Cleaning atomizer coils has been one of the most common – and most annoying – e-cigarette maintenance tasks for just about as long as vaping has existed. Even back in the day when people were buying pre-built 510 and L88 atomizers at up to $10 a pop for dripping or for using with disposable cartridges, folks were cleaning their atomizers. I’ve even written a lengthy coil cleaning guide for this site, which I’ve linked to above.

The thing about coil cleaning, though, is that not everyone is sold on its benefits. Pre-built coils for a sub-ohm tank aren’t cheap, but they’re a lot less expensive than standalone e-cigarette atomizers used to be. Some people are content to just throw them away when their performance begins to suffer. Others believe that the results you can get from cleaning your coils just aren’t worth the effort. The problem, however, is that most people aren’t putting forth nearly enough effort to get their coils truly clean. You can’t just leave your coils in a bowl overnight and expect them to come out free of coil gunk; it’s not that easy.

Once your coils are finally clean, you’ve got to deal with the second problem: water. This isn’t just a “water and wires don’t mix” situation, although it’s certainly true that you don’t want to just start vaping with a wet coil. You also don’t want to inhale vaporized water because it tastes horrible and will mess with the operation of your tank.

Today, we have a product that makes coil cleaning easier because it does the entire process for you – washing and drying your coils automatically – in just 30 minutes. Not only is it infinitely easier than cleaning your coils manually, but it also promises to do an infinitely better job than you could do yourself just by dropping your coils in a bowl of water and agitating them periodically. The best part is that it costs under $60 and ships free. That product is the ROBO2020 automatic vape coil cleaner, a pretty awesome device that costs about the same as a few bottles of vape juice.

Before I discuss the ROBO2020 in greater detail, I’d like to talk a bit about the problem that it addresses. Let’s dig in!

The Problem: Vape Coils Don’t Last as Long as They Used To

The reason why you need a better way to clean your coils is because, if you don’t clean your coils, they’re costing you a fortune. Atomizer coils may cost less today than they did during the early years of vaping, but they definitely don’t last as long as they used to. If you ever used a 510 atomizer back in the day, you know that those things could last for weeks. Today, you’re lucky if you get more than a day or two out of a coil designed for serious cloud chasing.

Why is that?

The problem is coil gunk. That’s the dark, thick residue that collects on your coil as you vape, slowly robbing the coil of its flavor and vapor production. At first, coil gunk manifests itself as a caramelized sugar flavor that gets stronger and stronger as you continue vaping. Eventually, though, the layer of residue becomes so thick that it prevents the e-liquid from flowing efficiently. You end up experiencing a burning sensation in the throat – like you’re getting dry hits – even though your tank is full. Vaping becomes extremely unpleasant, so you change your coil.

The crazy thing is that, if you’re a really heavy vaper, the entire process of coil degradation can happen in less than a day because the primary factors influencing how quickly coil gunk forms are how much e-liquid you use and how sweet your e-liquid is. These days, just about every experienced vaper is using extremely sweet e-liquid with a high-end tank. The result: extremely poor coil life.

As nasty as coil gunk might be, though, it doesn’t have to mean that the coil is dead permanently. Under all of that residue, the metal is just fine. If you could dissolve the residue, you’d have a perfectly good coil that would be almost indistinguishable from a new coil.

Why the ROBO2020 Automatic Coil Cleaner Beats Cleaning Vape Coils Manually

So, we’ve established that cleaning the residue off of your coils can make those coils work almost as well as new coils, thus allowing you to use your coils several times – instead of just once – before throwing them away. That’s a huge potential savings.

The problem is that most people don’t realize how difficult it is to break up all of that gunk; you need a lot of agitation, and heat also helps. You can’t just drop your coils in a bowl of water overnight and expect them to come out looking shiny and new. You need to agitate the coils constantly and keep the water hot for the best possible results, and most people don’t have the patience to do all of that work to extend the life of a $3-4 coil.

Well, the magic of the ROBO2020 coil cleaner is that it does the work for you, so cleaning your coils doesn’t require any effort at all. All that you need to do is pop your coils in the cleaner, add some water and start the cleaning cycle. The ROBO2020 uses a heating element to keep the water hot and provide agitation. The water breaks up the gunk, revealing the clean metal underneath. When the cleaning cycle is over, just dump out the water and start the drying cycle. In a few minutes, your coils are ready to use. It only takes a half hour, and it doesn’t require your constant input like manual coil cleaning does.

ROBO2020 Automatic Vape Coil Cleaner Review: Final Thoughts

At $59.95, the ROBO2020 coil cleaner is a bit of an investment. These days, you can buy a pretty good mod for that amount of money. At the same time, though, I’ve been vaping for more than a decade at this point, and I’ve seen the overall cost of vaping creep up and up during that time. The main thing driving vaping expenses up these days is the fact that virtually all mainstream e-liquids are heavily sweetened. Meanwhile, just about every vape tank is designed to put out enormous clouds. Coil gunk makes everything taste horrible, so everybody needs new coils constantly.

Put differently, let’s suppose you spend $3.00 on each coil, and you use a new coil every day. In that case, you’re spending more than $1,000 per year just on coils.  That’s a crazy amount of money – and the coils that you’re throwing away are still perfectly good. They’re just dirty.

In that sense, I don’t see how you can call a device like the ROBO2020 coil cleaner anything other than a spectacular investment.