f13.net

So I'm not sure exactly how many smokers with have on the board, but have any of you tried vaping yet?  Instead of smoking you use an eCigarette to heat nicotine-laced water into vapor and inhale that (hence vaping).  I bought one two days ago and so far it's going good.  Does anyone else have them?

Does it fill the need?

Might as well call this thread Nerfbait.

Can you smoke them on airplanes?

I mean, "vape" them.

The vaping industry needs a new verb.

To reply without quotes, it does work well, but takes some getting used to.  With cigarettes being 6 bucks a pack over here, it makes sense to switch.

People actually vape on planes, they just blow the smoke vapor into their shirt or something.  I would never have the balls to pull it off myself.

In the most prominent ecigarette forum there is a whole subforum of people's experiences smoking them in public.  Most of them are titled:

Vaped at Costco
Vaping at Walmart
Vaping at Work?

Most of the experiences are surprisingly positive, even when law enforcement is involved.

They work fine.  I think it's funny that so much effort was put into making it look so much like a cig that it's in the Uncanny Tobacco Valley.  Need THC capsulses for it.

Do the fumes carry the same chemicals as normal smoke? Since you didn't both to link to anything, I have no idea what this amounts to.

Funny, I bought a vaporiser to let me smoke other things without using tobacco.  :awesome_for_real:

Works great if you're vaping the right kind of stuff, i.e. fairly sticky buds. Does not work with dry, powdery or solid stuff.

Try this (http://www.herbalsmokecafe.com/herbal-smoking-blends.php) for the latter.

Here are the ingredients of the e-liquid I just bought:

# Propylene Glycol
# Glycerol
# Distilled water
# Nicotine
# Vegetable Glycerin
# Natural and Artificial flavors

You exhale water vapor, there aren't any carcinogens or nasty chemicals.

I suspect it will still be subject to scrutiny if it picks up and eventually banned the same as cigarettes are in most establishments.

The FDA is trying to meddle with them because they have the necessary power. There is no detriment to having them in a business establishment, I imagine people would welcome the alternative.

It's also fun to vape at your desk at work!

What the heck is that stuff? Years ago when I was still smoking several dealers all moved over to something that kinda looked like buds and my friends all thought it was buds, but I knew it wasn't. Pretty sure it was something like they're selling, which would make it ironic (legal) and tragic (not stoning).

Interesting, I'm going to try it. Probably not the most ideal thing to remain addicted to nicotine, but at least there aren't carcinogens, tar, or whatever the fuck, etc..

In the last few years, a lot of scientists have been saying that nicotine is just as dangerous as tar because of how significantly it accelerates Atherosclerosis.  At least you don't smoke your tobacco in a hookah.  I hear that's really bad for you!

You would think, had that been proven, that it would be in the wikipedia entry for Atherosclerosis.

Edit: Instead, it got a few footnotes with little to no elaboration.

Nicotine is probably really bad for you... if you're a fetus.  :oh_i_see:

No really though, first things first!

My sister worked in a library for 18 years.  She's the one who tells me all this stuff.  She also is all new agey medicine-y and I have a cupboard full of weird tinctures and stuff that you stick in a teapot.  Blame her.  She is her own walking talking bossy wikipedia!  I believe everything she says.  I have to!

Do you assholes want to live ninety (maybe!) miserable years or seventy awesome ones?

At the rate I'm going, 50 totally awesome ones. Other than 2009.

Walking is good for you! Builds up lung capacity so you can take in more smoke.

Bout damned time someone made this thread.

So, Ecigs, they're pretty fucking great, just not from the factory.  I got one for my brother back in May as a birthday present, and found out pretty quickly the 'stock' ecigs are balls.  After the 2nd battery died inside of 3 weeks, I decided it was time to start makin' shit.  First attempt was to do away with batteries altogether, we're computer nerds, might as well power it off USB.

Button placement is ass, but it hit like a freight train and its always at full power.  Honed the design down a side-switch the next time, and made one in a box with a retractable cable.

Next was the problem of having something to smoke when you're not in front of your computer or lugging your laptop around.  The batteries that come with the stock ecigs are 3.6v rechargeable li-polys with a 180-350mA rating.  The atomizer coils draw a bit over an amp, which is why these batteries don't last very long.

Found these flashlights at autozone, 2 for $5, after a bit of soldering and epoxying, I had my own portable 8+ hour ecig:
Runs off rechargeable 14500 or 18500 li-ions, heavy usage gets you between 6 and 12 hours between charges.  The batteries are 2 for $5 from dealextreme, beats the hell out of paying $12 for an ecig battery that dies after 2 weeks.

I've honed em a bit since that first flashlight, the ones I'm making now are called "The Showcase" and look a bit like this (warning, alpha version pic):

My USB direct connectors have evolved as well, I've found they work really well in these little enclosures, and come in nifty colors!
All in all, I've been doing the ecig thing as a business since the beginning of June, right now I just make custom mods (pictured above) for people, and am the sole supplier for the brass connectors that the atomizers screw onto for people who want to make their own.  I've got wholesale accounts with most of the main chinese suppliers, so if anyone wants OEM stuff on the cheap without paying $20+ to have it shipped, just ask.

If you're looking at trying it for the first time, the main models that you should stick with are the 801 and 901.  There are really only about 5 actual ecig models that everyone just rebrands, and I've found these two to work the best and be easy to work with.  I personally prefer the bestecig.com products, they manufacture their atomizer heating coils thicker than the others, and the damn things seem to last forever, even at double the OEM voltage.  The BE112 is the 801, and the BE901 is the 901.  The 801 will give you an easier draw and more flavor, the 901 is a bit stiffer but bigs you a bigger chest/throat hit.  Less airflow, hotter vapor.

If you're like me and do your due diligence before buying something, you're going to run across people talking about the hot new thing, the best ecig in the world, etc.  You'll see names like "The Screwdriver", "The GG", "The Prodigy", "The Silver Bullet", and so on and so forth.  They're all going to run $140-$200.  Don't waste your fucking money.  They are all exactly the same thing, with the minor exception that some of them are actually dangerous and might explode in your hand.

The only thing that makes an E-cig an E-cig is the atomizer.  That's it.  Aside from that, all you're doing is hooking up a power source to power the atomizer.  I'll gladly walk anyone who wants to know how through the process of making one of these, if you've got the tools it's really not that hard.  Or you can buy mine, for a hell of a lot less than $140.

If you order your juice and atomizers from china, a pack-a-day smoker can expect to spend about $30-50/month on e-smoking.  There are currently no U.S. manufacturers of atomizers or e-juice, if you order it stateside, you're paying a 400%+ markup to get it a few days sooner.

The manufacturers charge the same for all of the different strengths of nicotine juice too, so your best bet is to order the 36mg stuff and cut it propylene gylcol, which is about $25/gal.  Don't use glycerin/vegetable glycerin, it clogs up the atomizers something fierce and will kill them quick.

Nerf, I think you have the makings of an eBay success story here.  I've been considering these since the last hike in cig prices (I smoke a lot less than I used to, but I'm still approaching $100/month).  If I take the plunge, I may want to get one of yours.  Are you building around an electric toothbrush chassis?  If so, you could get a lot of color variations pretty easily.

--Dave

Until the EPA and FDA get together and nuke him from orbit.

I appreciate how the best models all look nothing like cigarettes, but with society being a bit wary with ecigarettes that look like cigarettes, models that look like flashlights are little too out there right now.

I'd like to smoke something that looks like a cigarette, right now I have a crown seven which I think is a 901.  It's great so far but I'm not looking forward to cleaning the Atomizer, and I'm also patiently awaiting my juice.  Juice is definitely a requirement for these things, the regular carts suck.

So Nerf, if you create something that looks somewhat like a cigarette (and works brilliantly) I will give you money.  Otherwise I'm going for a yeti next.

Are you using e-cigs as a full replacement for smoking or as a step to complete stoppage?

If I wanted to stop, I'd have stuck with the patches or the gum.  I want a cheaper fix, and not looking at emphysema or cancer would be a nice bonus.  I don't give a damn if my weird-looking delivery device draws stares, those flashlights have a certain degree of bling-factor and you could decal or paint them to boot.

--Dave

I can stop smoking randomly for 6ish months with almost no desire to smoke again. And then I will smoke 1 cigarette and instantly begin smoking a pack a day.

The real limitation is the battery, I am working on a much smaller housing thats just barely larger than a AA battery, but I'm probably going to have to get it machined.

The ones that look like cigarettes are cool, but the novelty wears off pretty fast.  Using cartridges sucks, you get really inconsistent hits at best, lots of shitty ones at worst.  Dripping 2 drops of liquid at a time directly onto the atomizer is the way to go, but liquid eventually seep down into the automatic switch and fries it.  There are manual batteries with a button instead to solve that problem, but you're still looking at the issue of discharging a 200mA battery at ~6C and getting a couple hours between charges.

For home/work use, you want to use a USB ecig, they're also much cheaper than the portable battery op ones ($25 vs. $75)

The one barely bigger than a AA works for me, I don't think it's something I'd engage in if I'm taking hits off of something that looks like a screwdriver.

What about one of the flashlights based around a pair of CR23 batteries?  Or wedging a couple of CR23's into a single-AA flashlight casing (you'd have to find about 1/2 inch of space somewhere, some of it could come from the spring)?  There's only about 1.5mm difference in diameter.

--Dave

If you mean the CR123s (16340), its a bit wider than than 14500, but not quite as long.  Li-ions all follow the same nomenclature for their names according to size.  The first two numbers are the diameter, the last 3 are the length.  All in mm, length to the tenth.

Soo, the CR123s are nice, and tenergy does offer them in a 3v version so you can run 2 for ~7.2v peak or so, 6v nominal, and it rocks, but you're getting back out of cigarette size.

The flashlight I posted of a picture of above will fit 2 cr123s though, it just takes a little creativity when making it.  Some people love high voltage vaping, some people hate it.  It's really a question of flavor.  The more voltage you pump through the atomizer, the more watts your coil is cranking out, and the hotter your vapor is going to get.  Hotter vapor generally means a bigger throat/chest hit, but less flavor, and some flavors will even have a bit of a burnt taste to them.

(http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll202/fisherboom_photos/DSC01047.jpg)

It doesn't look as bad as I remember, but you'd have to make stuff like the screwdriver.  The stuff you have so far looks more like prototypes, I'd probably buy the screwdriver off of you if you had one.

Can you make one look steampunk?  It's what you do, no?

(http://th09.deviantart.net/fs26/300W/i/2008/123/d/c/A_F_P_D_L_M____Steampunk_Dunny_by_eimhin.jpg)

Nicotine is such fun stuff. It's absorbed rapidly through the skin, and the fatal dose is only 40-60mg. So don't spill your liquid on yourself, a 30ml bottle at 24mg/ml could give you a bad day.

Is there ever a point where you step back, look at the weird shit you have to do just to make it through your day on an even keel, and think "maybe I should find another hobby"?

There sure as fuck is.  Trust me.

I'm going to be placing a bulk order from www.bestecig.com tonight, if anyone wants to piggyback stuff on my order and get chinese prices without the $20+shipping, let me know what you need.  You can order anything you want for list price on the website, and instead of paying $17.50/.5kilo shipping, you just pay the shipping once it gets here - $5 priority, $2-3 first class.

Some quick prices:

35ml e-liquid: $14.50
BE112/801 atomizers: $6.5 per, 5/$30
BE901 atomizers: $7.25 per, 5/$35
Spare batteries: $9
E-cig starter kit: $30

Just IM me here or get me on steam with what you want, and I'll give ya paypal info.  Ordering tonight my order *should* be here monday, barring any customs issues, but its usually in/out of customs in 10 minutes.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/22/ecigarettes.fda/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Everyone is waiting on the full report that names the suppliers of the carts, looks right now like Smoking Everywhere and Njoy. Apparently one of those companies sucks at extracting nicotine, as some bad stuff came with it. I don't think anyone is really saying this stuff is good for you, but it's still a hell of a lot better than analog cigs.

Well, that's sort of a no shit, Sherlock moment.  If anyone genuinely thought that sucking nicotine into their lungs was a good and wholesome activity, that person is stupid.  You just have to look at the chewing tobacco users who had horrible mouth cancer to know that it's never going to be a sunshiney-clean drug for children of all ages.  But it's got to be at least better to use the vaporizers than lighting things on fire and sucking on the smoke.

The FDA has made their position clear from the start, but this report is total bullshit.  There is DG in almost everything, even in USP grade FDA approved products.

From the DG wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylene_glycol


The FDA did not have trouble finding it because they knew that PG food grade has DEG in it and they let people make stuff out of PG food grade for human consumpstion.

I'll dig up some tox reports from e-liquid by independent labs and link them later.  The stuff isn't good for you, but aside from the nicotine, it's not really /bad/ for you.

First off, some info on PG, which makes up 80-95% of your e-liquid, depending on flavoring and brand: http://www.vapersclub.com/pg.html

Toxicity report from Supersmoker JP: http://www.supersmokerjp.com/images/ToxicologylaboratoryTestResultsEnglishtranslatiion.pdf

Toxicity report from Totally-Wicked Eliquid: http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/e-cigarette-suppliers-forum/1970-pillbox38s-totally-wicked-e-smoking-liquid-about-hit-uk-20.html

NZ Health study on Ruyan products (original DSE901/801): http://www.healthnz.co.nz/2ndSafetyReport_9Apr08.pdf

The more I read about this the more I'm getting pissed.  DEG was only found in one of the carts, and only in the liquid.  When they did the smoke test THEY DIDN'T FIND ANY, and the amount in the liquid meets their own regulations.  Meanwhile they approved Chantix which has contributed (confirmed) to at least 50 deaths, what fucking assholes.

It's like that one anti-smoking commercial they played on tv where the girl snuck out of her parent's house at night.  She took the car, and went to a party.  At the party they were drinking out of red cups, and someone offers her a cigarette.  She declines, and the tag line went, "Even if you don't know where your children are they'll make the right decision if you talk to them" or some bullshit.  She was drinking at a party with underage teens!  She also drove there so she had to drive back drunk!

Fucking hypocrites, all of those guys.  They're probably all banging little boys or something.

Two things: The tobacco industry still has a lot of pull, politically, and this is aimed right at their bottom line, and; The Feds and various states have just jacked up their cigarette taxes, and desperately need that revenue ($50+/carton combined with a critical mass of people using this has led to a major snowballing of popularity).

I'm buying my stuff, plus as much liquid as I can afford, at the beginning of next month.  I can see the handwriting on the wall, if they don't outlaw it (expect to see reports claiming Vaping is being used to do illegal drugs in the open) they'll be taxing the shit out of it.

--Dave

I still need to find some good juice. I accidentally sent my ecig through the was and it still works good I was amazed. I bought the lowest nicotine content juice when I got mine. And I would probably have got a bit stronger if I did it again. I am overall pretty pleased with the whole setup. Basically it's a tiny fog machine with nicotine.

So apparently other people on the boards have these, what models do you have?

I have a 510 and a nerf-o-matic 5000.  It's similar to the screwdriver, except nerf makes it.  I also have a usb passthrough 801.

So far I like the nerf-o-matic 5k, but I'm thinking of modding the 510 a bit since it's a little more socially acceptable.

I don't smoke at all, but this is all really interesting. Good job, Nerf.

I was reading about one of the products awhile ago, called Blu...how is that one?

Someone explain this, how bad is the stuff they found:

(http://evilpiggie.com/imagehost/forums/011.jpg)

A lot of that just seems like, "Duh" to me, but I'm neither a doctor nor a chemist.

Linalool: An alcohol solvent common in perfumes and perfumed products such as soaps and hand creams.  Some people (roughly 5%) will develop allergic skin rashes from contact.

Ethanol: Same stuff you drink, also found in hand sanitizers, perfumes, etc.  Dangerous in high doses and intoxicating in moderate doses, the trace amounts involved here are less than you get from applying cologne or aftershave.

Tetramethylpyrizine: AKA Alkylpyrazine, it's a grouping of chemicals used for food flavoring and artificial scents.  Potentially irritating to soft tissues and mucus membranes, can provoke or intensify underlying respiratory problems.

Methylbutyraldehyde: More scents and flavoring, pretty much the same potential effects.

Methylbutyric Acid: Ditto.

Methylcyclopent (plus alphabet soup): Organic solvent used to make other substances more soluble.  Some forms of this chemical are known to be toxic and/or carcinogenic, but it is considered safe for ingestion in low concentrations.

Butenalydine is a preservative, no known ill effects, trimethylcyclohex is another fragrance, with the same potential effects as the others.

