unlimited use of stock coil heads. My question is, why hasn't this gotten more popular with the advent of expensive coils? Does it not work as well? I'm curious. I might pick one up if it's awesome for stock coils. It'll pay for itself in 2 packs of coils. Thoughts?  

(mods feel free to move this if needbe, not sure where it should go)
So, i just spent 800 on a new faux suede sectional. tried for the life of me to avoid it, but the inevetible happened and some hawk sauce dripped on the cushion... if you have ever owned a faux suede couch you know how rediculous getting anything out of it is... nearly impossible. ALAS! i have the solution that i could not find anywhere! the trick: get a bottle of rubbing alcohol. apply a TINY amount, just a bit more than the spilled juice, take a cloth, blot at it for a minute, then get your vacuum, and suck it all up. it will take a couple tries but i got most/all of it out in a few tries. do NOT scrub at it though, just lightly blot at it and vac, and repeat. great results on a mocha colored couch of faux suede (polyester with a small amount of polyurethane)