We are experiencing air hole blockage on our distillate cartridges, can anybody help trouble shoot?

thanks for the feed back @tenaciousxtracts but i’m a little confused by your response. Our new oil mix is actually thicker " higher viscosity " and so your suggestion that our concentrate " isn’t receiving correct heat due to it’s lowered viscosity " doesn’t totally add up. You also suggest " thinning out " the oil , so are you actually suggesting that my oil is too thick? if you don’t mind clarifying that would be deeply appreciated.

“new oil mix” meaning you changed the recipe? Did you change the recipe before or after you started experiencing failures

it would be easier to explain in a diagram or drawing, you said you reduced your cut by 10%, used to be 10% terp and 10% viscos, now that you have less added liquid material your going to have a “thicker” oil i was using my viscosity terms backwards i apologize (brain fart lol), and exactly that the oil is too thick thus causing higher resistance making it harder to draw oil thru the intake hole, meaning youre going to need higher heat settings to draw the oil thru the intake hole and if its the wrong size intake hole or isnt meant for the viscosity you currently have even if the oil makes it to the ceramic coil it wont smoke correctly thus leaving you with the goobers in the mouth piece @concrete902

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@concrete902 your first potential reasoning is 110% correct

I use ccells for my “cheap” carts, v9 for the expensive carts

I am finally biting the bullet and moving to all authentic ccell. I can not find another cart than can handle 4-6% terps and a non-button style battery. Every other cart fails the test, even iKrusher

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changed recipe and then seems as though we experiencing failures but tough to isolate because we also changed our fill level - made it higher.

So there is a possibility the liquid inside gets pressurized (hydraulically) when the mouthpiece gets screwed on? You’ll need to do some testing buddy. Fill a few less and see use them see if they burp any liquid. To me if you changed the recipe and sop then you experience failures immediately after it would lead me to believe that whatever I changed is causing the issues if all other variables remain the same.

yes thats a good point - problem is there were 2 changes, one was fill level other was recipe but yes we just have to isolate those variables.

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Ah, the ol’ clogging issue.

It’s all too common. There are a few things that contribute to success or clogs.

Atomizer internal diameter
Thickness of the oil
Capping time
Push button batteries

Ok, lets start with the internal diameter. Some of these ccell knock offs have a different internal diameter, the ceramic element is a different size. When oil seeps into this area and hardens, it becomes a plug and clogs the cart. If the diameter is wider internally, the oil can spread out and form a thinner plug that can more easily be broken with mouth suction.

This leads into the thickness of the oil. If you have thin oil, when the clog happens, the “plug” is weak and is easier to break through with mouth suction. When that oil is super thick distillate, that plug is much harder to pull through. This applies to small internal diameter carts as well as better engineered carts like genuine ccells. The thicker the oil, the harder the plug, doesn’t matter which cart its in.

Speaking of flooding, flooding can happen at the very beginning of the process at the time the cart is filled. (It can also happen if the cart is exposed to high temps in any situation: car, direct sunlight, smoking hits back to back to back, or if the cart is opened and closed again after filling.)

If you’re filling your carts and not capping them immediately, you run the risk of flooding. Think about how a thumb keeps water in a straw. The cart is the straw and the cap is the thumb. If you don’t put the cap on asap, then the oil has a chance to run through the cart and clog the atomizer. If you put the cap on immediately, it creates a lovely little vacuum and keeps that oil right where it needs to be. If you’re filling thin oils or at a hot temp, capping is especially important. If your oil is thick, you have a slightly longer amount of time to cap. We recommend capping after every fill, or at least within 30 seconds with thick oils.

And lastly. If you do have pesky clogged carts, you can help that clog become soft with a push button battery. Push button batteries heat the atomizer without having to suck on the cart, allowing the clog to warm and soften so it can be broken more easily when someone takes a hit. Likely the cart will still gurgle though, but at least it will be functional. kinda.

We suggest possibly changing your formula to 4-5% viscosity and 9% terps, as well as following good capping procedures and making sure the carts don’t get too hot. We hope this helps!

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Just tried some ccells and have never had so many bad carts. Have been using the v1for 2years and have less than 1% failure. Ccells had 20%+ bad

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Where did you purchase your ccells? Are they laser engraved with a batch number and distributor name at the bottom?

thats very helpful I actual suspect it’s the capping time combined with our hotter required temp to heat our oil / higher viscosity recipe, its just hard to cap within 30 seconds because we ususally do 100 at a time in treys but im sure we can figure that out. We are using transpring glass cart with metal/gold tip i forget the actual model number.

Boom. 100 is wayyyy too many. I would say do 20 at a time max. Do they come in foam blocks? You can cut the foam blocks in 20 strips and have your filler fill 20, pass the block to a capper, have them cap the 20 and so on. The capper will probably get backed up so once that happens you’ll have to get 2 cappers on the job to keep up with filling sometimes. It all depends on the machine you’re using (or if you’re doing it by hand).

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oh ok wow, that would make total sense, we are using the ATG pharma hot fill machine.

yes they come in foam blacks

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The only problem with an xy robot filler Is that the foam blocks are too inconsistent with spacing and movement to work with the machines filler head sometimes. You can just get extra trays from ATG (they are expensive but worth it if it helps with your clogging issue) and fill 10 or 20 into the tray instead of 100. You would then switch out the trays after every 10-20 filled. I would say if you had 4 trays this could be a success.

we are using their manual filler not the robot arm

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Ah, there you go then! 20 strips will work perfectly for you.

What I’ve found is that higher viscosity mixes, or mixes that aren’t watered down, need a higher ohm cartridge for them to work correcty, otherwise unburned material collects and is sucked up like a straw. For it to burn correctly and still be decent tasting, I feel charts like these help to know the “sweet zone” I want to be in without burning material, depending on material, ohm, and battery. Just me $.02

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