There's nothing there that can kill you in low doses, and I'm pretty sure all or nearly all are already present in cigarettes and bulk tobacco (for rolling or pipes).  If you had an allergic reaction, *and* you already had severe asthma or emphysema, you might die (which is true and then some for smoking tobacco), otherwise it's just going to make you feel raw in the throat and chest, as if you had inhaled pipe or cigar smoke.  Considering the witches brew of chemicals both naturally present and added in tobacco, they got nothing here that represents a significant health risk.

Neither a doctor nor a biochemist, but in only takes a few minutes on Google to see that behind the scary chemical names and frightening hazard graphics, they've got nothing that justifies regulatory intervention.  It's all about the Benjamins, cigarette companies are already seeing their profits get squeezed out and can't really compete with this, and the government actors are afraid of losing tax revenues.  This kind of caught them by surprise, although it's been technically feasible for decades, $50/carton for cigarettes seems to have been the magic number to make people willing to switch over on a large scale.

--Dave

Yea - if you were smart you would buy a lifetime supply of e-cig atomizers right now. 

The batteries and mixture *CAN* be homemade. I just don't see how they will outlaw them. I mean I could sell a "mini-fog machine" and that would be legal. And I could probably sell a fogjuice with any flavoring myself.

Nerf - how long of a life are you seeing on the atomizers? Can they be cleaned by dipping in alcohol or washed to remove any impurities that build up in them?

My atomizers have been lasting 2 weeks to a month or more, I only use the best ecig brand, they manufacture them with thicker resistance wires and they seem to hold up better.

They're $30/$35 for 5 if you order from china, and you can get the shipping for free* if you piggyback on my bulk orders.
Same for the liquid, 35ml of 36mg/ml for $14, the price is the same regardless of nicotine content, and PG is dirt cheap.  Like $20-40 a gallon for USP grade.  So buy the strongest avail. and cut it.

Strazos: The blu is pretty shitty, stick to the 801/901/510.

Anyone who wants to order a bunch of stuff from china and not pay the $18 for the first .5kg and $6/.5kg after just let me know and I'll piggyback your stuff on my orders.
*Free shipping means from china to me, you still have to pay the stateside charge, $10 or less even for big orders.

What can you tell me about the 201?  Everything I'm finding says it's an improved 801, with a more efficient cartridge design, more durable atomizer, and better airflow.  But there's no US company selling them, only a couple in the UK and the manufacturer themselves (http://www.absolutelyecigs.com/about_us.php?osCsid=2f9010366601aa28644e482a2539859f) (and they only sell the pure white version).  I'm actually planning on getting their 401 mini-cig (same size as a traditional cigarette) for my regular use, but I am considering the 201 as the starting point for an attempt to make a homebrew ePipe that doesn't cost $40 to replace the atomizer but still looks like a real pipe.  I figure a CR2 with integrated thermal protection circuits and a voltage regulator should be able to drive it, and I might even manage to fit two into the right pipe.

--Dave

I don't have any experience with the 401 or 201, the 801 and 901 both work extremely well, and theres a reason they're so popular.  There aren't any cr2s with integrated protection though, you'll have to step it up to the slightly larger rcr123, Tenergy does make a 3v version, but if you're only using one you want the 3.6v.  You want to run your ecig at somewhere between 4 and 8 volts, so see what the peak charge on the batteries you want to use is.  Most of the li-ions peak at 4.2.

The other downside of not using an 801 or 901 is availability of parts and whatnot, especially for homebrew.  Right now I'm the only supplier (that sells to the public) for the battery connectors for the DIY crowd.  If you go outside of the connectors I've got available you're ripping apart batteries or trying to find shit thats threaded the same way.  That being said, alot of the penstyles are threaded the same.  Theres a chance the 201 will thread onto the 801 connector, but I haven't personally tried it.

I just tried the tea bag mod for carts and it's working well so far.  Basically you buy those nifty lipton pyramid teabags, cut them up and stick them inside the cart.  So far, very good!  For 2.99 for a box (plus tea!), it's worth a shot.  The only thing better is large cell reticulated foam (apparently), but I'm not stopping by a pet store today.

I really wouldn't go for the 401, I would go straight for the 510.  I believe they're about the same size, and the 510 is in the trifecta of acceptable vapes (801, 901, and 510).  Get one with a manual button on the side, even better yet a titan battery, and I'm sure you'll like it a lot better.

Yeah, the 510 and 401 connectors are the same but the inverse of eachother.  The 510 atomizer has the 401 connector threads.

I finally found the solution to my problem of "how can I fit enough battery into a pipe bowel?"  The insanely small 10180 Lithium Cell (http://www.lighthound.com/AW-10180-Unprotected-Rechargeable-Lithium-Battery_p_92.html).  10mm wide, 18mm high.  Combine a couple of those with two of this voltage protection PCB (http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2578) designed to go underneath the end cap of a larger battery, use heat shrink tubing to keep everything put, and you wind up with a 3.7V or 7.4V battery pack that measures 18mm X 20mm X 10mm (actually probably more like 14mm, with PCB's on each side), which shouldn't be hard at all to fit into a fair variety of pipes.

Then I just need a cover for the bowl with a switch, that can be removed fairly easily, and the battery fittings to attach an atomizer to the stem.  I found out that the 201 atomizer can connect to an 801 battery, but won't draw correctly unless you drill a hole through the fitting (something you couldn't actually do with an 801 battery, but could for this).

--Dave

Update: I decided to take the plunge this last Friday, and being an immediate-gratification type, I decided that rather than wait for somebody to ship me the stuff, I would just take a road-trip up to Dallas and get it all from Nerf.  I actually got to watch him put the whole thing together, which gave me most, if not all of the pointers I needed for my ePipe project.

Overall: Haven't smoked a cigarette since 3pm Saturday, haven't missed it.  Having a little bit of a learning curve on remembering how much to use it, since my patterns are all off (haven't been able to smoke inside in years).  Definitely don't mind not having to go out in the 105 degree heat to smoke.  I used one battery until this morning (so 3-4 days of using it for 2-4 hours a day), plus using the USB passthrough whenever I was at home.  It hadn't actually stopped working, it was just not making nearly as much vapor.

Nitpicks: The USB passthrough came apart on me (to be fair, I was changing the cartridge with the atomizer attached to the passthrough, something Nerf said not to do).  The switch came loose as well.  I have it put back together, but superglue just doesn't have the mechanical strength or flexibility for this kind of situation, I'd recommend using epoxy or hot glue.  Oh, and if you have Nerf make you one, ask for the larger switch on the USB, the little one will start chafing your thumb after a while.

Even after just a few days, my lungs are starting to clear, and my wife is glad I don't smell like an ashtray.  There's no way I'm going back to cigarettes.  I've figured out how I'm going to make my ePipe, I should be able to fit a CR123 (16340 size) into a fair variety of pipes (means I can use protected batteries instead of having to find room to attach a circuit board, and it will have nearly the capacity of the 14500 AAA sized ones Nerf is using).  I think that instead of directly mounting an eCig battery fitting to the stem end, I'm going to use an RCA connector and have adapters from RCA to the battery fittings.  I'm trying to figure out a way to meld an 801 atomizer with an ePipe/eCigar cartridge, as that would give twice the liquid capacity.

Speaking of which: 901 cartridge/atomizers suck.  Not only is the cartridge much smaller (requiring far more frequent refilling), but drops of liquid wind up getting sucked back into the mouthpiece and your mouth, which is really unpleasant.

Oh, and if you can find (nudge, nudge) a supplier of eLiquid that has their own made up from pure Propylene Glycol and Nicotine, do it.  The chinese fluid almost everyone is reselling has something in it that builds up a residue in the atomizer, leading to a nasty taste that's a pain to clean out (you basically boil the atomizer for a few minutes), the pure stuff does not.

Anyway, Nerf's battery pack itself works wonderfully.  Only suggestions I would make would be including a battery charger, and some kind of cutoff switch so I can carry it in a pocket without worrying about the button getting held down.  Might be possible to mount a mini-B USB connector to allow both re-charging and eliminate the need for a separate USB passthrough.

--Dave

Well Dave, you got me excited to try this out. Ole Nerf and I came up with a Eve related trade and he's sending me some gear. What stuff am i gettin' Nerf? :)

Being a single guy, I'm constantly concerned about having smoke on my breath, and one of my chicks is a non-smoker.

Slay, you'll be getting a nerf-o-matic 5k, a usb passthru, a handful of liquid, a (new design, woo!) mini battery operated ecig, some batteries, and a charger.  Maybe some other goodies, I've got some sekret stuff in the works that I don't want to post here because I know this thread is being watched.

Dave, sorry to hear about the usb passthru, how did it come apart exactly? I haven't heard of that happening yet to anyone else and if its something I can fix in my design I most definitely will.  The superglue on switches was a bit of a test, i'm a little bummed to hear it didn't hold up.  I'll definitely go back to hotglue.

I've successfully quit smoking for about 4 months now.  And before that it was only a pack a week.  Used to be a 1 pack a day guy.

I wish this shit was around 4-5 years ago, or at least I wish I knew about it.

Nice shit you got there Nerf.

Thanks Draegan, I had quit for 5 months before I found e-cigs.  I'd never tell you to pick it up because if you've kicked the habit you're good, but if you find yourself with a cigarette in your hand, give me a call.  This shit covers the oral fixation and you can tweak your nicotine level to your choosing (or zero).  What I missed was the actual feeling of smoking, feeling it in my chest, I quit for the girlfriend (the smell), and because I got sick of being winded walking to the mailbox.

Be careful with these, folks, like all goods made in China.  I certainly wouldn't want to be huffing on them, but  I seem to recall normal cigs have diethylene glycol in their smoke, too.  It certainly sounded familiar for some reason.

Also pick up what you can now,  as an  import ban is in place.  No ban yet on vendors selling what they have in stock right now.  Go government!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111578997

August 17th is the magic date for SmokingEverywhere vs FDA.

Actually, a couple vendors had their large ($20-30k) shipments released from customs by the FDA with a stern warning that if they sell any of it they will be met with stiff fines and penalties.  That being said, customs is a joke, small orders will always get through, and the tox report for the bestecig.com liquid is listed on page 2 I think, if anyone wants the whole 7 page thing I'll put it up.

The superglue just cracked and came apart on both the fitting and the switch, in separate incidents (the fitting because I was changing the cartridge, the switch in normal use).  I've got it kludged back together with wood glue and surgical tape.  Hotglue should handle it fine, it's CA's complete lack of flexibility that is the problem.

--Dave

I'll actually be in austin friday night, if I have time I'll whip up a new passthru with a big button in the morning and trade ya, otherwise PM me your address and I'll get a new one sent off.

I dont think anyone answered Sky's question and Ive got to admit Im pretty curious as well. What is that stuff they are trying to pass off as weed?

They invaded our perfect ecig thread with they're non ecig talk.  Get that stuff outta here.

I'm ready to try this shit. Plus, it'll double as a conversation starter at the bar :) Send them shits, Nerf!

Want me to make you one out of a big rubber cock so you can walk up to women and say "Hey baby, wanna suck on this?"? I can totally do that.  Oo, maybe I can put the switch in the balls so you've gotta squeeze em, they always forget to squeeze the balls.

Just send the goods and stop talkin' shit.  :grin:

Okay, Nerf (or anyone else in the know) I just bought a Smoke Everywhere kit from my local smoke shop, but to be honest the cartridges are pretty fucking worthless.  It's like $8.99 for 5 of them which supposedly equal half a carton or so.  Not even close for me.  I got maybe two cigarettes worth before all taste was gone.  Defective cartridge, or do these things really suck that bad?  What would you do in my situation?

Say it ain't so, you bought Smoking Everywhere stuff! Boo.

Carts aren't so great, but there a couple mods you can do.  Buy those Lipton Tea Bags that come in a Pyramid shape and cut and roll one up so it fits in the cart.  You'll get much more out of it that way.

This sounds like it could end poorly.

Another thread schild can steer clear of!

Unless you start vaping.

Well, I sent Nerf a PM asking for his advice, but bitch don't answer his mail.   :grin:

This would actually suffice as a replacement if I could get the carts to last for any period of time.  I've ordered some juice from Amazon, hopefully that'll work out better.

ETA:  The inside of the carts look pretty tight.  Wouldn't something like cotton work better than the tea bags?

Hrm, thought I replied to all my PMs, but I've been pretty busy lately and theres a chance I missed one.

I hate carts, i think they fucking suck, they're just too inconsistent.  I drip 2-3 drops at a time directly on to the atomizer, it works great, except it will kill your automatic battery that came with your SE kit pretty damned quick.

SE also uses a kind of off-brand of atty too, the rn4081 iirc.  The 801, 901, and 510 are popular for a reason.

Trust me! This is based on research by the ecigarette forum people.  The thing of tea bags will set you back 3 bucks.

Okay, you're talking about jamming a tea bag into the orange colored filter itself, right?  Not the tiny little white nicotine holder inside the filter?  And I also assume that you remove the tea from the bag otherwise it'll wind up tasting like some fruity clove cigarette, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25bk_E0DJ5g

I got my stuff from Nerf and my first impressions are:

This is a bit of work
Puffing on these kinda reminds me of hitting an almost cashed pot bowl
A little tough on the throat
Will require a bit of ordering shit
I can smoke in my cube...muahaha

Overall, not bad. I still find myself preferring a cigarette at the end of the night, but I think this could save me some money and probably help me quit altogether. We'll see!

Do the teabag mod as soon as possible.

Just don't use carts at all, order some little dropper bottles from usplastics.com and drip 2 drops at a time directly on the atomizer.  That cached bowl taste is when your atomizer is running dry and you need more liquid.  Get those lorann flavors ASAP and mix up some of your own flavors a few ml at a time using that bliplabs.com liquid I sent you.  The stuff is fucking amazing, very clean and theres no bitter beer taste to cover up like most of the tasteless e-liquids for sale.  I like watermelon - a lot - try that first, 20% flavor to 80% diluted nicotine solution to whatever strength you want.  Some cheap 3ml syringes are great for mixing small amounts and less messy than pipettes - you should be able to get em at walgreens or cvs.

You'll find what you like pretty soon through experimentation, and after awhile you'll find yourself craving cigarettes less and less.  Whenever I feel that urge, I just vape 2 drops of 75mg straight and it cures me pretty fucking quick.

I still think the teabag mod > direct drip.

Try both!

Oh, I got a 510 the other day, loooooooooooooooooooving it.

I should have 801->510 adapters in about a week, so you can use your 510 attys on your NerfCo mods ^_^

Just FYI, I have a Top Secret project underway in cooperation with Nerf, and we've been sharing research.  His equipment will be getting a major upgrade in performance pretty soon, and I still think he should switch to RCA jacks and build adapters from RCA to whatever, rather than building the units around a particular model and then having adapters from that to the exact model of atomizer the user prefers (especially since that brass corrodes and will stop conducting after a while, not a big deal when both ends are disposable but a bigger issue when one is supposed to be a durable tong-term product).  You can buy high-quality all-metal RCA jacks for $1-2, and most of them have just exactly the right inner diameter for 801-901 battery fittings, once you cut the cable end off.

--Dave

Other people have been doing this and it's awesome. Definitely keep me updated!

Just got my Janty Stick today and so far I'm loving it.  Good throat hit, the carts refill nicely and seem to last for a good long while, and it's also got a USB passthrough port.  My only gripe so far is that I have yet to find a juice that actually tastes like tobacco.  Menthol I've found no problem, but I fucking hate menthol.  Any suggestions on a good authentic tasting tobacco juice?  So far I've tried Johnson Creek and Camel, and while I could live with the Camel, it's still not there.

the 555 and mild 7 from bestecig.

Also, fuck you for ordering a janty stick before PMing me, you know I could have gotten you something better for less, right?

Dude, I'm still in the market.  This is just my first real dip in the pool.  I can see this easily being more expensive than actually smoking.  =D

I started on a 501, but I've basically burned out my batteries. I'm gonna be in the market shortly to pick up a USB passthrough, and a couple more batteries. I am super, super, super interested in the tea bag mod, as those shitty little white clusters never seemed as good as they could be.

Any experience with the manual batteries as opposed to the automatic ones? I was kind of interested in picking one up, as it seems like it'd be more reliable than the automatic ones.

Oh hey, good news, I got my 510 connectors in like 2 days ago, so I can 510 mods for you guys now.

Non - Just get a mod dude, *all* of the chinese batteries suck. Hard.  They're 180mAh batteries trying to push 1.2A (1.4A or so on the 510, lower resistance coil).  That's just shy of 8C.  Li-ions aren't meant to be discharged that high, thats why they keep dying.  If you want to stay small, get one of these:

(http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/86041/e-cig/901%20mod%20w%20atomizer.JPG)

They're my new go-to mod, runs off a 10440, AAA sized 400mA li-ion, so you're only discharging at 3C.  They're probably 20% bigger than a standard ecig battery, have a manual button, peak at 4.2v and hold it for longer, so you get more quality vaping in between charges.

