Learning how to prime a coil can preserve its service life and make the taste of your vape juice even more pronounced.
Pro vapers never fail to clean their coils and atomizers or change them when they get old; some even customize their atomizers and coils to get the best e-liquid flavor. But one thing most vapers fail to do (even pro vapers) is prime their coils. It’s a simple but necessary process, as the vape coil will significantly affect the quality of vape you get on any device.
What Is A Vape Coil?
The vape coil (or wire) is the part of a vaping device responsible for heating your e-juice; it is the most essential component in any e-cigarette. The coil is a spiral-shaped wire wound around the wicking material of a vape device. It is held in place by an atomizer head, which also connects it to the battery.
How does a vape coil work?
When you power on your device to vape, the battery is engaged to heat the coil, which in turn vaporizes the e-liquid in the wick (mostly cotton, also other materials). The material gets saturated when the vape tank is refilled. If something goes wrong with this mechanism, there’ll be no vape clouds, or the wire may get damaged. Priming a coil is one way to ensure nothing goes wrong.
What Does “Priming A Coil” Mean?
Priming a coil means ensuring that it is thoroughly soaked with vape juice before vaping. Without priming, you’ll likely get dry hits. A dry hit vape occurs when the cotton or wicking fabric in the wire hasn’t absorbed enough e-juices. This scenario mainly occurs with new coils/atomizer heads: the wicking fabric is completely dry, and vaping right after installation could cause severe damage to the wire or add a burnt and unpleasant taste to your vape juice.
Priming essentially allows vapers to manually soak the wicking fabric entirely from all angles before vaping commences.
How To Prime A Coil?
Here’s how to prime a vape coil effectively:
Step 1: Wet The Cotton Through The Opening At The Top Of The Atomizer Head
It’s normal for atomizer heads to have an opening at the top. This opening leads directly to the wirel and cotton wick, as you will see if you peer through the hole. Once you can see the wicking fabric, take your e-liquid and apply it through the hole to soak the wicking fabric. You can use a drip tip or a needle tip to apply e-juice one drop at a time and stop when all the wicking fabric you can see is soaked with vape liquid.
Step 2: Apply E-juice Through The Wicking Ports
Atomizer heads always have little openings (called ports) that help draw in e-juice from the tank of your vape device; the wicking fabric inside is equally visible through these openings. You must add vape liquid through these holes from the outside for better priming. Make sure to apply in all the holes you can see.
Step 3: Assemble Your Device and Fill Up The Tank
Next, assemble the atomizer and the rest of your vape device. Once that’s done, fill up your tank with e-juice using a bottom-fill or top-fill procedure (this will depend on what kind of refillable tank you’re using). Remember to stop filling at the recommended tank level as indicated by the horizontal mark.
Step 4: Take A Few Dry Pulls
When you inhale from your mouthpiece without pressing the fire button of your vape device, it’s known as a dry pull. Since you don’t fire up your device, the wire doesn’t heat up, and you don’t get any vapor. However, this step is relevant for priming, as it sucks liquid through the wicking ports. Take 3 to 5 dry pulls, but don’t suck too hard as this could flood the coil chamber.
What Can Happen If You Prime A Vape Coil Improperly?
Knowing how to properly prime a coil is very important, else the results will be counter-productive. Here’s what happens when you don’t prime properly:
- Poor priming can cause your wicking fabric to burnout, especially when you’re using a high wattage.
- Oversoaking the wicking fabric or flooding the wire chamber can cause gurgling sounds or leaking when you vape.
- Improper priming can cause a dry hit or a burnt taste when vaping.
How Long Do Vape Coils Last? – When To Replace Vape Coils?
The average lifespan of vape coils is two weeks. However, the ease with which your coil goes bad largely depends on your vaping frequency.
If you only vape once or twice a week, your coils may need no changing. Still, vaporized e-liquids leave residue, which can clog up your device over time. The best way to tackle this is to clean your vaporizer frequently.
It’s best to change vape coils every two weeks so you keep getting a fresh, original taste from any e-juice.
Priming A Coil – Final Thoughts And Tips
As much as you want to properly soak your coil so it doesn’t burn out, you wouldn’t want to fill a tank with so much e-juice that it gets flooded. So in priming a coil, try not to go too far with each step.
If you already installed a new wire and filled your device with e-juice, allow it to sit for a while (say, 30 minutes). This takes care of all the priming steps aforementioned and is a good alternative for vapers who don’t know how to prime an atomizer. And even after priming, it’s best that you start with a lower amount of power before returning to your regular vape settings.