Protank 2 sucks

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Lurch

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Most of the problems with the pt2 (not the mini) stem from rthe poor airflow the base provides.

I put the aerotank base on all 3 of my pt2's and it made them an acceptable tank.

Solved the airflow issues as well as the constant dry hit to flooding/leaking propensity my pt2's had prior to replacing the bases.

I can vape them from full to dry without a problem now.
Another one trilled with the aero base on PT 2’s. Works well for me. Hope you find something that works well for you.
 

DaveP

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I'm vaping a PT2 on my Provari right now. The head is one that I rebuilt with 32ga Kanthal and an organic cotton wick. It's a consistent 2.2 ohms and it's producing medium sized tasty clouds at 5.5w. At 6 watts it's too much vapor for my liking when the coil is new. Cotton really wicks well. With a good coil, a Protank is hard to beat.

The reason I'm not vaping my Aspire Nautilus or my Kanger Aerotank Mega is the lack of factory coil quality. I think what happened with the Aspire and Kanger heads could be tracked down to welded wire coils. My supplier bought a large quantity of Aspire and Kanger heads from her wholesaler several months ago. Both the heads for those air flow style tanks were failing with rising resistance that finally resulted in an open reading on both brands.

I finally traced the rising resistance problem down to welded non resistance legs on Kanthal coils. The coils were failing from 2 hours to a day after install. I finally discovered by taking them apart that in all cases the weld where the resistance wire coil was welded to the non resistive legs. When you pull the pin and the post insulator grommet you find that one of the legs comes out with the grommet or it's inside the atomizer body. When you look at it under a magnifier you find that the break always occurs at the point where the wires were welded. There's a little blob on the wire on both sides of the coil and one leg is broken at that point.

QC is a problem with part quality from China at times. I'm thinking that someone is making the no-res leg coils for both companies since the same problem occurred across two brands. Since these were probably a short lived lack of QC I'm not hearing about it on ECF. Anyone seen this problem?
 
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edyle

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I'm vaping a PT2 on my Provari right now. The head is one that I rebuilt with 32ga Kanthal and an organic cotton wick. It's a consistent 2.2 ohms and it's producing medium sized tasty clouds at 5w. At 6 watts it's too much vapor for my liking when the coil is new. Cotton really wicks well. With a good coil, a Protank is hard to beat.

The reason I'm not vaping my Aspire Nautilus or my Kanger Aerotank Mega is the lack of factory coil quality. I think what happened with the Aspire and Kanger heads could be tracked down to welded wire coils. My supplier bought a large quantity of Aspire and Kanger heads from her wholesaler several months ago. Both the heads for those air flow style tanks were failing with rising resistance that finally resulted in an open reading on both brands.

I finally traced the rising resistance problem down to welded non resistance legs on Kanthal coils. The coils were failing from 2 hours to a day after install. I finally discovered by taking them apart that in all cases the weld where the resistance wire coil was welded to the non resistive legs. When you pull the pin and the post insulator grommet you find that one of the legs comes out with the grommet or it's inside the atomizer body. When you look at it under a magnifier you find that the break always occurs at the point where the wires were welded. There's a little blob on the wire on both sides of the coil and one leg is broken at that point.

QC is a problem with part quality from China at times. I'm thinking that someone is making the no-res leg coils for both companies since the same problem occurred across two brands. Since these were probably a short lived lack of QC I'm not hearing about it on ECF. Anyone seen this problem?

Maybe "weld" got translated into "solder". And that's not farfectched when you consider most of those factories are doing electronics where soldering is the norm.

Yes; a disturbing notion.
But 'blob' on the wire? That sounds like solder to me.
 

CallmeB

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Well I did get my PT2 to vape wonderfully. I rewicked with different cotton but I don't think that was the problem. It's just a fine line between too loose and too tight. My PT2 has pretty good air flow now that I widened those 2 holes on the base 510 screw. Before widening they are 1/32" I believe. I doubled that to 1/16" Still not super airy I like to adjust my vapor production by pulling harder or less hard. After the rewick it's been going strong for 2 days with no leaks.

