GP HERON UPDATE

Mine arrived yesterday and I've been experimenting with it for a while now and sufficiently vaping way too much as a result .

I'm extremely happy with it overall - just need to suss out exactly how much filler material is required etc... and I haven't tried a cotton micro coil build just yet.

HOWEVER - there is one thing that is Really irritating me about it so far.. and that is that it gurgles  and I absolutely hate gurgling atomisers - they really get on my nerves.. but not just hat - after a few vapes on it the condensate builds up to such a point that when you take subsequent vapes from it the mere act of sucking up the vapour causes juice to be spat into your mouth and there's a horrible gurgling - which necessitates you removing the cap and cleaning out the inner bore of the mouthpiece tube.

This cannot always be resolved with just giving it a puff down the tube to clear it out either - I know I have tried that - sometimes you can give it a good blast down there and it won't clear out the condensate..

It does get really bad - if you take the filler section off and suck gently through it it'll behave just like an old penny whistle!!!  :(

I really like this atomiser but it's a pain in the .... to have to partially disassemble it every twenty minutes to clean out the bore in order to enjoy your vape.

I've had a good look at the atty and I've identified what I think is the problem..

I have to ask Perseas - is there any specific requirement for this part of the mouthpiece pipe? - Inside the main bore of the pipe there is a smaller bore section approximately 1mm smaller than the main bore..  is there a special reason for this section - or is this maybe an incomplete machining process?

I ask because it is this section causing all the problems..

You see after a while condensate builds up in the mouth piece - I have never had an atomiser where this does not occur - In fact I think it's impossible to vape and not generate condensate in some form or another..  I have a few  spheroids and condensate occurs in  the drip tip well of tem also - but this gurgling never occurs  and the obvious answer is that the spheroid bore is a 3mm bore approximately all the way down  and basically condensate gets to run down the sides of the bore --- BUT crucially the bore itself is wide enough for the meniscus / surface tension properties of the juice to not take hold..

The smaller 2mm inner bore is small enough that the juices cohesion properties makes it just stick there causing a partial fluid lock - which then you have to suck later vapes through that juice barrier and you get bubbling and gurgling as a result..  and it gets to the point when you can have quite a lot of juice condensate pooling above that section to overcome  :(

I'm going to try boring mine out with a suitable drill bit to see if that gets rids of the problem  - I'll report back if it does..

OK - I took mine out to 2.95 mm - which is slightly smaller than the 3mm bore - for me this has TOTALLY solved the problem!

No more gurgling..

No more juice in the mouth and the only side effect is that the draw becomes marginally less tight - but thanks to the excellent design on the adjustable airflow that is not a problem at all.....

Now this has become my favourite atomiser by far...

A slight word of warning though - anyone having similar issues - do not attempt what I just did unless you know you are competent enough to do it..

I've got many years of mechanical engineering experience and a certain level of ....-suredness that comes with it -  to let me do this with a battery operated drill - a good drill bit and just holding them in my hands!

If you have or know someone with a lather who's competent enough to not mark the atomiser then that would be the best option..  :)

DarthPistachio

Thank you very much for this detailed analysis!

You're right, although the reasons for gurgling are many times the way the filler is putted causing over-wicking and/or a weak battery that creates partial vaporisation and condensation is gathering inside the bell. We designed this section for compressing the vapour further, but the gurgling shows that we weren't right. We shall produce an updated bell the next weeks and we'll send it as a replacement to the owners of the Heron. I strongly suggest to the Heron owners to send us NO email about it, when we shall send it, if we can put it inside an order, etc. 

The sooner we make it, the soonest we'll send it to the initial owners at no cost on behalf of them.

Perseas