The photo is of a disassembled cart that died a slow death in it's third gram. It's a months old 2.4 Ohm cart from an Omicron V1.X. This was otherwise very nice 69% East Coast Sour Diesel oil from Harborside. It got slower and slower until I finally gave up and drained the last out and started over with a new cart. Instant success. The cause of the problem is easy to see:
What you see is the bottom of the furnace body on the left, with the bulk heater wound around the outside. Rotated out of place (it goes into the slot at the bottom of the body with the wire inside) is the main or vaporizing heater. The ends of the wick stick out the slots into the area outside where the bulk heater is (and all the hot oil waiting to feed). The vaporizing heater is wound around the wick in the center. It's under that big old scab made up of the junk in the oil that has deposited there when the other stuff vaped away. There's the junk from almost 3 grams there, toward the end all the vapor had to be blowing up the pores in the surface like some strange moon around Saturn or a comet too close to the sun. The deposit is quite hard, it's been soaked in ISO for a while and had a couple runs through the ultrasonic sink. Notice the oil drawn from the wick.
The bottom is sealed with a rubber disk of material like the mouthpiece with a hole for the lower tube to enter. This seal is the one that most often causes grief. If the oil gets past it along the wick the only way out is down into the socket from there unless you're right there and suck it out the top. Not much better, really.
As I see it there's no way to stop this (short of better oils and this one was pretty darn good) or remove it once it's there. This means the carts will not only die eventually but they will degrade getting there. I'm thinking it's like oil in your car, you need to buy more and change it out before it breaks down?
Anyway, I also thought you guys might like to see what it looks like inside.
OF