Got my Volt yesterday... Help?

[Sedateme]

Got my Volt in the mail yesterday afternoon. Pro starter kit so 2 batteries, pcc, and 5 cartos. The juice I ordered from gourmet vapor came at the same time. I was stoked and ready to go!

I tear through my packages, get everything set up, and start vaping. Took a drag (pre-filled cappucino... wasn't great, but not terrible either) and went back for a 2nd. The end of the 2nd drag was really hot. Tried a 3rd drag and it was so hot I thought I burned my lips. I'm brand new to all of this, so I figured I just had to let it sit for a bit between drags. Same thing: first drag is fine, 2nd drag gets hot, a 3rd is out of the question. I went to smokeless image's website, and hit the live chat button. The rep I spoke with asked if I was trying to use it more than 3 times in one minute. That gave me the idea that I was simply trying to take too many drags in a short time. I said I would keep using it and get back in touch with them if it seems to be a constant problem. She said if it does keep getting hot, it might be faulty batteries.

I started watching the clock and spacing drags out by time. I have to wait almost a full minute between drags, or the end of the 2nd drag gets very hot, very fast.

Reading through the forums here, juice type seems to be have a vast effect on the performance of your vaporizer. I took a couple of carto's, boiled them out a few times to clear the pre-filled juice, dried them in the oven (low and slow, just like ribs baby!) and they came out clean and dry. Loaded up some of the gourmet vapor juice, and got the same results. Tried all the carto's I had on both batteries that I received, same results.

Before I made the purchase, I did quite a bit of reading, and watched a few video reviews. In every vid review, the reviewers take these huuuuuge pulls and blow out enormous clouds of vapor with the Volt. If I try to do the same thing, I get extremely hot vapor. I inhale slowly for 3-5 seconds.

Is this normal? Simple user-error? Or do I have 2 bad batteries?

 

[BlueMoods]

Try not pulling so hard and, do give it 15-20 seconds between drags. Also, try keeping juice in the fridge and loading it cold, that might help get to at least 3 w/o blistered lips.

 

[Ehvam]

While overworking an atty/cart can definitely cause heat that way, this seems excessive on all counts. Excesively hot-I usually overwork my pvs, but its rarely gotten so hot I can't vape it. Excessively quick- usually you have to really overuse them to get that hot- I mean alot of drags/puffs in the space of a few minutes.
Don't get me wrong, it all gets hot, hot enough to feel really hot on your skin if you touch it with your arm, but this all sounds a bit extreme.
I've found that its usually a dying atty that does this, especially LR atties, but your using carts.
Its also weird that two batts would arrive faulty. Very weird.
Instead of diagnosing, let me offer a suggestion- drip tips. I am sure someone makes drip tips that fit those carts, and let me tell you they are great. I use them when I use carts cause I like hot vapor, but don't like hot lips. Fact is, you are new and may be more aware of the heat than those of us who have been doing it awhile. So maybe a drip tip is the way to go. Also, pull more gently for shorter times. I find that sucking really hard can cause excessive heat as well.

PS, I just took long drags off of my cart without the drip tip and placed it up against my wrist, yeah the cart was way hotter than I realized. Get a drip tip, suck softly..remember the drag on a PV is different than the drag on a analog. Its gentler, just enough to bring the vapor to your mouth.

I am sure others will chime in. Welcome to Vaping! Enjoy the ride!

 

[Sedateme]

Thanks for the responses!

Just for some clarification: I am dragging slowly for 3-5 seconds, and the carto isn't getting hot. It's the vapor itself that is almost burning my lips. I can touch the end of the carto right after getting a hot pull and the end of the carto is fine.

Edit: Could it be the carto's? Would it be possible to have 5 carto's that run hotter than normal?

 

[keifer]

I have a volt and I can chain vape 10-12-14 drags in a row, for instance, and the carto gets warm, but nowhere near hot. i'd send it back.

 

[Ehvam]

Vapor too hot at 3.7 volts? Man, I wish that would happen to me!
I have had that happen though- sometimes a new cart or atty will be really hot at first, almost too much. It not just heat too, its a weird feeling. but as the atty/cart wears in, that eases up.
Thats what it sounds like to me. Just go gentle at first and in alittle while, you'll find the vape cooler and some improved vapor production. I think its because at first, the coils are clean and exposed. But after a few drags they get a little caked residue which helps. Something about the way the air feels coming of the fresh metal makes it really hot and uncomfortable.

 

[tmcase]

What is the resistance (ohms) of the cartos you are using? I had this same thing happen to me but I was using a what I thought was a SR resistance atty. Found out it was miss marked and was really a LR atty.