The batteries are $5 a pop from lighthound (don't get the ultrafire/trustfire brand from DX, I know they're 2/$4, theres a reason) - get the AW brand 10440.  Chargers are about $15.  Expect batteries to last 3 weeks to 2 months before they won't hold their charge anymore.

I sell the lasers for $75, I have them available with LEDs too, they've been going for $100.
(http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/86041/e-cig/laser%20vaper%201.jpg)

F13'ers get a discount though, drop me a PM, it's substantial.

I do USB passthrus too, vaping at 5V is fucking awesome.  The throat hit is far superior.

If any of you fookers want to make your own mods, I'm the supplier for the battery connectors, its the only piece you need to buy that is specially made for the ecigs.  Tact switches, housings, etc you can get from anywhere, I use mouser.  If you're good with electronics, I'd strongly recommend using a couple transistors or a mosfet (someone explain to me exactly what a mosfet is, btw) so you're not running all that amperage through the tact switch.

I've got switches, housings, and helpful info on how to make anything if you want to give it a shot yourself, just ask.  I sell 801 and 901 atomizers too, $9 per.

One last, rather important thing.

Chinese e-liquid sucks.  The base they use and then flavor has this wierd bitter beer taste, and is dirty as shit.  I found a company called Blip Labs (www.bliplabs.com) that sells a nicotine+pg solution for "research", but I checked it out and its pure shit.  I buy from them, then mix in lorann flavors, USP pg to cut the nic level to what I want, and about 10% glycerin for the vapor clouds.  It's cheap too - 30ml of 3.8% nicotine in USP pg (38mg/ml) is $20+shipping, USP pg is like $30 per gallon, and the lorann flavors are a buck or two for 3.7ml.  I turned dave onto this stuff and he did some comparison testing on residue left in carts etc, and the chinese stuff always leaves a nasty brown residue.  We know it's not the flavoring, because he went back to the mall and checked the 0nic of the same flavor - clear liquid vs brown liquid on the 24mg.  Whatever kind of nicotine they're putting in, its got something in it, because the shit I ordered at 7.5% nicotine (75mg/ml) is damn near clear.

dude.

Ok. I know eCigs are not intend, or marketed as quitting aids.

But are any of you using them as such? I mean, I figured maybe I can pick up some (that instantly removes smoke from my life) start using them, then attempt to step down the dose...eventually lowering my need until i simply stop.

Am i just deluding myself here, or what?

Even if you just switch habits you're still way better off.  No cancer, no breathing problems, food tastes better, and your clothes won't stink anymore.  So what if you're replacing one habit with another, especially when harm-wise they're dramatically different?

Anyway, I'm treating vaping as a smoking replacement.  I still enjoy smoking, and I still have that twitchy oral fixation.  This addresses that, it just removes the negatives associated with it.

I don't think it replaces any of the best parts of smoking, but I'm pretty sure Nerf is going to try his damnedest to get me to switch over to it.

I think it's easier if you're a menthol smoker, because it's damned near identical there.  If you smoke regular tobacco it's a bit more difficult since the flavor is vastly different.  This beats the hell out of everything I've tried thus far, including authentic Swedish snus, though.

I really have no clue why you haven't yet, it really is the best thing ever.

It's really not, but you make an incredible argument.

Good tips on that stuff, Nerf, I'll probably have to hit you up when I'm a little more flush on funds.

That being said, I don't really want this to turn into a home chemistry project, so is there any place that has a more decent quality off the shelf flavor selection than the chinese sites?

So, I mentioned that I was trying to build an ePipe?  I'm almost there, I've got a working-but-ugly prototype and a plan for how I will get something prettier.  I started with the cheapest wooden pipe I could find locally, $10.  I drilled the bowl out (blew up a lot of wooden blanks before I figured out how), and put together something with just a battery pack, an RCA connector I salvaged from an old Radio Shack cable, and a cheap RCA -> 801 adapter made from another piece of that cable, a bunch of hot glue, and some heat shrink:

(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_x25P9A-Pxj0/SrLJDv2hpNI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/7s6I5xHzjWk/s800/prototype1cropped.jpg)

That showed what I wanted to do was possible, but that I needed to shave down the length of the stem, make a shorter adapter (at least for 801's), and plan out some features I felt were needed (indicator lights and a safety switch).

That produced this:

(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_x25P9A-Pxj0/SrLJDvmKFQI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/nCYhG4lx7hs/s800/prototype1acropped.jpg)

A rat's nest of wires, and it got worse once I wired up the switch (since I insisted on using a larger switch rated for the amount of current (1.0-1.4 amps) I was pushing, rather than over-driving a tiny 0.05 amp tactile switch like most modders), with the unfortunate consequence that the finished prototype looks like this:

(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_x25P9A-Pxj0/SrLHTrPICgI/AAAAAAAAAJw/Df8uOUHno5c/s800/ptototype1c.jpg)

A bit clunky and steampunk, and the slide switch safety deformed when I tried to screw it down, and now has to be fiddled to make a good connection.  Anyway, in the "Safe" position, pressing the button on top lights a green LED but does not deliver any power to the RCA connector (so you can stick it in a pocket without risking second degree burns, or a cell explosion that takes a sharkbite chunk out of your leg).

(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_x25P9A-Pxj0/SrLHTpMqN5I/AAAAAAAAAJo/hn82O9mIEU0/s800/prototype1e.jpg)

In the "On" position, you get an amber light and the RCA connector gets power:

(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_x25P9A-Pxj0/SrLHTdZduNI/AAAAAAAAAJk/mpf776hrpt8/s800/prototype1d.jpg)

Even with the clunky over-sized button housing and the fiddly switch, I'm already more comfortable using this than I am using the one I bought from Nerf.  At first glance people seeing me holding and smoking a pipe, rather than sucking on a "sonic screwdriver", a "battery puck", or a "pipe bomb".  When it comes to "Which one of these would you rather take through Airport Security?" , it's no contest between this and nearly everything on the market. It also has about half again the battery life, which moves it from not quite enough for a whole day, to comfortably leaving the house with a fully charged battery and no spares (which is good, because this thing is such a cludge I can't change batteries on it without disassembling it).

The connector is concealed by a rubber cable boot, which also turns out to be a useful method of controlling airflow (push it tight to the stem, you get a hot dry vape and a sharp throat hit, pull it back a little and you get a cool easy draw and a big steam plume on the exhale).

See the red can in the top left corner of the assembled prototype picture?  Building a mechanically safe protected battery out of heatshrink was so time-consuming, and produced such a bulky result, I decided to try putting it all in a aluminum pill bottle.  It worked great, with the diameter exactly correct, enough headroom vertically for a few layers of insulating rubber, the PCB, and the dinky little RF connector I'm using for a power jack (a standard DC coaxial jack would have been *way* too large, and even an RC vehicle JST plug would be bigger and less durable).  So the basis for the next prototype is the cheapest briar wood pipe I could find (briar being a common pipe material that is notoriously difficult to work mechanically), and a battery pack built around a pill bottle:

(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_x25P9A-Pxj0/SrLHTmPQDXI/AAAAAAAAAJs/u1ES63S_VNs/s800/prototype2.jpg)

The only wire that will come above the battery case will be the power connection, I'm going to move the main switch to the side under the index finger rather than the top under the thumb, and I'll use a recessed pushbutton instead of a slide switch for the safety.  Having actually been a pipe smoker made me think in terms of covering the bowl with my thumb, but most people would find the finger switch more intuitive and it helps simplify the assembly and aesthetic (as does the pushbutton safety).  Now the cap can be a rubber grommet a quarter of an inch think, with a metal disk over that, securing it will involve pushing down the disk over three screws, then rotating a few degrees down a narrower channel (think of how a smoke detector or light fixture is attached to the wall).  I'll use a single LED that can shine red, green, or amber (I'll use red for safety mode and yellow for vaping, green will get reserved for an enhanced feature of a future model).

--Dave

This shit is a little creepy.

Join us, you'll be much happier.  Can't you see how happy everyone is?

Seriously, it's all the benefits of quitting smoking without the withdrawal.  Yeah, you can get obsessed with the gadgetry and spend more on it than you did on smoking, but not counting the tools I'm ahead of where I would have been having been smoking $5 a day worth of cigarettes for the last month and a half, and today I climbed 4 long flights of stairs in a parking garage and when I got to the top, I was surprised that I *wasn't* winded.  I'm smelling things I haven't noticed in years, and food tastes better (when it's good, bad/cheap food tastes nasty).

Even if you buy the overpriced Smoking Everywhere kits, you can break even the first *month* if you're a pack a day smoker in a state with stiff taxes.

--Dave

lol. Some of you, remind me of some shop class friends.

Afaik, pretty much every liquid seller in the US is either relabeling chinese liquid, or buying unflavored e-liquid in bulk from china and adding their own flavors.  It's not quite home chemistry set complex to make your own stuff.  I have 3 bottles, and then flavor.  BlipLabs nicotine+pg bottle, USP PG bottle for reducing strength, and glycerin bottle as it needs about 10%.  I use 3ml syringes with heavy gauge needles to mix it all up in handy little squeeze bottles from usplastics that cost $.30-.50 per or something silly like that.  Theres even a handy-dandy excel spreadsheet where you can input your starting strength, desired strength, quantity made, and flavor%, and it will tell you the exact formulation in both drops and mls.

All that being said, you *might* luck out with the chinese stuff and your tastebuds don't pick up on the vile aftertaste.  I'm not so lucky, 70%+ of the stuff tastes like warm beer to me.  And as long as you're not worried about the source of that aftertaste, then you're all set if you can't taste it.

This doesn't sound too bad, and I do have space in my meth-cooking shed for such an operation...  I'm alway looking to expand into new markets!

Don't get Chinese liquid, the stuff is *nasty*:

(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_x25P9A-Pxj0/SqXFQ8B2DWI/AAAAAAAAAJI/PFlE0dXKNjE/s800/NastyJuice1.jpg)

The one on the left is a used up cartridge that I used Mint High from the booth at the mall, the one on the right Blip Labs I added a little wintergreen flavoring to after diluting with PG, also vaped until the cartridge died.  When I picked up the stuff at the mall, I noticed that the Mint 0MG was perfectly clear, and everything with nicotine in it was brown like strong coffee.

Since nicotine itself is perfectly clear, and so is PG, any color comes from contaminants, probably in the nicotine solution.  My best guess is that the Chinese fluid is made from a base of pesticide grade nicotine (30-40%), and is 5-6% (after mixing with PG) whatever else comes out of the tobacco when they do the cheap and dirty extraction.  On the other hand, the Blip Labs stuff has only the slightest yellow tinge to it, and no aftertaste.  Doesn't gum up my atomizers as fast, either.  They and the other US manufacturers are starting from scientific grade 99.7% nicotine and USP propylene glycol (one of the things the FDA tests of Chinese fluid found was antifreeze contamination, because somebody used PG made on the same equipment as antifreeze, probably)

It's a totally unregulated consumer product made in China, what could go wrong?  Seriously, buy from a US liquid mixer, flavor it yourself if you need to, but stay away from that Chinese liquid.

--Dave

I was actually thinking of the DSE901 when I said I started on the 501.

That being said, do I need to be getting 510 atomizers to be able to work with the stuff you've been working on, Nerf?

I picked up some spare 901 stuff my friend had lying around on the cheap, just to get back into it, but I think once I get back into it, I'll be in the market for something a little more durable.

There is no durability difference between the 510 and 901 whatsoever, if anything, the 510 may be more prone to failure as it is pulling more amperage and operating at a higher wattage on the same voltage - the failure point is the solder joints on the resistance wire generally.

I can make a laser mod in 510, and I just happen to have an extra 510 to 901 adapter that I accidentally made.  Since the 510 connector is female, with the 901 adapter on it the size difference is maybe a few mm longer than the laser made specifically for the 901.  I can do 510->801 or 510->401 adapters as well, so you could conceivably use your 510 laser mod with any atomizer.  There are no real durability differences between any of them, but the 510 does eat up juice faster due to it being a higher power model.

You bunch of pussies.  Either smoke a real cigarette, or quit.

I'm sorry, what brand or site are you guys getting the model numbers from?

The model numbers are pretty consistent through all the manufacturers.  A few of them have re-branded it with some catchy name, but will often still have the numerical designation somewhere.  I get all of my atomizers from www.bestecig.com - their customer service is stellar, most of my shipments make it here from China in 4 days, and they re-ship for free is customs seizes your order, which hasn't happened to me yet.

Basically:
901 - mini, stiffer draw, warmer vapor
801 - penstyle, easier draw, still a decent throat hit but not the same level as the 901
510 - mini, draw on par with the 901, much warmer vapor.  Resistance coil is 2.6-3ohms instead of 3.5-4ohms, so you're achieving a higher wattage and hotter coil off the same battery.

I've had the 901, 801 and 510 (as well as something else, still not sure what the model number is), and I like the 510 the best.

There's two basic number series, RN and DSE, most US modders use DSE numbers; 801 for the classic penstyle, 601 for the pipe.  510 (an exception, it's the Joye Tech version of the 401, with inverted atomizer/battery fittings) and 401 are "minicig" styles designed to match analogs in size and appearance, 501 is the cigar, 101 is the disposable cigar (not sold much anymore, had about week's worth of juice packed into it but no way to reload without cutting it open with a rotary tool), and so on.  510's also run hotter (and burn through batteries faster), and give a great throat hit (which mostly turns on actually boiling liquid rather than just making PG steam).  901 is the original minicig, just a scaled-down version of the 801, preferred by "drippers" because of the ventilation hole in the base of the atomizer (they can drip directly into it without popping the mouthpiece off).

There's also a bunch of "cartomizer" based product lines, disposable one-shot units with a disposable cartridge and atomizer 1-piece, can't be reloaded so they aren't popular in the US because it's hard to get reloads reliably (and hard to predict which ones will lose out in the Chinese market and disappear).  They're the coming thing in China, and probably here as well once the tobacco companies catch up (because they are more easily packaged, marketed, regulated, and taxed like analogs).  Those tend to be manufacturer-locked, razor-vs.-blades business models playing themselves out.

Most US/EU mods center on the 801 (largest liquid capacity in cartridges), 901 (dripping) and 510 (high-temp throat hit), and are mostly just "battery mods", meaning the battery and switch units are replaced with something else (usually higher battery life and/or voltage) and Chinese atomizers and cartridges are used unaltered.  I'm playing around with some ideas for building stems for my ePipe (which is essentially a complicated battery mod) from brass/aluminum tubing, pipe/cigar cartridges (much higher liquid capacity than even the 801), and 510 or 401 atomizers (those being as close as you can get to buying a bare atomizer).

Some modders take the electronics, specifically the time limits and LED indicator logic, out of Chinese made eCig battery units and transplant them into a new case with bigger batteries (the Janty Stick, for example).  A couple incorporate voltage regulation (Li-Ion cells drop in voltage over time, so you get a different vape on a fresh cell than one that's about to cut off from undervoltage).  And there's some kludges where multiple barrels of atomizers are driven off a single large battery, or two batteries in series are used to seriously overdrive the atomizers.

If you investigate the history of the eCig in China, you see a lot of places where they could have worked out differently.  It started with a ban on smoking in some cities as part of the pollution cleanup for the 2008 Olympics.  Somebody noticed that agricultural workers that used nicotine-based insecticides would stand in the fog deliberately, as an alternative to smoking.  The original eCig patent called for an ultrasonic mister (like a "cool mist" humidifier you can get at the drugstore), but that wouldn't scale well.  It's almost an article of faith to most US modders that the Chinese designs for atomizers are ideal, which is bullshit; What they are is *cheap*, and the same goes for the cartridges and batteries.  If you look, there are better ways to do everything the Chinese do.

Not to mention safer.  The atomizers are based around fine-gauge NiChrome heating elements, as in 80/20 Nickel/Chromium, both toxic metals.  Because they are controlling heating wattage by resistance of the heating element balanced against battery voltage, they have to use very thin NiChrome (38 gauge is apparently typical).  That means the free-running temperature of a dry atomizer is very close to the melting point of NiChrome, and only airflow and boiling off PG keeps it from destroying itself.  For two-cell 8.4V mods, the free-running temperature significantly exceeds the *boiling* point of NiChrome, and those are the only things preventing the atomizer coils from going up like a old-school flashbulb (and giving the user a nice lungful of nickel and chromium vapor).  Pretty sure they're not using lead-free solder much, either (I do in my adapters, even though it's a pain to work with).

Li-Ion itself has some...issues.  Drain it too far, too fast, and you get a nice fireworks show, even the newer, "vented" cells are sending out clouds of flaming hot poisonous gas when they go into thermal runaway.  There are safer Lithium chemistries, but they either have lower base voltages or lower energy density.  The cartridges are filled with polywool (same as a cheap pillow), which sucks as a wicking material and is toxic when burned in half a dozen ways.

