When Should I Change Out My Coils? Our Expert Answers Your Questions

How Long Do Vape Coils Last?

And how to change vape coils... when I first started vaping I actually bought my first vape mods in a store and picked up an atomizer that was tank based. If I recall, it was a Kanger Protank II Mini. The lady was very nice and showed me exactly how to replace the coils/atomizers when they went ‘bad.'

My first question to her was of course “How long should they last for?” She told me 4 to 6 weeks. Boy was she ever wrong. Within 7 to 10 days and after multiple refills on my tank based atomizer that there was a significant difference in my vaping experience. E-Juice kept popping into my mouth from the atomizer, my vapour production was very weak, and the taste was awful.

I knew in my heart that it was time to change the atomiser coils, but according to the lady I had a solid 3 weeks left with my coils before I need to even think about changing them out. After a bit of research, I realized it depends really on how often the atomizer is used, which, of course, made sense as the more you used it the faster the coils would fail.

After going through what seemed dozens up dozens of replacement coil heads for the tank based atomizers, I’ve come to a shortlist of ways to extend the life of these coils:

1. Use a lower voltage/wattage if possible. It seems the hotter these coils got, the shorter amount of time they actually hold up.
2. Use a higher PG concentration E-Juice
3. Avoid super sweet E-Juices when possible. Sweeter E liquid also tends to gunk up these coils and ruin wicks much faster than more subtle and bland flavours
4. Avoid darker E juice as well. Dark colored E-juices for some reason does the same thing as thicker and sweeter E-Juices with the coil heads.
5. Rinse out your coils and don’t submerge them in water or alcohol when changing flavors. It was my logic to remove the flavor completely from a previous E-Juice I needed to submerge the coil heads overnight to completely get rid of the flavor. The only thing this did was ruin the coils faster. If you really want to, try not rinsing the coils at all when changing flavors. I did this and it seemed make the coils last longer than rinsing it out.

How Long Does A Vape Coil Last?

There’s also a list of things that are a huge no-no when using these tank based atomizers as it will ruin your coils right away.

1. Never fire your E-Cig or vaping mods when your tank is empty. This will burn out your wicks and the taste of burnt wicks will not go away at all. This is also a fire hazard. If the wicks are completely dry, it could catch on fire.
2. Never push too much wattage into these atomizers. Although this has never happened to me personally, I’ve seen cases where some users were curious to see what would happen if they ran 30+ watts of power into their coil heads. What happened was the insulator actually melted as they were not made to withstand the high wattage.
3. Don’t take apart your coil heads at all. I’ve read some online tips on how there is an extra layer of wick called the flavor wick and by removing it, it helps with intensifying the flavor and vapor production. Honestly it may do this, but you are risking the atomizer flooding, that is the E-Juice leaking out through the airholes.

All of these tips are not just for Kanger coil heads, but they reflect Aspire’s as well as Innokin’s bottom coil clearomizers as well. Needless to say with how fast I was going through these coil heads I was at a lost considering the amount of money spent on a blister pack of coils. I looked at possibly rebuilding these coil heads with my own wiring and wicking.

Keep in mind although this is doable, it is considerably difficult and somewhat dangerous for novice vapers. If for some reason, there is a short, depending on the device you are using could short out the battery and that’s never a fun time. Also, the amount of space you have to actually rebuild is very small, dare say tiny even. Not impossible just very difficult and something I’ll be covering in a different article at a later date. Be on the lookout and stay tuned!