 

[dormouse]

Get yourself a couple of 510/901/KR808D-1 plastic or delrin drip tips at LiteCigUSA.net and try replacing the white end cap with the drip tip (not to drip into! just as a cool mouthpiece). Or as a more invisible solution, cut a small circle out of the end of a carto "condom" (silicone carto end cover), and put it on the mouth end of the carto - the hole will let the vapor through and the silicone will protect your lips.

Sometimes when good warm cartos are new they can get kind of hot on the lips. I think Smokeless Image cartos are around 2.6 or 2.7 ohms. Vapor4Life WOW cartos are hotter at 2.5 ohms. Some cool ones are the Vapor4Life Coolcart blanks.

If just one carto has the heat problem, then it is probably damaged and has crossed wires inside or some other problem, eliminating the resistor or whatever that slows down the current flow/heat. If you poked anything inside (like if filled with a syringe) that is also one way to cause a problem if the syringe pushes two wires together in there. If just the one carto has the problem, toss it.

Also - fresh off the charger, all ecig batteries are higher voltage for a short while. A KR808D-1 is a real 3.7v device and is actually 4.2v right off the charger and will vape hotter then.

As you add juice to the carto and reuse it a bit, it should become less hot because the coil inside will get a bit gunked up and vaporize less efficiently.

And I take several drags one after the other. You do not have to take one drag per minute - that is bs. However, if the carto is getting really hot, I would also check if it needs juice to prevent singeing it.

 

[dragonladee]

I've been using my volt for 6 weeks now. I've never had to be careful about how I take a drag. When the cartos are getting dry they do feel warmer to me, that and the change in taste is how I know it's time to juice em up. But if I'm reading right it's the vapor that feels hot to you...not the hardware?

I'm wondering if it might be juice itself that's bothering you?

What types of juice are you using? Perhaps there is something in PG or VG that is irritating you. Or perhaps flavorings like cinnamon?

 

[Standpoint]

It may be due to the liquid you are using. I have put about 8 different liquids through my Volt cartos, and gotten varying results for flavor, heat, and taste. The liquid that comes with them I've had no issues with. Johnson Creek liquid tends to give me a weird almost burnt taste after a few days of refilling, I suspect the flavoring is the problem. I have another flavor, Cloud 9 Hypnotik, that works fine in my 510 and eGo, but in the Volt the liquid almost insta-burns. It gets too hot for me to vape. This could be your problem.

Otherwise, the problem could be a bad batch of cartos, or battery.

 

[Sedateme]

Well it sounds like my experience is not typical of this model. I submitted a ticket on their website. We will see what happens from here. Thank you all for the help!

 

[CGlassford]

Yeah, that's gotta be a bad batch o batts. Those guys are great, I'm sure they're gonna treat you right.

Good luck!!

 

[Sedateme]

They are sending me new cartos, with the logic that if it's happening with 2 different batteries, it's probably not the batteries. As far as juice goes, it happened with the pre-filled carto's from SI, juice from gourmet vapor, and juice from mad vapes.

 

[Sedateme]

Things have gone downhill very fast since yesterday. One of my batteries will not turn off for 30 seconds after I take a drag (first time this happened I took the carto off right away), and all but one of my carto's are leaking. 2 day old kit. I can't even say that I've got one fully functional battery/carto combo, because I still have the original issue with extremely hot vapor.

 

[Dan Patrick]

I am about to order one of those systems to play with, I have heard nothing but good things. Sounds like you have had some really extreme problems with it. They should just let you box it up and send the complete kit back and try again. This is why most of us have a back up system now. For around 30 dollars you can get an ego, atomizer and a drip tip to keep you up and going. Passthru version and LR atties are a plus IMO.

 

[Sedateme]

Funny you mention the eGo. I was just looking into it. Right now I just want to box up this Volt and get a refund. But it is the weekend so I've got wait until monday to hear back from SI.

Any recommendations on an eGo starter kit? Or just google it and pick one?

 

[Ranger Six]

Actually, Sedateme, I've had decent luck getting in touch with SI's customer-service folks, even after hours.

Matter of fact, I got a similar setup to what you had, and my problem was with the PCC - it would show even fully-charged batteries as either not present or present with minimal charge. I told their customer service folks about it, and they're shipping a new one to me. (In fact, I was talking with them around 7:30PM EDT last night, and I got the tracking information for the replacement PCC around 9PM EDT. Now that's some good customer service right there!)

It's probably just a bad batch of batteries and/or cartridges - my guess is that while they were in good enough shape to pass QA at the shipping end, something went wrong in transit that turned what would normally have been a minor (and, I'd wager, normally-unnoticeable) defect into something a little more serious.