Chinese eLiquid seems to starts from a base of 35% nicotine, pesticide grade, which is why the FDA found so much nasty shit in it.  >99% isn't *that* much more expensive, at least here, but like everything else, the baseline works from Chinese budgets and consumer-protection standards (the country where even deadly baby formula wasn't technically illegal until they invented ex post facto rulings to cover that particular case).  What's going to happen as the FDA gets involved is that the market growth will be deliberately stunted (because Big Tobacco needs time to get ahead of this, and states want their taxes), and a lot of the standard parts are going to become unavailable (as the FDA does their real job and bans a lot of this shit as unsafe, because it really is).  But the eCigs themselves won't be outright banned, other than in a few areas as local busybodies take umbrage at people finding a loophole on the bans against smoking.

One reason I'm using RCA rather than some eCig battery fitting directly is that the current eCig models won't be around much longer, and there's no telling what format the American-built replacements will take, an RCA fitting is flexible enough to adapt to just about anything, and it's likely to be the format of choice for modders (already getting there) so I can leverage the atomizer advances made by anyone else without making any major changes.  And any atomizer mods I create will be compatible with a wide range of battery mods without extra adapters.  I'm working to make myself independant of any particular power source, either (potentially I could drive my luxury design off NiCad or NiMH cells), as Li-Ion is inherently unsafe.

In 3-5 years, Big Tobacco will catch up and hit the market with billion-dollar warchests, and it's unlikely anyone will be able to compete with their raw financial and political power.  My best case scenarios involve having a strong enough brand by then it's more effective for them to buy it than crush it.  Worst case, I recover what I've spent on tool over the next few months and chalk it up to experience, another of my brilliant plans that was too hip for the room.  Most likely, I make some money with a sideline for a few years, which gives me the resources and flexibility to get my game design career back on track.

--Dave

I'm not sure I'd describe a pipe with a button to smoke magic vapor as "too hip for the room," but I see what you're trying to get at. :awesome_for_real:

Fantastic writeup, far too good considering the 10 people who actually read this thread. If anyone else is a vaping newbie you can also check out this (http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/new-members-forum/36180-wonderful-world-vaping-illustrated-guide-e-cigs-parts-1-through-3-6-please-do-not-post-here-thank-you.html).

Oh, and if you want to know what the different models look like go here (http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/new-members-forum/17425-attention-newbies-pics-most-common-models-here.html).

You gotta love shit like this:

http://greensboropostherald.com/ (http://greensboropostherald.com/)

No wonder the FDA is all pissy.

I love how they have to include the bit from the doctor where he opines "Smokers don't like flavors, this is obviously to try to get kids hooked on their products."

Fuck you doc, have you tasted cigarettes? They don't really taste all that great.  Adults like things that taste good - it's why you shell out $400 for a bottle of wine over the $4 box you can get at wal-mart.  I love my watermelon flavor, it tastes great and is satisfying.  This shit already pushes non-smokers away by the huge coughing fits that you get when you first try it out, and the fact that it is a royal pain the ass to manage batteries, juice, atomizers, etc.  It's simply too much effort if you don't already like smoking.

You realize it's an advertisement for Smoking Everywhere right? The whole page.

Actually no, I didn't pay enough attention to that.  It makes it even funnier though, you think they would have edited the bit I raged on out of the clip that they're hosting on their own website.

I ordered from here, (http://www.ecigaretteschoice.com/products/SS-Choice-No.-7-Disposable-Tobacco-Flavored-E%252dCigarette.html) and bought some of the disposables, just to try it out. Now I am a bit concerned that my shipment may never arrive due to the FDA.

Just saw this:


Basically it's a three-terminal transistor (gate, source, drain).  It's hard to completely summarize it's operation in a few sentences, but for all intents and purposes its an electronic switch:  the voltage at the gate modulates the resistance between the drain and source.  They come in depletion mode and enhancement mode varieties, and also N channel and P channel varieties.

So if the gate voltage is at the same potential as the source, the switch is off (very high resistance between the drain and source).  If the voltage is sufficiently higher than the source (enhancement) or sufficiently lower (depletion), then the switch is on, and the resistance is low.  This is for an N channel by the way.  P channels work by taking everything just stated and flipping it to the opposite terminal and reversing the signal polarities (easy, huh?).

They are mostly used in situations where a very low-current capable control voltage (like that coming through a low current contact switch) can be used to 'turn on and off' a much larger current than the switch is capable of passing, since the current only flows from drain to source and not through the control gate.  So for eCig purposes, if you have a low current contact switch an N-channel enhancement MOSFET could be used to turn on and off 1-2A of current through a heating coil, without passing the coil current through the switch.

I can make a schematic in graphics form if you are really that interested.

I ordered a Yeti 510 as an experiment to see if I like it. I'm glad I did a little net research before buying something like the Blu. (Which I hear is terrible)

:(

That video has way too much smoke to be the result of an e-cig.

Not really, they're more than comparable to a analog cig.  Some guys can produce cubic feet of vape, but they're not normal.

Hopefully that stuff that I have coming makes it through customs. I'll be mighty pissed if it does not.

I'll have to become a home chemist, bleah.

I ended up calling mouser, digikey, etc, and after playing phone pong for awhile got ahold of an engineer at Vishay semiconductors.  He explained it all to me, altough his explanation was a bit different.  Basically, he told me that that as long as my voltage applied to the gate was greater than the gate voltage threshold and fell on the right position in the charts, it would be on.  He knew I was applying the same voltage to the gate and drain and didn't say that would be a problem.  In fact, I haven't seen anything about the voltage at the gate having to be greater than that of the source/drain, just > Vg(th).  I got some in from mouser and will be experimenting today.

The engineer at Vishay happens to be in Plano and desperately wants an E-cig to show at company show and tell too, he was absolutely fascinated by the concept - so I need to get one made for him to send out.

Well, that is an oversimplification:  threshold voltage is with respect to the source terminal:  so if you have the source terminal grounded (sounds like you do),  and your gate voltage is referenced from the same ground (and is above the threshold) then it will indeed be on.  I'm also guessing that your drain voltage is coming from the battery and feeds the gate as well (through a switch).

The same voltage at gate and drain is no problem (on N channel), because the transistor doesn't really reference that terminal from an on/off perspective (well, it technically does, but not in the mode you are likely using).

Yeah, using N-channels, heres the schematic I drew:
(http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/86041/e-cig/connectors/mosfet%20%20controlled%20ecig%20circuit.jpg)

Gate and drain will be wired to same leg of switch so I won't be passing that current through the body of the switch whatsoever.

Edit: On a P-channel, I know my ground would be attached to the gate (with a switch), so I'm assuming drain would be ground as well and source would be positive?  Basically the exact same schematic as above with the polarity reversed for a P channel?

Don't judge it by Nerf's setups, he likes a harsh throat hit so he restricts the air flow and uses a manufacturer known for high-temp coils (so more of the nicotine is gaseous rather than trapped in little PG droplets).  With a ventilated adapter (so the center hole can draw) and a different manufacturer's 801 atomizer, my pipe can produce a very large steam plume, and so can most stock eCig's (you can also choke it off on mine by pushing the stem boot flush to the pipe, and get your throat hit and invisible vapor).

A mosfet (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) is essentially a replacement for old-style relays and solenoids, which used electric motors or magnetic coils to close a switch.  Being solid-state, it can handle a lot more current with the downside of a "trickle" waste current when it is switched off.  It can handle a lot more current than an ordinary switching transistor, while still being a lot smaller and more responsive than a relay or solenoid.

Speaking of my pipes, the second prototype model is mostly finished:


I'm looking at another $500 to create "production" models, mostly because there's stuff I want for them that I can't get without minimum orders in the $100+ range.  That gets me all of the materials for 10 kits *except* the actual pipes (only gets me 5 of those, 4 of which are earmarked as giveaway demos), and a couple more tools (need a second drill press, some better lighting and storage for my workbench, and a small bandsaw).  If I get that far, there are a lot of places I can save either money, or assembly time, if I'm turning enough volume to justify it (a custom PCB would cut assembly time in half, as well as let me add some cool features).  I will be getting more of the long lead-time stuff than the stuff I can just go down to Altex or Fry's and buy retail, so I can potentially produce 30 kits before having to wait for a shipment from China to make more.  If I sell 30 kits that quickly, I'll be a happy camper (will pay off my front money several times over).  And there are some local alternatives that cost more, so even in that "high class problem" scenario I'm not screwed.

--Dave

That's ten cartons of smokes.

Just saying.

If I was doing all of this just to quit smoking, you'd have a point.  But I accomplished that with the first $150 to Nerf, and I'm now up about $100-150 over where I would have been smoking cigarettes the last 2 months.

(http://www.the-gg.com/images/r1.jpg)

(http://ecigwiki.info/images/f/fd/Xprodigy.jpg)

Considering the nasty-looking crap that is on the market at $100+ price points and the guys behind them can't produce them fast enough, yeah, I think I can sell this.  And it's *not* that easy to do, it looks like it should be but turns out to be very difficult.

--Dave

What is the part number of the transistor you are using?  That almost looks like a depletion mode arrangement or diode biasing.

Are you sure about the schematic?  SPST switches do not have three contacts (4 implies there are two individual SPST switches in there), and according to that wiring the LED is reversed biased and would not light. :-)

Also,  leaving the gate floating when the switch is not depressed can cause a leakage current (e.g. battery leak) through the coil depending on to what voltage the gate floats.  You should add a resistor pull up(or down) to force the transistor off.

Send me a PM if you want some details.

The switches he uses are little SMT tactile switches, they have four pins but the pairs are electrically linked, it's for mechanical stability and another contact point to connect the circuit through on a PCB.  I finally tracked down some tactile switches intended for snap-in chassis mounting that are only 7mm for the main case and rated for 100mA at 50VDC, so I can keep using an ordinary switch for now (I will be overdriving it by 20-40%, but not the 600-1000% typical in mods).

That schematic doesn't look right to me, either, for some reason I remember mosfets as having 4 contacts.  Maybe that was just the ginormous ones we used to feed the magnetrons on the radars (1 MW peak power, 1 KW sustained load).  And although you used to have to bias at a voltage higher than your source and use a ground to shut it off, I understand they've gotten a lot simpler in the last decade or so.

You want an example of how silly the mods market is? 

(http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/ab194/muldrick/Picture82.jpg)

That's a piece of copper tubing, a couple of copper caps, a spring and some clever machining.  No electronics at *all*, you push in on the mini-cig atomizer (a truly tiny RN4082 model that's good for about 3 puffs), closing a mechanical circuit with two CR2's, and that's it.  Clever, but get this: $94.95.  Without atomizers, cartridges, batteries or a charger.

Yeah, if this guy can pull it in hand over fist with a mod that could have come almost straight out of the Plumbing department at Lowes, I can sell my pipes.

--Dave

Look, I'm not out to diss home tinkering, but like, saying those are nasty looking and expecting to buy pipes strikes me as strange. Now if you were using something that looked like a Peterson Ebony, yea, maybe I could see people using them. But we're one step above a corncob crack pipe here.

Of course, you might be using these as pictures of things that aren't nasty. Frankly, every e-cig I've seen other than the shitty smoke everywhere things look stupid. Just silly looking.

Those are the best looking of the aftermarket mods, and they've been out for a while so they've managed to improve their manufacturing methods, and they *still* look like pipe bombs.

My prototypes are comparatively clunky, for three reasons: I was figuring out how to put them together as I went; I hadn't settled on my components yet, so I used easier to find/cheaper stuff; And I used the cheapest pipes I could find.  The first prototype was literally a $10 pipe, *retail*.  The second, I was making sure I could work with irregular surfaces (and real briar), so I got a $25 pipe with a really rough and corrugated surface.  I wanted to see if my manufacturing method could deal with a worst-case scenario, and it was fine.

You want something that looks like a Peterson Ebony?  If you're willing to pay for it, I can make you one that *is* a Peterson Ebony.  That's the advantage of using real pipes for the shell: I can use *any* actual smoking pipe that has large enough dimensions.  Apples generally don't, Dublins look weird to most people (we won't even talk about Freehands), Billiards were the right dimensions and look like what average people expect when you talk about pipes.

--Dave

I already have Peterson Ebony(ies). As well as  - well, I have a handful of very very nice pipes. Ookii can attest. I'll probably never smoke them again so maybe I'll have you gut one.

P/N on the mosfets is SI2312BDS-T1-E3 - Vishay/Siliconix

My issue was not having a resistor from the gate to ground, I'm not exactly sure why, but I was getting enough voltage leakage to partly close the gate and things were staying on.  Also popped one and broke the leads on a few others.  I don't think I'll be ordering anymore SOT23 package parts. Too fucking tiny.  I just ordered a dozen or so SOT223 that are almost twice the size - roughly 6mm x 4mm not counting the leads which make it 6mm x 7mm.  I should be able to fit them onto the laser PCB and bypass any problems of killing those tiny little tact switches.

Heres a pic of the ones I was using tonight:
Thats an 801 connector (9mm OD) and a piece of 26AWG wire for reference.
My only concern now is how hot the damn thing gets, is that normal?  It gets too hot to touch after about 2.5 seconds of use on the 4ohm resistance coil atomizer.

They do...but most common pinouts have them connected to the source internally, since that's the most common bias configuration.  It's called the 'B' terminal (for 'body', or 'bulk') and connects to the substrate of the channel.

What amounts of heater current and battery voltages are common in these configurations?  A 3.6V LiPo battery across a 4 ohm coil is about 1 Amp of current.

And yes, it'll get hot.  You are dissipating I*I*R Watts (about 0.03W or 30 mW) in that tiny package, which does not have a lot of surface area to dissipate the heat.  The only way to correct this is to heat-sink it (not practical in a tiny space), mount it to a PCB with a copper heat pad (more common), or add resistance to lower the current through the coil.  Although I would not worry about it too much:  even at 70C that FET is rated to dissipate 0.5W steady state, which is MUCH higher.

Without an SMT pick and place machine, you don't want to mess with anything that small without a socket.  Anything with less than a 2mm spacing between pins is a pure bitch to try and hand solder, even that's not easy.

--Dave

EDIT: And yes, the heat is normal, you need to plan for heat dissipation in anything routing that much current.  In a custom PCB, you'd put an electrically null layer of copper (not connected to any voltage or ground) under them, two layers with conduction between them.  Even the trivial waste heat can add up to a really hot chip if you don't do something with it.  That's why my design calls for a metal disk as the top cap, once I start doing more with that current than passing it through wires, heat buildup becomes a concern and I've got to get it outside the pipe body or I'm building an incendiary grenade.  A mosfet's leakage is comparatively minor, a socket with a built-in heat pad will take care of it, but once you start regulating voltage or current that 5-20% waste power comes out as pure heat from the IC's.

Miguel: Yes, if anything he's a little high on resistance (most eCig's are running 3.1-3.5 ohms, 510's run 2.8-3.0).  1000-1250 mA is the typical current for an eCig, that's why there's such a big gain from getting a bigger battery, it brings discharge under 2C.

Actually this one is on a USB passthru, so 5.15v source, ammeter puts it at about 1.5A.
I ordered some SOT223 mosfets last night, they're about 6x4mm without leads and 6x7 with leads, so it should be much easier for me to solder but will still fit on the laser PCB.

Peak voltage on the 3.6v li-ions is 4.2v, you'll notice performance start to drop a bit when they hit 3.6v.  The passthru I made last night with the mosfet seems to be working great though, but I'm still trying to figure out how I'm getting a voltage drop of about .5v V @ 5.15v.  The Rds(on) is listed at .06ohm at 4.5v, but I think the chart I need to be paying attention to is the junction temperature resistance chart which puts it at 1ohm @ 50*C.

Not really sure on all that, but even with a slight voltage drop its worth it to get the current away from that switch.

Ok, here what I came up with:

1) I moved the coil to the drain side of the transistor:  for N-channels referenced to ground, you want the source solidly at ground potential.  Remember that threshold voltage is referenced from the source (ground) reference, and if the load is on the source side this will 'lift' the source and want to 'turn-off' the transistor.  This increases the channel resistance and lowers the gain.  Remember that 1A through 4 ohms is a 4V drop, so you were basically using it as a diode.

2) Added 10k pull-down to gate:  when the switch is open, the gate cannot be floating, or else it can float to a level that partially turns on the transistor and makes it leak current through the load.  The pull-down gives the gate a ground reference when the switch is open, and is of high enough value not to cause a large battery drain when the switch is closed.

3) Added series resistance in the LED:  basically LED's look like wires to the circuit when they are forward biased, and you were effectively shorting the coil.  The only thing to limit the current through the LED is it's PN junction resistance and the resistance of the wires (almost nil).  The resistor current-limits the LED to 30mA, which should allow it to last a LOT longer.  It will also provide more current to the coil.