I think it becomes much harder to wick at a large enough size to block liquid from flooding the tank if you wind coils too small and if they are too big the wick soaks up too much juice and every bump will cause a drop to fall out of the wick into the kanger coil chamber.

I really hope this Fogger V4 is a nice tank. I want the Russian 91, but sheesh that is an expensive tank. $80?
 

DaveP

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Maybe "weld" got translated into "solder". And that's not farfectched when you consider most of those factories are doing electronics where soldering is the norm.

Yes; a disturbing notion.
But 'blob' on the wire? That sounds like solder to me.

I was a field engineer/ tech rep who worked on high volume laser reprographic products that used welded leads on thermistors and sensors that sat next to high heat in high volume 180ppm laser printers and other products that used heated fuser systems. They usually employed a spot/tick weld done in arc style with no blob when something was in close proximity to sensor in 350 to 450 degree environments. I assume those welds use sudden high heat that fuses the metals together. This was a blob on the wire, so probably soldered.

I assumed that wire welding would be the method of choice, but it's definitely a tiny blob where the NR wire is attached the the R wire. That little blob of (I assume) silver solder is also right under the two ends of the coil, making the solder joint take the heat of the coil when vaping. You'd think that they'd allow a little room for clearance to stay farther away from the hot part of the coil and maybe add a silicone sleeve for insulation like we see on the dual coil heads. Dry burning is out of the question with the current compact NR-R-NR design. My Google searches report that silver solder melts at 450 degrees. A red glow on a dry burned coil is going to approach 800F-900F.

My recoil with 32ga Kanthal is still performing superbly using the standard TS3 single coil body. There's a little extra flavor from dual coils but a good single coil is hard to beat.
 
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edyle

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Well I did get my PT2 to vape wonderfully. I rewicked with different cotton but I don't think that was the problem. It's just a fine line between too loose and too tight. My PT2 has pretty good air flow now that I widened those 2 holes on the base 510 screw. Before widening they are 1/32" I believe. I doubled that to 1/16" Still not super airy I like to adjust my vapor production by pulling harder or less hard. After the rewick it's been going strong for 2 days with no leaks.

I think it becomes much harder to wick at a large enough size to block liquid from flooding the tank if you wind coils too small and if they are too big the wick soaks up too much juice and every bump will cause a drop to fall out of the wick into the kanger coil chamber.

I really hope this Fogger V4 is a nice tank. I want the Russian 91, but sheesh that is an expensive tank. $80?

chances are you're twisting the cotton and it's too compressed;
"less is more with cotton" is the mantra we keep hearing; turns out letting the cotton run more on the loose side works.
put loose cotton in there and what happens, especially with high vg liquid, the cotton expands when wet with eliquid and you get no flooding.

i drilled out my miniprotank airholes to about 1/16inch also; more tightness comes from the atomizer centerpin hole, or from too much cotton flavor wicking blocking the flow of air.
 

CallmeB

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Well I have to admit that my protank has been preforming superbly for the last 2 days. As good as any tank I've ever used. I think there is just a sweet spot when it comes to wicking those coils. Also I don't think I will ever mix higher than 60/40 pg/vg. I am really liking the vapor I get off 50/50 and too much pg makes the liquid too think and it leaks more. I swear since I started vaping I've leaked at least 5% of my juice out on my hands. Pretty annoying.
 

DaveP

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I stopped by the local B&M and picked up some heads yesterday along with a Protank Aero base. I liked the Nautilus and Aerotank mega so much I had to have a base for the PT and PTII. It does solve the problem of PT airflow through the threads to the hole in the bottom of the atomizer pin and supplies the full range of air flow that should have been available in the original design. I'm sold.
 

DaveP

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Remove the coil, drill the holes out around the 510 connection, use a dremel and deepen the air channels, micro coil (28AWG 7-8 wraps), cotton, fill & vape.


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That will help as long as the threads don't bottom out in the mod. IMO, the $4 air flow base solves the problem elegantly. I agree with the cotton wick and the recoil. I do that AND use the air flow base.
 
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CABBA

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That will help as long as the threads don't bottom out in the mod. IMO, the $4 air flow base solves the problem elegantly. I agree with the cotton wick and the recoil. I do that AND use the air flow base.

