Prick Up Your Ears: Tell-Tale Signs Your Vape’s Not What It Should Be

It might not occur to you initially – given that vaping’s an activity that, sensory-wise, is so focused on taste – but whether or not your vape’s progressing as it should can be determined just as much by what your ears tell you as what your taste buds tell you. How so? Well, if your pride and joy you’ve purchased from a vape shop UK isn’t doing what it should, there are tell-tale noises to listen out for – and easy fixes to put things right…

That reassuring hiss and crackle

For the most part, the lovely combo you hear when you pull on your e-cig, vape pen, mod or pod – a hiss and a crackle – is the reassuring sign that’s all well and your vape’s going smoothly and tastes right. To hear those two noises means that the device is functioning exactly as it should; the vape juice in the tank is being correctly heated by the coil. And yet, there are probably times when your ears can detect when those noises, together, don’t sound quite on song; when they don’t sound quite right.

When the crackle’s that bit too loud or not loud enough, for instance – or when the hiss is barely audible or, yes, there’s just no hiss at all. When you encounter these noises (or lack of them), what does it mean? And what should you do to put the issues right?

When the crackle’s gone wrong

As noted, there’s nothing wrong if you hear, along with the aforementioned hiss, a soft, steady crackling sound when you take a drag on your device. To hear that is to be safe in the knowledge that everything with your vape’s correct. And yet, not every crackling noise is good news.

So, should the crackle, to your well-tuned ears, sound too loud, it could be a sign that the wattage is too high, ensuring the e-liquid in your tank’s being forced to too high a temperature – so, yes, you simply need to turn down its setting. Does the crackling cease when you turn the wattage down? If so, problem solved.

But what if it doesn’t? Should the crackling persist in this scenario, you’d be well advised to check the device’s coil, for if you discover the coil’s worn out and ‘dead’ it won’t be capable of properly heating the e-juice, which could well mean you might hear popping and spitting in addition to louder-than-normal crackling. Moreover, if you do have a dead coil on your hands, your taste buds will almost certainly betray it – you’ll get that awfully unpleasant bitter, burnt taste in your mouth as you try to vape.

Silence is golden?

The flip side to loud noises can be just as bad news… sorry. If you’re trying to vape via your device but there’s no sound emanating from it at all (not a hiss or a crackle to speak of), what might be up? What to do about it? Well, chances are that a soundless hit will go hand-in-hand with practically zero vapour production – and to get to root of this problem there’s nothing for it; you’re going to have to take your device apart.

There’s a good chance, in this scenario, that you e-cig or mod is clogged up somewhere. Be sure then to check both the tank and the coil that rests in it so you can ascertain whether there’s any e-juice stuck there, having turned to gunk, and preventing the generated vapour from making it out of your drip tip.

Alternatively, it could be your device is soundless when trying to vape juice you’ve bought in an excellent e liquid sale simply because its battery’s run down too low and needs to be switched with a fully charged replacement (always try to remember to carry replacement batteries with you when you’re out and about!). Plus, as above, a dead coil could be the culprit behind no sound – and, again, if this is so, the burnt hit taste will be all too obvious.

Always keep your device clean

And so to our epilogue… the final word has to be about keeping your device in good working order and that means, like it or not, giving it a regular clean. Your cleaning routine’s really your friend when it comes to maintaining that reassuring, normal hiss and crackle and staving off too loud a crackle and no noise at all when you vape. And, yes, this means taking your device apart and cleaning each constituent part individually – hop to it!