Here's a simulation and schematic:

Switch open:  notice that the pull-down turns the transistor solidly off:  the 4uA is junction leakage only.

(http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww296/mglmatador_photos/Picture1-1.png)

Switch closed:  you see the drain voltage is 10mV (nearly ground), with 1A, so the channel resistance (under these ideal biasing conditions) is 10 mOhm, and power dissipation in Q1 is only 10mW.  You can see that the LED is now on (the graphic arrows turn blue).

(http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww296/mglmatador_photos/Picture3.png)

Also:  ignore the 2SK2553L designation...it was the closest component I had in the Spice library to match the Vishay part number and I didn't want to go and find and import the real model.

If you want to get REALLY nitpicky, I would also add a small ceramic cap across the switch contacts to reduce arching.  Remember the switch will pull the gate from ground to the battery voltage in a VERY short time, so adding a cap across the switch contacts lessens the current initially going through the switch and will make the contacts last longer (although at ~4V it's probably not a big deal).

Shit I thought that was a PM....

Oh well, hopefully someone else can make use of it too.

If you perfect the ecigarette, then you have my blessing.

So, it begs the question: have the potheads worked out how to get liquid weed yet?  Any sort of weird contraption that you can inhale from is already in danger of getting you tased if you're pulled over for speeding.  A weird contraption that's known to be used by stoners is virtually guaranteed to elicit some police brutality, and could put a real fast damper on this little industry.

kidding?

Since the FDA has determined Cloves are evil. Anyone have a good source for clove juice?

Sadly, no.

Just go online and buy packs, cheaper than stores were anyway.

http://www.clovecigarettesstore.com/djarum-kretek-cigarettes/view-all-products.html (http://www.clovecigarettesstore.com/djarum-kretek-cigarettes/view-all-products.html)

Straight from Indonesia!

Potheads are botanists, not engineers.

THC is lipid-soluble and hydrophobic.  Which is why hashbrownies work and Hash₂O doesn't, which makes it problematic for intravenous and inhaled usage, aside from smoking it.

Oddly, I don't smoke anything, I just find the entire premise of this thread amusing.  Also somewhat interesting, as it would be an excellent turn of events if E-cigs completely killed off the market for cigarettes.

Yeah, not kidding.  Try smoking tobacco from a glass pipe or bong, then convincing your local law officials not to kick down your doors in search of a pot-growing farm.  If it looks weird, and you're inhaling from it, you can bet that nine cops out of ten will think you're on some serious drug.  At least with rolling paper you can show a pouch of tobacco to prove you're making cigarettes instead of joints, what cop is going to recognize a vial of colorless liquid as liquid nicotine?

Heheh, funny story.  So, I'm driving back from Dallas with a large Ziploc bag full of brown bottles, vials, odd looking bits of electronic detritus, and assorted other oddments sitting on the passenger seat.  I stop at the rest area just south of Dallas, and when I come out there's a man and woman looking in the window of my car.  The woman sees me, says something to the man, and they both very nonchalantly walk off.  I get in my car and drive away.

Within 5 miles, I have a police car in my rear-view mirror, and for the next 150 or so miles I have some form of police car riding my ass at least half of the time (just working from the ones where I was eventually able to see enough to be sure it was a cop, I may have been tailed the entire way).  I get to Temple (major speed trap), and finally one of them lights up and pulls me over.  For about 2 seconds I consider hiding the bag, then decide it's better to act as if I have no idea I might even want to hide it, and leave it in plain sight on the passenger seat.

Story is that a local police deputy saw someone answering my description in a car like mine driving on the frontage road with no seat belt (they can stop you for that in Texas).  He wants me to wait until that local cop shows up to confirm the ID (keep in mind, the state trooper that pulled me over had followed me since I hit the county line, and I know he knew I hadn't left the freeway since Dallas).  So I get to sit there on the side of the road, engine off, under about a million candlepower of lights, waiting for this fictional deputy for the better part of an hour starting at midnight.  Fortunately, it was the first cool night in central TX since May, and not too unpleasant (I had a book).

Finally, he comes back to my window for the third or fourth time, and gets around to asking the question he really wanted to ask all along: "So, what is that stuff in the bag, anyway?"  So I get to give him the spiel about eCig's, and nicotine solution, and the ePipe I'm considering making, and so on, 10 minutes or so of fascinating detail about the minutiae of low-voltage heating circuits, li-ion batteries, and how China came to be the great liberators of the last openly despised minority in America.

The only thing that saved me from an awkward phone call from the jail in Temple (I'd forgotten my cell phone, so my wife had no idea why I'm not already home) is that my eLiquid supplier (Blip Labs) is the *only* one who properly labels their goods, with the appropriate poison warnings, HazMat codes, and everything.  I'm pretty sure that without those, even my fanboy patter would not have convinced the trooper I wasn't up to something dodgy and needed to be hauled in until he figured it out.

--Dave

So. I got my NO.7 in the mail yesterday, and basically i have only smoked about 3 smokes that day, with the help of this device.

(http://www.ecigaretteschoice.com/product_images/g/tobaccopackweb__47574.jpg)

I must say, while this attacks the need, it is still quite different experience than smoking a real one. I had ordered two units, one for me and one for a friend (I got the disposable version, with the 5 solution numbs). I get vapor most of the time, however my friend rarely gets anything.

I guess I shall see how it goes over the next few days until I run out. It  doesn't reproduce the full smoking experience, but I guess it is something. Cutting back on the number of real ones a day is a good thing.

Scary! I kind of want a box mod, but things like this make me think it might be a bad idea.

Oh and Mr Bloodworth, buy a goddamn 510 already (35 bucks, cmon) and use the tea bag mod.  There really isn't any point unless you're doing that.

I've had exactly 1/4 of a cigarette in the last two months, Schild was convinced I'd go back to regular cigarettes if I tried them again last week.  Initial drags were okay, not anything to make me wax nostalgic, but the *aftertaste*.  Yuck, like I had licked the ashtray.

Keep in mind, I have none of the usual former smoker dislike for cigarette smoke, it doesn't bother me at all, and the initial taste and feeling in the throat were no big deal.  But if that's what my mouth always used to taste like, no wonder my wife wouldn't kiss me after I came in from smoking.  Didn't go away for at least half an hour, either.  I've got a pack of emergency cigarettes stashed in the freezer, but I'm hoping I never need them.

--Dave

Of course, I didn't give him a menthol, so it probably did taste like an ash tray.

Care to like a suppler I can order from? The reason I got the No.7 Is becomes it was a low investment to give this a try.

Wow, manual batteries beat the everliving shit out of automatic batteries.

I'm already mad at my usb passthrough because I can never tell if the goddamn thing is working right. WTB manual usb passthrough

Drop me a PM non, I'll take care of you on the passthru.

For everyone else: I'm going to be ordering a bunch of atomizers and stuff for personal use from bestecig.com in about a week (China is on vacation this week, heh)

So - PM me what you want on their site and you'll get it at list price -10%, and the only shipping charge you'll need to pay is stateside ($2 for first class, $6 for priority in most cases)

They've got 901, 801, 401, and 510 kits, atomizers, batteries, and dirt cheap liquid.  If you like tobacco flavors, the 555 and mild 7 are my personal favs.  RY4 is nice too, and something that noone has really been able to duplicate DIY.  So even if you're doing what I do and mixing your own flavors using the cleaner blip stuff, the RY4 is fun to have around - it tastes kind of like cotton candy, but caramely..its odd, but good.  Cola is surprising good too, it tastes like smoking a coke.

Ordering from china is sooo much cheaper than stateside, so I highly recommend stocking up on atomizers - I think they wind up being like $5.50 or $6 per after the 10% off list.
They've got manual USB passthrus too, although they will die sometimes.  The ones I make are much higher quality, but I don't think I'm going to make anymore stand-alones passthrus, just fake batteries for the lasers to use it with USB.  Theres just not enough money in em to make it worth all the effort to build them.

New guy, been reading the forums for a long time but I don't consider myself to be extremely witty nor am I a huge gamer anymore (job, life, etc).  In any event, I've been reading the forums since the wt.o merger days, which probably qualifies me as one of the most pathetic lurkers in board history.  I registered as a result of this thread, so I figured that I should at least post my limited experience with e-cigs.

So, Nerf hooked me up with one of his laser mods, a USB passthrough and various other accoutrement last week.  Since getting the e-cig, I really haven't had much of a craving for an analog cigarette.  It's not exactly a one-to-one trade off, but it's damned close and the benefit of not smelling like an ashtray is a big plus -- at least that's my wife's opinion.  I probably can't say much more than what's been covered in this thread already, but I would definitely advise a USB passthrough or something of that sort.  Powering via USB produces significantly more vapor which, having smoked analogs for 14 years, is closer to the throat hit that I'm accustomed to.

If you are a smoker and are on the fence about trying e-cigs, I would definitely recommend giving it a shot.  Particularly if you are in an area of the country (as I am) where analog cigarettes are insanely expensive, it's more than worth it simply from a cost-benefit standpoint.  So, I'll shill a bit for Nerf here and say that my experience has been really great so far and he definitely delivered what we agreed upon and more.  Ebay-style feedback: A+ seller, would use again.

One last bit of advice for those that wish to mix their own juice, there is a nice spreadsheet that was referenced earlier in the thread, but it can be a bit daunting if you are looking to mix a simple flavor.  I found a pretty decent and very simple online calculator for ejuice here (http://www.todmuller.com/ejuice/ejuice.php).

I have nothing bad to say about Nerf's service, he was helpful over the phone and stuff. My experience overall was pretty meh. The juice tasted ok I guess, but hard on the throat (and I smoke Marlboro Reds)... and the juice seems to drip out. I gotta buy some chargers for my batteries...mix shit up....some of the equip was faulty.

I could see someone with more motivation than myself getting into it, but for me it's a little too much effort for a raw throat and money savings.

I know, I know....Tea Bag mod. I just don't even feel like trying :P

Seriously dude, the teabag mod takes like 3 minutes and makes a huuuge diff.  Which liquid are you using currently?  If you're finding the throat hit too harsh in the beginning, step down to a lower nic level until you get accustomed to it, run more glycerin in the mix etc.  You've still got my cell number, call me tonight (after like 5pm CST) and I'll run through some shit with you and figure out if theres anything you're missing.

You have to find something that suits you with vaping, some people like some models better than others, and some people like different vaping methods more than others.

I've tried the 801, 901, 510, and the be102 (or something, it's wierd), and I like the 510 the best with the teabag mod.  If I didn't use the teabag mod and had one of those other models, I would have probably gone back to cigarettes, it just wasn't as enjoyable.

Yeah, I hate the 901's because if you use the cartridges, you get liquid in your mouth, and I don't drip because it's too much hassle.  I've got a 1 year old, so I have to keep very close track of where my stuff is, and being able to load a cartridge and use that for 30-40 minutes at a time makes it a lot easier to keep the eyedropper bottles where the baby can't reach them.  The 801's don't give as intense a throat hit as the 510 or 901, but I actually *prefer* that, and it sounds like you would too.

--Dave

Hey Nerf, I'm looking for a backup on my Janty Stick.  My concern is that if this one should die I'll become desperate, and like a crack addict, then do anything to score (namely, going back to actual smoking).  I like the Janty, but I've got some minor quibbles with it. My main complaint is that they don't draw very well if you're not hooked up to the USB passthrough.  This usually isn't a problem since I'm either at my computer, or sitting on the couch where I've got a power adaptor that has a USB port.  When I'm on the road, though, it'd be nice not to have to take 6 second hits to get the same effect as when I'm hooked up.

Is there anything you can recommend/sell me that meets this criteria?  Hopefully with at least 3-4 hours battery life?

I could make you a laser in 510, the lower resistance atomizer makes up for the lower voltage (3.7v vs 5v from USB) from a battery-operated device.  2-4 hours between swapping batteries is about right for the 10440s.

However, the DSE905 is out now, and while its not available in anything but 901, it's a great product and it's dirt cheap ($65 for a starter kit w/ batteries, chargers, etc, etc)

I'm pretty much getting out of the making stuff business now that the chinese are doing it right, but if you really want a laser in 510 I'll hook ya up.

Nah, if you can point to something else that fits the bill that'd be great.  Got a link to somewhere I can buy the DSE905?

China:  http://www.healthcabin.net/dse905-wholesale-1046.html?zenid=riei49efor4e605tct6aersr05

US:  http://shop.vaporcountry.com/product.sc?productId=255

I'd send an email to any US suppliers beforehand to make sure they're actually in stock, a lot of e-cig sites are pretty fucking shady and will gladly take your money with no stock and keep feeding you bullshit til their order arrives.  Shipping from healthcabin is cheap, and their sales rep (Amy) is awesome.

Eh...   Still no USB passthrough, though.  Maybe I should just stick with the Janty?

I'm all about the 510s, I would definitely look into one.

No 510 (or other low-resistance atomizer) available for the 905 yet, only 901s.  You're stuck with non-china mods if you want 510.

Okay, so I just ordered the new VP PT shipping on Monday.  5 volts of pure vaping goodness!  Now I'll just keep the Janty Stick around strictly for times when I can't be tethered to a computer/wall socket.

ETA:  I am bothered by the lack of 510 and 801 vaporizers available, but I'll live until they're a little bit more readily available.

Day 4 of only using my e-cig. I just ordered some more juice. I think I have a 901 from best-ecig.

I like Gulp am thinking I should get a second device cause I'm weak.
So for someone who has no clue on what the difference between a 901, a 501 or a bootcut pair of levis are, what gives good throat hits now?

This (https://www.dietsmokes.com/products/VP-PT-%28USB-Pass-THRU%29-5Volt.html) is my go to ecig right now.  You can either go with USB where it hits at something like 4 volts, or plug directly to electric, where it delivers over 5.  Personally I prefer the USB route, because otherwise this fucker burns up your juice quickly (I drop directly onto the atomizer, though).  Fantastic ecig.  The only problem is it's not portable, so I keep my Janty Stick around for that.

Hope this isn't annoying or unfounded crap but I saw this article and remembered seeing this thread.  Just a heads up if you are trying to get nicotine out of an eCigarettes I guess.
http://www.dailytech.com/Study+ECigarettes+Fail+at+Nicotine+Delivery+No+Better+Than+Unlit+Cigarette/article17662.htm (http://www.dailytech.com/Study+ECigarettes+Fail+at+Nicotine+Delivery+No+Better+Than+Unlit+Cigarette/article17662.htm)

The study hasn't actually been published yet so disregard this if it turns out to be total bullshit.

More FUD from our friends at ASH (Action on Smoking and Health, a cigarette industry front that is trying to discredit and ban eCig's).  The giveaway is the focus in the article on di-ethylene glycol (found in some imported Chinese liquid) and nicosamines (also found in Chinese eLiquid, but at much lower levels than in tobacco smoke).  The moral of the story: Don't use Chinese liquid.  There are now reputable US manufacturers (Blip Labs and My Freedom Smokes, to name two I've used), that use USP grade Propylene Glycol and scientific grade Nicotine (99.7%) rather than something produced by an anti-freeze plant (and thereby easily contaminated by ethylene glycol) and pesticide-grade nicotine (35% nicotine, 65% whatever else comes out of the leaves and is left behind by the extraction process).

It's also quite a lot cheaper, and doesn't run into customs barriers.  I have a 3 year supply in my freezer, cost me less than $400.  Another potential unknown safety risk is the flavoring, although artificial flavors are extensively tested for safety of ingestion, it's possible that boiling and inhaling them could be hazardous.  But it's considerably less likely than those of continuing to inhale tobacco smoke, or the known effects of menthol on the lungs.

As far as actual nicotine delivery?  Hell fucking yes there's nicotine getting delivered.  I started smoking at 13, smoked a pack a day *every* day, minimum, for 25 years.  I quit for 6 weeks of Air Force basic training, which lasted until the San Antonio airport gift shop.  I smoked my last cigarette September 2nd of last year, and have had a pack of cigarettes in my freezer ever since, untouched.  I did smoke 3-4 drags off of one Schild insisted I try, which did nothing for me and tasted like I was licking an ashtray.  If I chain-vape off a high-voltage mod, or vape the high-nicotine "mix" liquid straight without diluting it down, I can get a nicotine buzz just like when I first started smoking.

I suspect that the conditions of the study were rigged such that either the nicotine was being processed out of the blood by the body before the samples were taken, or the smoker's levels were artificially elevated by also detecting "nicotinoid" chemicals, where a molecule of nicotine is bound up with other biological elements, which doesn't have any of the neural effects of nicotine, but stays in the body much longer.  Suspiciously lacking from the testing is a group of tobacco smokers who vaped rather than smoked for the testing period.

