Most of today’s pen-style vaporizers have disposable coils, don’t get me wrong, replacing used up coils probably is the best way to achieve the best results from your vaporizer but what if you’re in a position where you can’t easily replace or purchase new coils for your vape pen? Well, today we’re going to talk about how you can recycle used up coils and clean them instead of replacing them altogether. This article is intended to help vape pen users especially wax concentrate consumers to preserve and maintain their wax vaporizers’ coils and atomizers to extend and prolong its overall lifespan. What better way to get total value out of your vaporizer that to get the most out of its reusable components?
One of the best examples of a vaporizer that has reusable coils is Yocan vaporizers. A lot of their vaporizers feature interchangeable and durable coils that are perfect for pretty much progressive and cumulative use.
Yocan is a company based in Shenzhen, China, and is focused on providing smokers with an affordable and a healthier alternative to vaping. Their products are made from high-quality materials and are manufactured following the highest standards with “IQC, IPQC, LQC, and FQA in mind.” All their products “have passed CE, RoHS and FCC certifications.” Yocan ensures that their vaporizers are made to achieve and meet the highest standards even for the connoisseurs in the vaping industry.
It’s good to bear in mind that the reason I’ve selected wax pen vaporizers for this coil cleaning guide is because wax concentrates are extremely notorious for messing up your coils. Thicker waxes are stickier and will leave residue on your coils and in the general areas of your atomizer immediately soon after you finish vaping. Although coils, in general, are meant to be disposable, some of them can be reused after a little bit of cleaning. Though a word of warning, you can’t expect your coils to be as clean as when they were out of the box but occasional and even regular cleaning can surprisingly extend the lifespan of your coils. Here’s a step by step guide on how you can get started in cleaning up your coils.
Why You Should Clean Your Coils?
We know that cleaning your coils will save you money in the long run. If you’re a daily dabber like me then most likely you’ve allotted a specific budget to vaping wax concentrates and simply adding more for atomizers after every two weeks or so isn’t exactly practical since wax concentrates are much expensive considering the procedures involved it takes to process cannabis to a condensed and thickened form.
Apart from saving money, regularly cleaning your coils will save you from inhaling substance buildups that can be accumulated over time. Material buildups are the main cause of those bad tasting hits that make you feel like inhaling stale and musty air from your parents’ basement. It’s healthier, inhaling material buildups “mitigates irritation of our mucosal linings” which causes discomfort when vaping and overall, poses potential health risks.
Preparation
Cleaning doesn’t have to be expensive, you can get yourself some cleaning kits online but some household materials do the job as well as those sold elsewhere so gather some of this stuff to prepare for your cleaning.
- Isopropyl alcohol (preferably a 99% solution)
- Lukewarm water
- Paper towels
- Alcohol wipes
- Cotton swabs
- Two empty containers
- Paperclip (or preferably your dab tool)
- Newly charged batteries (doesn’t really count as a household material but you’ll use it for burning off leftover wax)
Cleaning
So now that you’ve got your materials ready it’s time to bring out your used up Yocan coils. In this guide I’ll use my used up Yocan Evolve wax coils, they’ve been sitting in my Yocan Evolve vaporizer for almost a week now and they’ve accumulated a good amount of wax through the course of the week.
First, what you’d want to do is to remove and separate the coil from the battery, in this case, you have to twist the threaded connections to take off the coil from the vaporizer itself. Once you've secured the atomizer and the coil you’d want to do a bit of wiping especially around the threaded area and around the atomizer. Once you’re done wiping this area with a clean and dry paper towel you may now take a good amount of isopropyl alcohol and fill your empty container at least to a point where the coils can be soaked and proceed to submerge the coils into the alcohol-filled container and leave it for a couple of hours.
After the coils take an isopropyl alcohol bath you may give it a little shake which helps in ousting and dislodging those hardened build ups. After which you may take them out of the container and dry it with your paper towel, although as a tip, using a rubber air blower also helps remove thickened wax. After they’ve dried up you can use a small brush to lightly graze the coils and further remove those nasty buildups. Depending on how much material your coils have accumulated, you may repeat this process until you’re satisfied. Keep soaking your coils since steeping them in alcohol will help loosen up that wax concentrates. Once they’re cleaned, dunk them on another filled with lukewarm water and leave them out to dry, I usually leave mine for half a day.
After drying out your coils, you may replace the parts back again for one final touch. You’d want to attach the coils to a fresh set of batteries for your burn off, this is so that you’d burn some of the chemicals that could be left on the coils.
Your coils are finally good for another run. You may be wondering what those cotton swabs and paper clips are for right? Well, aside from cleaning my Yocan coils I also clean the mouthpieces around the same time. Dab the cotton swabs onto the alcohol and wipe the inside of the mouthpiece, the paper clips are for unclogging the air holes where resin and wax could have accumulated over time.
Final Thoughts
Cleaning your coils could be a fun and -- not to mention, money-saving -- an easy task. Regular cleaning will help you get the most out of your Yocan vaporizer and entirely gives Yocan products greater value amongst other vaporizers in its class.