Very good point. Thanks for the suggestion. I just ordered 2 of these air flow control valves. Because even with the drilled out holes and deepened channels the airflow on my PT2 could be better, not to mention that it's not nearly as clean a look as these air flow control valves.
edu5y5e7.jpg


The cotton wick and microcoil is definitely the way to go. When I first started I bought the premade coils and was not impressed at all. With a microcoil and cotton the vape quality is good for me. Now what to do with all these coils? Even my protank mini is quite good with the same coil setup. Drilling out the air holes in the mini helped a lot. I'm now using my Protanks more and more when I want to be low key or low maintenance.
Still can't compare to a Kayfun or similar RDA/RTA but it's a good vape.


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DaveP

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Very good point. Thanks for the suggestion. I just ordered 2 of these air flow control valves. Because even with the drilled out holes and deepened channels the airflow on my PT2 could be better, not to mention that it's not nearly as clean a look as these air flow control valves.

The cotton wick and microcoil is definitely the way to go. When I first started I bought the premade coils and was not impressed at all. With a microcoil and cotton the vape quality is good for me. Now what to do with all these coils? Even my protank mini is quite good with the same coil setup. Drilling out the air holes in the mini helped a lot. I'm now using my Protanks more and more when I want to be low key or low maintenance.
Still can't compare to a Kayfun or similar RDA/RTA but it's a good vape.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Recoiling with a micro coil and cotton wick is definitely a big improvement over the stock coils, especially at a time when OEM quality is marginal to poor. I'm saving all my expended coils in a zip lock. I recoil a few at a time with cotton wicking and I'm enjoying the flavor and the vapor.
 

CallmeB

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Yeah my leaking was due to a few things I think. First I was getting juice in the center hole. Just a drop, but then that was leaking back into my coil. Also I was vaping 80/20 or 70/30 juice which is ofc very thin. I've started mixing only 50/50 for my protank and using the light stuff in my Fogger V4. I haven't gotten it really perfected yet, the V4. It certainly puts out some hella vapor, but tends to run dry on me. I think the juices I've tested with it were too thick and it is distinctly possible that I am doing something slightly wrong with the wick. For only $28 USD I don't think you can go too wrong with this one though.

Oh, I'm using a mulitmeter to test my coils and I am pretty sure it isn't accurate enough to be trusted. Wrapped a 5 turn 32 gauge at 1/16 inch and it was reading 3.5ohms. Yeah I expect a slight variance, but that is impossible. Gonna have to get one of those dedicated ohm tester dealies that everyone uses in the videos.
 

antony73

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I had given up on my Protank II. Just sick of it leaking! I remember being in a very hot restaurant and it just leaked all over the place. I took it apart there and then, cleaned it all up with paper, but it was the same. Gurgling, leaking, spitting liquid in my mouth. Terrible. So I started using eVods. I bought 6 of them.

Reading this post, I remembered that I have two aerotanks in my vape box. I've just gotten them out now and filled the Protank only 1/4 full. It seems fine. I'll give it more time and see what happens. But this could be the answer.

Thanks :toast:
 

DaveP

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I had given up on my Protank II. Just sick of it leaking! I remember being in a very hot restaurant and it just leaked all over the place. I took it apart there and then, cleaned it all up with paper, but it was the same. Gurgling, leaking, spitting liquid in my mouth. Terrible. So I started using eVods. I bought 6 of them.

Reading this post, I remembered that I have two aerotanks in my vape box. I've just gotten them out now and filled the Protank only 1/4 full. It seems fine. I'll give it more time and see what happens. But this could be the answer.

Thanks :toast:

Protank tends to leak and gurgle when it's half full or less. Top it off and it's good until then. Another thing that happens frequently with a bottom coil tank is condensation in the air tube. When hot vapor is inhaled up through the cooler tube, condensation forms. You can tightly twist up the end of a paper towel and insert it into the drip tip all the way down to the air tube on the atomizer coil and sop up all that moisture to stop the gurgling. If you don't, it will continue to drip back into the coil and flood it.

I have to do that about once a day with most bottom coil tanks. When I do the flooding is gone.
 
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