--Dave

They were probably using no nicotine e-juice...

I bought some Johnson Creek e-juice (Black Cherry). I'd avoid ordering that again. (They also supposedly use US suppliers and high grade chemicals, but I have my suspicions....)

I'm pretty happy I've gone 3 and a half months without a real cigarette.

Follow up.. Got some cheesecake and Tropical punch flavored juice from Freedom Smokes and it's delicious (The cheesecake is amazing).

Bump on this - all of my current supply of eCig stuff is basically scattered to the wind after my move, so I'm looking to start from scratch again.

It appears that buying from someplace like Freedom Smokes would be the place to go for the actual quality liquids?

And I want something a little higher quality on the actual ecig front, something with a rechargable battery that has a longer lifespan then like, a month.

I still  :heart: bliplabs for my liquid, even if their website sucks.

Buy a chuck or another mod that uses an 18650 and you'll be golden for the actual battery bit.

Yeah, I... um... what?

I don't know what those phrases mean. I'm new. :(

A mod is just a different battery holder with the connector from an e-cig battery on it, instead of using a 130mAh standard one you can hook up a lithium ion 18650 (18mm diameter x 65mm length) with a 2600mAh capacity.  2-3 days between charges, and a better more consistent vape while you use it.

My freedom smokes just got in some low resistance 510 atomizers. It's amazing how much vapor you get from them.

BTW - if you have a high voltage battery, don't use them with it.

(Corrected since I put the wrong type in)

I've got a shitload of low resistance 510 atomizers, and a direct line from China for more.  If anyone needs stuffs let me know.

So based on the current availability of a lot of different products, does anyone have a few recommendations for one of the current less-homebrew models?

I saw a starter kit for $65 the other day, at a store near my house, so I'm wondering whether the "you get what you pay for" adage is true of eCigs as well.

If it looks like a cigarette its not going to perform very well, but if that's what you want go for cheap.  There are only a handful of manufacturers and quality difference is negligible between them. 

Get something with a bigger battery, a dse905, a chuck, an nhaler, etc.

Or just smoke with a USB cord, or do what I do and carry around 2 spare batteries and have 2 chargers.

NHaler's (http://www.nhaler.com/home.html) X-Haler and XS-Haler (the mini version) are the best of the "pipe bomb" models available right now, from what I've seen (an XS Mini is my public vaporizer now).  The big difference over others of the type is the simplicity and robustness of the mechanical switch (it does add significantly to the length of the unit).  The NHaler line has contenders for best of breed (http://shop.nhaler.com/Mods_c41.htm) in the "battery puck" and "fist pack" models, as well.

My own mods are all flatpacks these days, although I keep meaning to build a 3-NiMH battery puck model so I can have something I can use batteries from Wal-Mart in (I can use disposable CR123's for cameras in the XS, but they cost $5 for a day's vaping).

NHaler's juice is overpriced, though.

--Dave

Wow, jargon-heavy.

Meh, I'll just invest the 65 bones in the random store option and hope it helps me wean off hand-rolled smokes, which were meant to wean me off smoking.

Given the number of smokers in my personal and professional life, I guess I either need a) even more willpower or b) some kind of placebo/substitute

"Pipe bomb": Unit built around a cylindrical battery case (usually a piece of pipe or heavy tubing, although the originals were flashlights).

"Battery puck": Built around a rectangular multi-battery casing, generally with the atomizer taking up one of the battery slots.

"Fist pack": A large version of the battery puck, the extra space often used to add voltage regulator circuitry (NHaler's has four voltage settings), as well as using the extra large batteries to supply the higher power needed and still provide multiple days of use off one charge.

Most of these, especially if home-made, are not something you would want to take through airport security.  My home-brew mods (which are mostly based on Lithium Polymer "flat pack" batteries) tend to be much more compact and efficient (flatpacks have a higher energy density and need less battery to supply the needed current), but they also look even more like the product of a "mad bomber", so when I go out in public I use an XS-Haler, which is much easier to explain.  If I could find the source of the wooden boxes NHaler is using for one of their battery puck models, I'd love to build a flatpack into them (but I won't pay full price for the mod just to gut it).

Stock eCig batteries suck.  They have trouble providing enough current, don't last very long, and don't get many recharge cycles before they die completely.  Their only plus is that they look more like a real cigarette, which can be a minus (more likely to create a problem when using them in a non-smoking area).  The XS-Haler costs like $48, and $30 bucks at all-battery.com will get 4 batteries and a charger for it.

--Dave

If ordering from E-cig and China scares you. Try Myfreedomsmokes.com - they have the stuff slightly more expensive. I never had any trouble from china, but I get my juice from them or make my own from the Bliplab's stuff. I've order a few things when they have had a sale on equipment.  It makes it fairly affordable when they do that. I'd get a 510 Joye starter pack and whatever juice sounds good to you.  (I'd also order a low resistance atomizer and use that with it because it makes the whole experience a lot better.)

Anyone ordered recently from Blip?  I put in an order a month ago and after several weeks inquired about the status.  I was told that it had definitely shipped and that they would reship immediately if I hadn't received it.  On reshipping, I requested a tracking number which they provided.  So, now about 1.5 weeks later I still haven't received anything and the tracking number seems bogus.  I have no idea what happened as they were always reliable before now and it seems like I'm just getting jerked around at this point.

According to the Director of Blip (aka the guy who answers emails), they are in the process of selling their company and equipment to a larger supplier.  Perhaps this is why their operations seem totally unreliable at this point.  In any event, based on my experience, I'd say order at your own risk right now.  Also of note is that they are discontinuing all but the 7.5% W/V concentration.

In any event, if anyone has successfully ordered recently, let me know and I will try to follow up with them yet again.  Otherwise I think it's time to contest some credit card charges.

Edit: Pre-emptive :facepalm:.  Within 10 minutes of posting this, I got an updated email from Blip saying that they had provided the wrong tracking number.  The new, correct number shows delivery to my zip code today though I haven't been home to confirm this yet.  In any event, I may have completely misplaced my nerd rage here...

So, the Blip order did arrive today.  It contained an extra bottle of 7.5% to make up for the shipping incident, despite the fact that it seems that USPS may have been the actual culprit here (and even if they weren't, who am I to turn down free shit?).  Just figured I would clear the air in the event that anyone else is looking to order from Blip.

Actually, in case anyone is ordering, I would email them directly before ordering as they mentioned that they are discounting their existing inventory with the pending buyout.

Hard to believe it's been a year of only using the e-cig.

It really has worked well and the amount of money I saved has been incredible. If anyone is still smoking tobacco, give it a try.

That's great to hear, I officially quit cigarettes 18 days ago and I'm going strong with my ecig. I ended up getting this beast:

(http://i.imgur.com/Dob0k.jpg)

And I'm pretty happy so far. It's nice not having to worry about batteries at it has the biggest one in existence, although if I were to do it again I would go with the The BB (http://altsmoke.com/starterkit/bb/thebb.html) instead as it's a bit smaller. The one in the picture is the Silver Bullet (http://altsmoke.com/starterkit/silverbulletusa/altsilverbullet.html).

The biggest thing I would recommend to ecigers is to go with ZFM mod for your carts, instead of using filler the cart is empty and employs a cap with a hole. It's fantastic, no more burnt taste and filling up the carts every two seconds, or having to drip. I like the h-cut best, you can find them here (http://stealthvapor.webs.com/apps/webstore/). And I would always go with the 510, it's the best.

I could not continue with the e-cig. It irritated my throat and nose and, did not scratch the itch. Could it have been the brand? Maybe. I'm thinking its just not for me, I should perhaps just look into quitting instead of replacing.

YMMV.

You're probably doing 100% PG which is quite harsh, you really want a mix of 50% PG and 50% VG. I would order from somewhere like vaporbomb (http://vaporbomb.com/) where you can specify the amount of VG and PG you want in your liquid. They also have some awesome flavors to boot.

I just took a hit of a blend that is 80%PG and 20%VG and it is quite harsh compared to my 50/50 blend. Unfortunately ecigs are not something you can just enjoy right off the bat, you need to experiment a bit to find what you like. If I had to use a ecig with a normal battery and normal polyfil cart with 100% PG liquid, I would just go back to cigs. For me getting a custom mod, a ZFM cart, and 50/50 liquid did the trick.

PG and VG?

No idea.

This is me here. (http://www.smokefreeonline.com/index.php/catalog/product/view/id/17/s/tattoob/category/8/) I also use the nubs they sell. Its in my local mall, so thats where I go to re-up. The bothering of my throat was not from harshness, quite the contrary, that stuff is smooth as silk. But something was irritating my passages, including my nose.

I run 80/20 PG/VG, but I like the throat hit.  Anything less than 20% VG doesn't work at all, especially if you're running high-temp, because the PG flashes to vapor and you can't get the nicotine to stick in your lungs (if you're exhaling and there's no or nearly no steam plume, you're not getting any absorption in your lungs).  On the other hand, more VG means your atomizers clog faster (again, especially if you're running high-temp).

I also run fairly strong on the nicotine (2.4%, or 24mg), and mixed my own from 60mg base (a liter of base, a liter of PG, and half a liter of VG, after a year I've used up a bit more than half a liter).

--Dave

EDIT: PG = Propylene Glycol; VG = Vegetable Glycerin.  Both have low evaporation points, high solubility for the nicotine, and are mostly chemically inert.  Some people have allergies to PG and have to run 100% VG, which tends to clog the atomizers.  VG tends to rapidly form droplets when the vapor is cooled, which makes the visible "smoke" plume and increases the absorption rate.  100% PG is really harsh on the throat and tends to have little absorption into the lungs.

150 dollars? I hate those fuckers at the mall ripping everyone off, all you're getting is this with the addition of 6 'Ed Hardy Tattoos':

http://bestecig.com/products.asp?bid=9&sid=36

Actually, you get two batteries and two atomizers with this kit instead of only one each with the one you linked. And it only costs 25 - 35 bucks!

Essentially the nubs are called cartridges or carts for short, and you can just refill them with liquid as opposed to buying pre-filled ones. The best filling material for a cart is currently up for debate (much like every aspect of ecigs), currently people are liking blue foam (which is here (http://www.petmountain.com/show_product/11442-502926), you can find it at pet-whatever near you hopefully) or fluval fishtank canister filter material. If you get a pack of that and some 50/50 liquid from vaporbomb you might enjoy your ecig more than you have.

Also, like Skel said, VG makes better smoke while PG carries flavor better and gives you that nice throat hit. If you're done with smoking in general it's not worth getting into, but if you're still smoking analogs you might as well give it another shot.

The new eGo from best-ecig is pretty nice, it's what I'm using right now.

If enough people want to throw in to get enough of an order, I can do another big wholesale order on atomizers/batteries/starter kits/whatever and probably save at least 10-20% off of what's listed on their website, and get the shipping down to reasonable levels with enough people. (It's like $17.50 for the first .5kg, and then $7/.5kg after that iirc)

Wow, they put out yet another version, eGo mega, with an 1100mAh battery this time.  At least they listen to me when I order shit.  The eGo with a 650mAh battery was *almost* there but head and shoulders above the standards, I'd imagine the mega is hot shit.  I'll see what my wholesale is on the $60 mega kit, I know it'll be under $50, just not sure how much under.

The quality of that device and the charger and such is much higher than the other devices that are cigarette like that I have looked at. Also, I have a lifetime warranty with them, if any part of it breaks, they will replace the entire unit. All of it, brand new box.

As far as everything else, I'm not one to want to mix my own, or rig up some sort of home brew device. Its an addiction, not a hobby :p

Snicker, lifetime replacement.

Dude, I used to own mall kiosks, do you have any idea what the average lifespan of one of those businesses is?  As soon as the initial burst of sales from 'hey, new kiosk, new product!' dries up, they will pack up and move on to greener pastures and that warranty will be worth about as much as used toilet paper.

And yes, it's possible the kiosk could close and the company could still honor it, but it's owned by some guy living in an apartment in Maryland, and changes to whatever get-rich-quick scheme is fashionable at the moment.  Check out how it looked in '04 and '05 on the wayback machine:  http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://smokefreeonline.com

It's all the same shit, there are only 3 or 4 actual manufacturers of the products, and a bunch of people that pay extra to have it packaged in custom boxes or colors.
If you're willing to pay extra for the fancy box or colors, go for it, but don't expect any sort of actual customer service to be there when you need it.  I've seen hundreds of these companies pop up in the last couple years and just as many disappear without a trace.

Save money and buy straight from the manufacturer, when it comes to the quality of products and chargers and everything else, bestecig is top notch, and I've seen a lot of em.

Not that worried about it. E-cigs just are not for me, I have settled on quitting using the patch or something. 

Save some money and just smear some e-cig liquid on yourself.

(Note - don't do this)

I'm putting together a big-ish order for a few folks on the gun forum, if anyone wants to piggyback and save money on shipping let me know.  I get the new 1100mAh eGo Mega kits for $35+shipping.

I just picked up an Ego-T since I liked the idea of not having the mesh in a cart get all.... icky. And not having to refill a lot.

It's interesting to compare the vapor to my 510 low resistance atomizers. Seems much... wetter and not as hot but still gives a good amount of vapor.  The flavor seems to come through a lot more too. (I also got some black cherry juice from myfreedomsmokes and it's delicious.)

Seems like it would an excellent system to introduce someone to esmoking with. (Plus the 1100ma batteries should last a while).

I'm late to the party but wanted add to this great thread.  Been vaping for a little over a month now and loving it.  Making sense of all of the variations of equipment, juices, and vendors was a little frustrating at first and it took a bit of experimenting but I found a great setup for me.

I'm rocking 3 kr808d-1 battery eCigs, one extra long with a manual switch and two automatic regulars.  I also have a USB pass through for the car.  I personally like a two piece system like this as there is less to fool with.  I just buy blank cartomizers and refill them after a day's use.  The XL battery lasts a long damn time and that coupled with the two shorter autos for stealth vaping at work I'm good to go.  The manual is a better experience but I like that I can safely put the autos in my pocket without the fear of activating the switch.

I have to recommend two vendors as they've been awesome for me.  vapor4life.com is great for the hardware and blank cartos.  They run sales every week, for example right now the "BEATCLOCK" code gets you 29% off.  Also mstsbakery.com has amazing juice!  Her snickerdoodle cookie and strawberry lemonade made all the difference for me and I didn't enjoy vaping to it's fullest until I found her.  Both vendors highly recommended on ECF.

Anyways, if I upgrade at some point down the line, I think the eGo Mega will be the way to go.

One of these days I should post up my old wholesale price sheets so people can see how 'great' of a deal they're getting from these vendors.

I ran into a guy on campus last week that was paying $30 for fucking standard 510 batteries from one of these fucks.  I decided to dig and find one of my old sheets for giggles - <$3, heh.

It's all just re-branded shit from China anyways, don't waste your money paying some guy to import it with his logo and claim it's the next best thing.  Even non-wholesale prices from China blow everyone stateside out of the water.

I'd still buy my juice from someone who claims they are using USDA grade stuff instead of Chinese imports.

Do you only buy your steaks from EPA and FDA certified butchers, or make sure that any car you buy has passed the rigorous safety standards set by the ATF?

Yes. I don't order my beef from China. And in Washington if you import a car from another country you have to get it safety inspected.

I paid $14 bucks for an XL KR808 battery.  Assuming it lasts a few months I don't think that is too bad.  Smaller batteries than that are going for $40 at the mall, which is clearly a rip off.  Getting them for $3 would be nice, but it isn't feasible for most people to pool together and place a bulk order like you are talking about. 

Just as an update: I had managed to break or wear out all of my home-brew kits, and decided to just buy a standard kit (I'm missing most of my tools).  These days, there are kits made in China and Korea that take most of the ideas from the mod scene.  You can get big-battery e-cigs (up to 1300mAh), battery pucks, and voltage-regulated models, factory made.  There's also a new wave of dual-coil cartomizers that make the low-resistance atomizers pointless, and a couple of models with built-in tanks.

I expected this, which is why I pulled the plug on turning making my own mods into a business, but it has definitely arrived.  You can still get American-made battery/switch packs that are prettier than what's coming from Asia, but there really isn't a feature difference anymore.

For myself, I wound up picking up an E-Power 14670 from SmokTek and a variety pack of dual-coil cartomizers (to find out which model works best).  With a 3.5mL cartomizer, I might be able to stop switching back to regular cigarettes when I drive (reloading an e-cig while driving is too damned dangerous, and I puff like a fiend on the road).

--Dave

Just got the unit: Dual-coil cartomizers are the shiznit.  I've gotten equal vapor production out of some of my flat-pack/low resistance atomizer homebrew models, but you combine that with a 3.5-5.5mL capacity and it's better than analogs without the "just licked an ashtray" taste.  The overall unit is pretty big compared to the traditional e-cig (about 7 inches long and 3/4 of an inch across), but I'm used to big units (and it's smaller than an equivalent homebrew).  I actually managed to give myself a nicotine buzz.  It's cheaper than the equivalent mods ($45 plus another $12 for 3 DCC's, vs. $70+ for a big-batt mod), and unlike the bit-bat ecigs out right now like the Ego I can replace the switch ($12) and batteries ($4) separately.  Ego/Riva batteries in the same capacity range cost $18-20.

So, on the topic of juice...What are people's experiences? What kinds do you look for?

My story thus far is with myfreedomsmokes, with their cigarette-style flavors and with Johnson Creek smoke juice, which does more sweet 'pipe' flavored tobacco.

From myfreedomsmokes, I have liked their Dunhill and their whiskey flavor, and my partner likes their Lucky Strike flavor. With Johnson Creek, I like their Red Oak Tennessee Cured, which is a sweet style pipe tabacco flavor. Their other flavors range from 'ok' to blech.

I know that Katiri like the stuff from Mrs. T's bakery, and I'm sure its fine if you're looking for a sweet flavor.

I'd keep using them if nothing else was around, but I'm wondering if people have had better results in finding juice that doesn't rely on a sweet base flavor.

I DIY with LorAnn flavors, usually the low-residue fruit flavors (blueberry, peach, raspberry, watermelon, and so on).  I don't particularly like the taste of tobacco, and although I like the taste of the creme flavors (especially banana), they clog up the atomizers too damned fast.  It's a bit more work, but I bought 2.5 liters of 24mg liquid (actually 1 liter of 6%, a liter of PG, and 500 mL of VG) almost two years ago for $300 and I still have a liter and a half left.  Keep all but the half-liter I'm currently mixing from in the freezer, and haven't had any problems with the nicotine losing strength.

Even for DIY, you can get absolute tobacco extracts and lick all the ashtrays you want.

--Dave

Tempting as that may be, I think I'd best leave that to the pros, since I actually want something that seems to be a bit of a rare bird in the ejuice buisiness. My juice probably WOULD taste like an ashtray, rather than a cigarette. I know, its a fine distinction to those who aren't recent smokers, but its an itch non the less.

Electronic cigarette blows up and knocks out all of a guy's teeth. (http://m.weartv.com/news/Exploding_Cigarette)

He must not have had many teeth is all I've got to say.   :awesome_for_real:

There have been reported of explosions before, but not with a significant injury.  Generally it involves homebrew high-voltage mods made out of flashlight bodies (and it's been seen in the light-hounds community as well).  In essence, when you jam two small batteries into a body designed for 1 large one, and you hermetically seal the case, you can get a compromised cell that starts outgassing, which leads to a pressure buildup in the case, which increases temperature, which means more gassing....  You wind up with the equivalent of an M80 going off in your hand.

--Dave

I'm sure that there are going to be isolated instances of this happening. Much like with iPhones blowing up. Of course, the media is going to jump on the fear factor and blow it out of proportion, at which point a politician will decide its a crusade, a subcommittee will be formed, and Ron Paul will get 30 more votes after he yammers on about freedom from gummint.

Okay.  I'll bite.  Why do you need to do a homebrew high-voltage mod? 


Engels-  Maybe I'm unreasonable, but I don't want my iPhone blowing up in my hand.  When it does, I'm going to be super pissed off.

E-cigs cater to people who love to tinker. Homebrewing your kit is an attempt to get the kind of vapor you like.

Essentially e-cigs are based on heating elements heated through resistance.  You jimmy with voltages and ohms and what not to maximize both battery life and the heat of the heating element.

TBH, there's commercially available products out there that give plenty of vapor and it just boils down to people liking to tinker.

In the news report, however, there's a strong inference that the e-cig used was a cheap 7-11 variety of disposable e-cig that lasts a few days. 'Real' e-cigs don't really try to look like cigarettes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sS1QLmeryA)

Also, ghost, you'll be happy to know that ever since I switched from cigarettes to e-cigs 3 months ago, my teeth are WAY cleaner. No stains!

That does make me way happier.  I wish that everyone would quit smoking, and if that means switching to e-cigarettes, so be it.   :heart:

So keep it up!  Good job!

I see a lot of the ones that look like a cig but have a blue light on the tip, or it may be that the blue light just makes me notice them more.

A lot of people move away from the ones that look like cigarettes because they get hassled in no-smoking zones.  I get "What the hell was that?" looks on occasion, but the E-Power doesn't look at all like a cigarette so it's rare for anyone to make an issue of it.  Except for one lady who was convinced I was "cheating", because obviously the purpose of no-smoking bans was to make sure that anyone who used nicotine in those areas stuck to chewing tobacco, like God intended (yes, she actually used those words with a straight face).

--Dave

You should have made her show you the relevant passage in the bible.

Don't joke about stuff like this, there probably is one.

/bump

Never did take this thread seriously before, but I'm a heavy smoker. I am sold now though. Might be a fun hobby too to screw around and build my own shit. Right now, I'm using V2 stuff, which is good... I really like the power cig. It's even better than smoking real cigs. I think.... If only you could get this kind of vaper in a portable.

I'll pretty much guarantee that any "Big Batt" model (Ego, Riva, E-Power) with a Dual Coil Cartomizer will perform comparably to that direct-drive disposable cartomizer model, without being tethered.

--Dave

I can only find the specs on the Ego. Are they all the same? It says 3.7 volt. The V2 power cig is 5 volts.

edit: wait, don't know much about cartomizers. dual coil.. is that twice the strength?

Sorry, I'm a newb.

Don't feel bad, the whole danged nascent industry is rife with mixed terms. There's the compatibility with batteries to worry about, which isn't only about voltages, but also about the socket types. The EGO socket seems to be the same as the 510 battery type, but certain cartomizers/atomizers will not work with one or the other and its a danged mess for reasons that are sometimes related to the build of the cartomizer and sometimes to do with the voltage.

From what I have gathered, a cartomizer is the kind that has both the fluid and the atomizing heating element in the same contraption, while atomizers are the ones which are only the heating element thingie, with the nicotine fluid 'receptacle' separate.

Dual coil references the fact that the cartomizer has two heating elements, normally simple wires that are coiled up and 'heat', like a miniature hair dryer, which in turn atomizes the liquid, turning it into 'vapor'.

Okay, there are two factors on vapor output: Total wattage, and element temperature.  If you take a normal 3 ohm element and pump 5 volts through it, you've got 8 watts worth of heat energy vaporizing the solution, but you've got a very high temperature on the element (if it weren't cooled by the solution, it would top 1200 degrees and might even melt the nichrome alloy the coil is made of).  It tends to make for a very hot vape, and flavors can come out feeling "scorched.  You also tend to burn out/crust up atomizers faster that way, which is why the disposable cartomizers are popular with them (they're cheap, and they aren't intended to be used long enough for the durability issues to come up).

Old-school atomizers have the nichrome element atomizer separated from the fiber material that holds the liquid, which is in a cartridge.  Cartomizers combine them into one unit.  Disposables are just that, but not all cartomizers are disposable.  In a "dual coil cartomizer", you have two 3 ohm coils in parallel (which means 1.5 overall resistance), driven by a 3.7V battery (generally a "Big Batt" meaning large enough to supply 2+ amps without damaging the cell, 1000 mAh or more).  You wind up with about 9 watts of vapor production but with a much lower coil temp.  There are also high-resistance versions designed for high voltage, but we'll skip that for now.

The point is, my E-Power with DCC's (Dual Coil Cartomizers) puts out at least as much vapor as your rig (probably significantly more, since less of it is turned to gas).  Now, I have to load my own cartomizers with liquid (cheaper, but a potential safety issue), and there is some maintenance (cleaning and drying), but I do that mostly to make it cheaper, I'm paying about $15/month to replace a $150/month smoking habit (including the amortized cost of my gear, liquid, and replacement parts).

Then there's the completely DIY "homebrew" stuff I make.  My variable-voltage flat-pack based rig can produce 24 watts worth of high-temp vapor, which is a little insane.  But it's finicky, awkward to use in public, and would never make it through airport security.

--Dave

EDIT: Compatibility issues are why I went with the E-Power, it uses standard 14650 cells I can buy from anywhere for $5 (well, online from several different vendors and three different manufacturers, I can't pick them up at Walmart) and can use any 510 connector based cartomizer/atomizer (although for some it would need an extender to get around physical fit issues) but also has a form-fitting DCC that costs $3/each (I use up about 2 a month).  Ego's and their knockoffs are functionally almost identical except that the batteries are specific to each and generally cost $15-20 each (because they include the switch, the E-Power has a separate switch module).  Batteries last 3-6 months, and you need at least 2 (one to use and one to charge, I have 3 so I can leave the house with a fresh one and a spare, with no worries of running out that day).

I was talking with Engles a couple nights ago how it amazes me how the prices on E-cigs has dropped by about half in the last year.

It really encourages you to try out the different vaping systems. I love the Ego style batteries with their 600-1100 mamp's of power that last for a couple days. I've had way too many leaking problems with the Ego-T though. The Cartomizers seem fairly nice but I really like the amount of vapor I get from the 510 low resistance atomizers.  It's pretty interesting to see capitalism at work as different people make different "systems" to compete for my money.  I'm sure in two years or so just before they get outlawed it's going to be amazing!

If you're already using the Ego, try something like this (http://www.madvapes.com/eGo-Mega-Dual-Coil-Cartomizer-Flat-Tip_p_3225.html) (not a vendor I have used but they have a decent reputation and were the first link to come up, you can check around).  Holds as much as the Ego-T tanks, but without the flooding/leaking problems.  You *can* flood them and make them leak, but it's really simple: If it gurgles when you draw after reloading, unscrew it and blow firmly into a sink or paper towel.

I find that I can make it almost all day with two freshly loaded DCC's (as in morning to night, making it through a workday is easy) and a spare battery, although the E-Power's are just a little bigger than the Ego's.  Going from a LR atomizer at 3.7V to a DCC, you'll probably find it makes more vapor and it's cooler (less throat hit but more nicotine absorbed).

--Dave

Man, don't say that.

I better try to make as much use of this so I can ween off of real cigs. There isn't a better alternative atm, and there won't be later.

Also, I think I should find a random "lifestyle cop" and beat the shit out of them.

lol I sound like such a newb above.  :awesome_for_real: I've gone crazy in the world of vaping since. Quit smoking too.

My need for power as I mentioned above led me to experimenting with more mods. Unfortunately, I'm starting to rely on CE3 clearomizers, which suck at high voltages.. but these are a great method for juicing. So I'm back at 3.7v.

I'm bumping this to say I've basically kicked the cig habit through, ahem, vaping. Which is still a shitty verb.

The industry has gotten weird since Nerf delivered his homebrew direct drip bridged atomizer usb frankenstein thing into my hands in like 2008 or something.

California is obsessed with overpriced Filipino shit. There are mods that go for triple/quadruple what they are at retail on the auction market. Oh, and the industry fucking EXPLODED. Austin went from zero vape shops to 7 in the span of a year. They're all shitty, selling cloned Chinese shit. Texas is basically a hotbed for weird trash-types switching to vaping. In fact, I see more white trash making the logically-sound-for-their-health switch than I do hipsters. Which seems odd to me since a hipster can get 24k gold plated bizarre fucking mods that would fit their lifestyle better than goddamn Lucky Strikes.

ANYWAY. Vaping has gotten pretty high-tech (compared to what it used to be). CE3 clearomizers are basically shit these days. Kanger has done a pretty good job of wrecking the clearo industry with the Protank (it's Pyrex and Aluminum so it won't break under the strain of citrus or menthol liquids) and EVOD (like the protank, but plastic... and not an overly huge thing - it fits on top of an Ego Twist). Innokin is getting some traction with their double coil iClear 30 and 16s, but they are balls out ugly with their tanks (whereas Kanger tries to be... reasonably tasteful).

Anyway, billion dollar industry. Nerf should've rode that wave. Hell, he could've been way ahead of things with just boutique bullshit liquids (which go for 15ml for $16 from some companies).

Oh, and Big Tobacco is making serious plays in the space because they're about to get fucked by a literal fat guy in an overcoat (has anyone seen the douches that run the shops in SOCAL, oof).

Edit: Also, delving into the world of mods will get you the equivalent education in EE that you'd get a shitty college in Bumfuck, FlyOverState - so there's that I guess.

I've moved to an 18650 Ego-compatible using Ego DCC's, still mixing my own fluids from Lor-Ann flavors.  The e-cigs haven't caught on in San Diego yet from what I have seen, people know what it is but I don't see a lot of others.

Oddly enough, the Blu packs were really popular in the midwest (owned by one of the tobacco companies, I forget which).  There's really a major market split between the people who want something cheaper than analog, and people who don't mind the expens and expect to drop the same $1800 a year tobacco costs.

--Dave

In San Diego you have Armory Vape, which is another "we only carry Chinese shit" store. Liberty Flights which carries Radiator Pluid (http://www.liberty-flights.com/information.asp?action=contact) - I don't know if they have a B&M location. Vaperoo, which has some of the best liquids imaginable (but pricey) - https://www.facebook.com/VaperooSanDiego - oh, they also carry all of the "high-end" gear.

Honestly, the entire California "scene" is ABSURD compared to the rest of America. From SoCal to the North Bay area, you can basically get fucking everything. Every city has multiple major stores, and nearly all the major juice brewers are out there.

The entire scene is full of people that would be slinging weed behind high schools if vaping hadn't become a thing though. The people involved are just completely fucking unlikable.

Edit: As a pack a day smoker for 9 years (so, $2555 a year), even if I jumped in and bought $1k in high end Mods @  $200 a piece, and a few pricey atomizers (Kayfun @ $150, etc), I'd still be hard pressed to hit $2555. And all that shit would last me through the next year also. And the year after that. Then after that year too.

Hmm, I use CE5s and the store I normally use, myfreedomsmokes, is often sold out. I like CE5s just cuz they don't look like you're smoking crack.

Quick question to those of you who've given up smoking tobacco thanks to vaping. Do you eventually plan or hope to give up nicotine completely at some point or are you comfortable with continuing using ecigs?

I honestly have no idea what the health effects of vaping are, although I'm sure tobacco is much, much more harmful, whatever they are!

It's a genuine question, I'm not making any kind of judgement whatsoever, I'm interested to know if the growth of ecigs is likely to end up with far lower nicotine & tobacco usage in the long term, if it's easier to give up tobacco by using ecigs as an intermediary, etc.

I have gone from 24mg nicotine down to 6-16mg (depends on what device I'm on, as some are far more efficient than others).

The health effects of vaping thus far have been:
1. I quit smoking.
2. Senses of smell & taste seems to be restored.
3. I can exercise for a long time without getting beat to shit purely by my lungs falling apart under pressure.

I went through full cigarette withdrawal when I switched to ecigs, and it was gross.

I could *NOT* have quit without ecigs. But with them, I effectively quit cold turkey (as in, I got my ecigs on a tuesday and quit that tuesday - started with an ego twist with a vivi nova). Now that studies are coming out that say nicotine has no adverse effect on the heart (or body) and there's nothing that causes cell death or damage in good quality ejuice, I can't with 100% certainty say I'll ever quit. I play competitive games and nicotine is a wonder drug for that.

Since this thread's a bit on the stale-side, where would be a good place to start now in 2013 with the e-sig trend?

Do you already have ecigs or are you trying to quit smoking?

Neither?

Edit to elaborate: I'm not a cigarette smoker by any means.  If I'm out with friends and it's smoke time, I'm breaking out the cigars.  Was just curious about e-cigs, really.

I mean, I don't see a reason to start ... "vaping."

Ah, fair enough.   :-)

Mostly because nicotine is one of the habit forming parts of smoking, and while it's a goddamn wonderdrug when isolated, it's still a habit-forming thing.

They can also afford better beer than PBR, etc.

That's awesome Schild, nice one.

Oh, they're well into the I DRINK AT BREWPUBS AND ONLY THE MOST LIMITED BATCH ROGUE-ALIKE IPAS.

Basically, fuck'em.

I just ordered an eRoll from Joyetech to see what the latest tech in cig-alikes is like. Once I get it (week or two, ordered it cheap from Hong Kong), I'll make a thread about what I consider to be the best stuff out there at each level (cig-alike, ego sized, 18350 sized, 18XXX+ sized) and each price point (which imo is $7 (NJoy King), $30, $45, $70, $100, $150+).

My story's similar to Schild's. I quit cold turkey from half a pack a day. I started with a 36 mg nicotine dose and now I'm down to 6 mg. All the benefits are as he says. I can run, I can smell, etc.

I don't know if I will quit. Even with such a low dose, going even 3 hours without a puff makes me anxious. It may be nothing more than oral fixation, but I don't think so. Nicotine is NEVER worth starting for the sake of starting something. Its got some serious hooks.

HOWEVER, Nicotine on its own - which ecigarettes are at this point - is not harmful. So, like, for us "used-to-be-smokers" - ecigs are a fucking godsend. Just the second coming of christ himself. I mean it, nicotine is awesome.

For everyone else, they're just like, not even worth considering.

Well, there are some caveats to that. Pregnant women should stay away, for example, because nicotine is harmful to the fetus.

Nicotine is awesome for ex-smokers or for everyone?  I'm getting a mix of words.

Nicotine is just awesome. OBVIOUSLY NOT FOR PREGNANT WOMEN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

There's a reason that one of the biggest reservoirs of smoking is high-stress, high-precision careers like doctors and air traffic controllers.  Nicotine is a potent neuro-stimulant, even its toxicity points this out (your heart works itself to death). 

Nicotine is fucking awesome for anyone who want to think fast and integrate a large amount of knowledge into action without hesitation.  It will probably shorten your lifespan, but only through acceleration.

Me, I didn't have any withdrawal, I can switch back and forth without issues but after a few days of smoking I can feel my lungs clogging up again.

--Dave

Damn.... You guys are making me feel bad for sticking with my 36 mg nicotine level stuff....

BECAUSE NICOTINE IS AWESOME!!!!!

36? Holy fuck.

Edit: You do realize Marlboro reds are like, 24-28 right?

Yeah, I run 24-25, which is strong enough to make me twitchy if I get carried away.  But the VG/PG balance matters, too.  I use 20% VG, which absorbs a lot better than pure PG.

--Dave

I run 70%+ VG @ 18mg when playing a competitive game.

6-12mg at 50/50 otherwise. It's a range because certain atomizers and such yield stronger vaporization of the nic fuel my body needs.

Eh, I lived in the hipster holocaust that is Oakland for awhile, and I'd say the crowd still leans predominantly towards things like PBR and other random iconic type shit.  Alot fewer of the hipsters hung out with us beer nerds who only go out to drink at brewpubs, heh.  Though exceptions exist, such as Beer Revolution, which while having an amazing beer selection, is filled to the fucking brim with hipsters all day and night.

More on topic, there is one guy I work with here that has one of these e-cig things.  People started seeing him smoking it when we go out for the nights, and asked him about it.  Now there are about 6 other people at the embassy with them, and more seem interested.  So many closet smokers out there!

If I used one of the rebuildable atomizers I'd probably go heavier on the VG and lighter on the nicotine.  Anything else, it's the VG residue that builds up and chokes it out.  25% is about the max for cartomizers if you don't want to be replacing them weekly, at 70% in dual-coils make that daily.

--Dave

edit: If I need to be sharp, I just puff more.  Like I said, at 24mg/20%, I can make myself twitchy.

I think there are other factors as well in what glums up cartomisers. My anecdotal experience is that the more sweet/syrupy the liquid, the faster it glops up a coil. I've found that the liquid from Mrs T's is exceptionally clean and only when I start to mix it in with other brands does it start to glom stuff up. I've gone 5 weeks with the same coil for a CE5 using Mrs T's and I hit on that thing constantly throughout the day, even at work.

Oh, hay vaping thread.

After my Yeti starter, I dropped vaping for a while, and recently started picking up Blu disposables. They do me just fine, despite the vapesnobs seeming to look down their noses at them.
No refilling, no filler, no charging. Just puff away at it for a few days then toss it in the trash.

But I'm sure I can get cheaper by getting a real setup. So what's good lately? I'd really like something that I can recharge, pour the nicjuice into a resevoir and go. Also, I introduced my mom into vaping, and she's doing the Blu's as well, so it would be nice to find a simple setup for her to adopt. She's in her 70's and doesn't want a high maintenence rig.

Er, you know how I just said that Mrs T's Bakery was the least congesting of eliquids I've tried. That may be the case, but yesterday I got some lemonade flavored liquid from her and it dissolved my CE5 cartomizer. The black plastic from the drip tip was completely dissolving into the liquid and I was smoking black plastic. Awesome.

Heavy fruit, sour, citrus, and menthol flavors can wreck the shitty polypro used for clearos.

Get some protanks for those. It's a universal problem with liquids.

Ratman, the answer might be the eroll. Mine is currently on a plane from Hong Kong. It seems like the best cig-alike but I need to get one before commenting further.

I haven't smoked tobacco in a really long time.  Geez, it's become so complicated since then!

There are many negative side affects of nicotine use beyond it being a stupidly addictive substance.  They're just subtle and often occur in patients with secondary neurotransmitter issues.  It's quite clean as far as drugs go, but I'd hardly call it harmless.

On your previous suggestion from a few days ago I have one in the mail.

What part should worry me?

My guess would be blood pressure issues, but if it's not an issue with your health anyway then not much.

For the sake of nitpicking, tiny amounts of Nicotine are relatively benign; Nicotine itself is more toxic than arsenic and cadmium, and has some particularly nasty properties such as the capacity to be absorbed through the skin.

Here are a few (of many) examples.

Smokers tend to suffer depression at greater rates than nonsmokers.  It's difficult to determine cause/effect correlation though (i.e. do depressed people become addicted to nicotine more easily or does enhanced levels of nicotine cause depression, etc.).

Germ cell alterations in rats (testes, etc) caused by nicotine (BJU International, Volume 88, Issue 6, pages 622–626, October 2001)

This paper discusses the chemical basis for nicotine toxicity: Iminium metabolite mechanism for nicotine toxicity and addiction: Oxidative stress and electron transfer; Medical Hypotheses, Volume 64, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 104–111
 - It includes a discussion of generated oxidative stress affects to multiple organ systems.

 Cardiovascular Toxicity of Nicotine: Implications for Nicotine Replacement Therapy  (http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleid=1121737)

There are also many nicotine-drug interactions that can be quite serious.  Since I doubt that you're being treated for Schizophrenia, this isn't a major concern.

I agree.  That's why I stated that it's a relatively clean drug.  Very dose dependent though.  After a point, it gets nasty fast.

Wiki leads one to believe that nicotine in general will shorten lifespan and long-term memory but we know how trustworthy that can be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Side_effects

On the upside, reading the paragraph above the linked done it appears as if it enhances arousal, reduces pain and stimulates thought in addition to having sedative affects depending on how fast you intake it.  Weird shit.

ed: Posted just so Nebu and any other actual pharamacology folks can clarify the info that's out there.

Yes, there's a thin line between awesome and death in regards to quantity of nicotine.

The depression thing likely has more to do with people becoming smokers (stress, whatnot) than it does nicotine itself. So, as far as "many" side effects go, there is like really just 1 - Nicotine can kill you.

Things I'm allergic to can kill me also, but I don't have the ability to test the herbs in every Italian meal I eat. But I love Italian food and it is awesome.

ahem

yolo

Bottom line: Nicotine use and abuse can increase ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species) damage. This includes organ damage over time (liver, heart, kidney), DNA damage (including activation of oncogenes), accelerated aging, and others.  This is enhanced in people that happen to be among the 7% of the population deficient in G6PD activity and the few affected by decreased CYP1A2 activity.

All of the testing has been done through NRT available on the market currently, correct? Nicotine patches, gum, etc? I only say that because the jury is still very out - as far as I can tell - on nicotine suspended in glycol. Also, patches have roughly 6x NNK values that ecig juice does (though Ecigs have higher values in other carcinogens, negligibly high as far as I can tell).

I mean, end of the day, way better than smoking. Way better than living in Mexico or China.

Edit: Also, I have no clue what you're saying. Less doctor, more like I'm 5.

Nicotine, like anything, isn't terrible in moderation but it isn't completely harmless either.  Think of it like red meat.  There's nothing wrong with eating it in moderation, but almost nobody eats it in moderation.  The lowest risk is always avoidance. 

Also, if you have bad genetics the effects are magnified.

Better?

Well, I mean, that part I got. I meant, what sort of damage / dna damage? Like, what are we talking about here? The potential problems of misuse of basically anything ever (too many eggs, too much better, etc etc) or like, something special to nicotine?

He means you're going to die with a nicotine needle sticking out of your arm in the bathtub.

oh, worse ways to go

Oxidative stress. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_stress)

That's the wiki version (which is a bit elementary), but gives a decent overview.

I'm completely elementary with this shit. But the thought divide between what you're talking about and where I'm at is the fucking Grand Canyon.

I ctrl+f for "nicotine" and found nothing. I also read into clinical studies of nicotine and the preliminary tests on electronic cigarettes and found basically no mention of this sort of thing a while back. So, yea, I need a farm league education in it.

Edit: Not trying to attack you or rile you up, I'm a literal toddler when it comes to this stuff.

My opinion: Nicotine in small doses is slightly worse for you than caffeine.  It works your liver a bit and produces some metabolites that can add to your oxidative stress.  Since nicotine is far far far less toxic than the shit you get in tobacco smoke, vaping and the patch are orders of magnitude safer.

You know I don't take this stuff personally.  I enjoy chatting about it.

Something I learned the hard way after my one and only experiment with a tank-based e-cig leaked all over my pocket (and therefore my thigh and crotch), by the time I figured out what was going on my heart was drumming like a sewing machine and I thought my head was going to explode.

Lethal dose of nicotine is roughly 0.03-0.05mg per pound of body weight, 30-100mg for most people.  A teaspoon (5mL) of my 24mg strength solution is about 120mg, and I figure that that much liguid spilled out of the tank.  How much of that soaked into my skin is impossible to say, but it was somewhere between "too much" and "why are my eyeballs hanging in front of my face?"  Seriously, I have never felt anything like that before, and I hope I never do.  On the other hand, the borderline lithium poisoning I got from messing around with homebrew battery packs wasn't exactly fun, either.

I had to be really careful with my liquid around a toddler, the spare liquid was packed into the back of the freezer and whatever I was using was always in my pockets.  Blu cigs and other disposable cartomizer solutions are likely to wind up the norm in the US just strictly on liability/product safety grounds.

--Dave

And this would be why I'm on the fence of dropping one of my entire paychecks (lol, when that happens) on enough liquid to last 5 years. When I quit "smoking" completely, the black market will pay 10x what I paid for it.

I know places you can buy it for less than $75/liter (60mg, 4 liter minimum), USP/Scientific grade.  Hell, I know one supplier for 50 gallon drums.  My problem is actually finding a place that will sell me "just" a liter at a time (I bought 2.5 liters for $250 4 years ago, I'm just hitting the bottom of that now).

When I say mixing my own is cheaper, I don't mean "a little".  The markup these places are charging is insane, even counting flavoring the *bottle* for 15-30mL costs more than what is inside.

--Dave

EDIT: When I was considering getting into it as a business, I realized that the way to play was to get fancy blown-glass perfume bottles, use "organic" flavoring, and sell it for $3-10/mL.

Uh, try $10 for 15ml. Or $20-$22 for 30ml. People are buying it by the fucking boat load. If I had a house, I'd be in that business for sure.

No, not $3 for 10mL.  3 to 10 dollars a mL.  $45-150 for 15mL.  Fancy blown-glass bottles, organic natural flavorings, branded as super-premium "luxury" juice, go straight for the top of the market.

--Dave

Oh, I SEE.

Well, the top of the line is based on rarity, not price. So it'd have to be serialized with gold leaf lettering on the bottles. And be better than Radiator Pluid, Grant's Vanilla Custard (which, ahem, I'm "vaping" right now), and Boba's Bounty (which isn't taht rare, ordering from that shop is just nearly fucking impossible because they're idiots).

It wouldn't have to be better, just not obviously inferior.  Chivas effect, you put out a decent product with the trappings of luxury and spend some money cultivating the *appearance* of exclusivity and rarity, then pump the stuff out as fast as the market will bear.  Sit on the orders for an extra week or two just to make it look like supply is outrunning demand, while you're actually using a 20-liter bucket of the stuff for a doorstop.

Ever hear of "Noka"?

--Dave

Oh, I "get" it. I just thought you weren't aware of what the high end of vaping looked like as I misread your post.

So if it only takes 24 hours to get nicotine out of your system, can't you just stop for a day and then smoke stuff that doesn't have any nicotine in it?  Like those herbal smoking blends or some kind of vape-y thing that's nicotine free?  Does this make sense or am I talking bollocks again? 

I TOLD YOU... YOU NEVER LISTEN..

Hey its the first time that's happened to me, Mr Fruity Juice.

heh

Just got 2 Kamry X10 tanks in (with 15 atomizer heads that work with EVODS and Protanks also).

(http://i.imgur.com/XzhNYLr.jpg)

MAN. This thing is like the draw and looks of a metal vivi nova with the convenience of filling and size of a protank+1ml. Fucking awesome. Also the barreled metal driptip is the shiiiiiit. One of the best non-RBA tanks I've used.

Nicotine addiction is partly psychological, and even though the nic left your system, your body still craves it. (I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on tee vee, so that that with a grain of salt)

I'm thinking of going with the eGo-C. Reviews seem positive, and it looks simple enough. I really want to buy nicjuice by the bottle and save me some serious money. I smoke a pack a day, and it's almost reduntant to say that shit is expensive.

Honestly, if you dont mind something bigger with better batteries,  a vamo with a k10 or protank. I cant recommend a non-variable battery like an ego-c.

Are the tank systems really that much better these days?  I am getting tired of my DCC's, I'm about to have to order another batch (I use about $80 worth a year), and the burning sponge material when they're new or dry can't be good for me.  My current rig should be compatible with anything for the ego, what would you recommend for stepping into that type of thing?

--Dave

This goddamn Kamry K10 is incredible. I dont know if its in stores yet. I got it through a coop buy. Otherwise, Innokin iClear 30 and Kanger protanks are decent. Tank on the latter needs a GOOD washing in hot water before use.

Edit: k10 just got gurgly. Apparently needs a refill. Man, i expected juice in the mouth when it hit the end. Nope. Huh.

Ok. Yup. Gets gurgly when it needs a refill. Juice up in mah mouth.

Seriously, I hope you hop back in this thread before buying an Ego-C, the industry is at the point where that's a big 'ol waste of money. But, you know, whatever gets you to quit smoking is amazing. There is 0-nic liquid. That's what most people do (I don't know many "vapers" that completely quit vaping, the physical part of smoking - regulated breathing, hand usage, etc - is the hardest thing to break).

Alright, back on the computer and not the tablet.

The Kamry K10.

Kamry is a house that builds higher-than-normal quality clones. They are Chinese and don't give a fuuuuuck about their reputation. In fact, they just put up a fucking letter warning people about knockoffs of THEIR knockoffs at Fasttech.com (amazing vendor of Chinese shit). Seriously, they cloned the Empire Mod ($200 mech mod from New York I think). It's pretty ugly, but anyway they cloned it as the K100. Fasttech was selling like 100% perfect clones of the K100 as the K100 because China doesn't actually have laws. It's a crazy land where you can make anything at any factory because they have an infinite labor force and no one to enforce shit on silly ass industries like this.

ANYWAY, Kamry cloned the Protank. Like 5 different ways. So much so that you can just shove an EVOD or Protank head into this motherfucker and it just worked. However, it looks nothing like a protank. It looks like they cloned the tank portion of the iHybrid (http://www.ihybridmods.com/IMG_1698.jpg) from Faceless, and then proceeded to shove pyrex glass behind the sleeve, and put a goddamn barrel drip trip on it (also a clone) and constructed the center pole to match the Protank. Oh, and the air intake is a ripoff of the Vivi Nova. This thing is a goddamn Best Of of Ecigs but looks like a fucking Frankenstein. Honestly, there's some bullshit weird ass design going on in China. HOWEVER, now that I've finished a full tank (a whopping damn 3.45ml), I can say pretty comfortably that this is the best tank I've ever used.

It takes about 45 seconds for the wick to get fully saturated. I basically chain vaped that bitch afterwards (for those keeping score of shit I endorse, I was vaping Pillow Mints (that steeped for 3 weeks) from Velvet Cloud Vapor (http://www.velvetcloudvapor.com/) out of San Francisco (it was gross before 3 weeks, now it's like, really fucking good)). Not a single dry hit. Not a single drop of liquid in the mouth or out of the air intake - until I hit the last few drops. It got gurgly when it was time to replace the wick. I wanted to see how long it would go, and got about 8 drags before I got some hot liquid in the mouth.

Dumped the remaining liquid on a paper towel to see how far down it goes. About 6 drops (!!!!!) came out. That's absurd for something that cost me $4.98 in a co-op (so probably about $10-$14 retail).

Also, I vaped it so long that the next flavor I put in (Black and White Cookie from Alice in Vapeland (http://www.aliceinvapeland.com) had not a single hint of Pillow Mint (a fucking mild menthol!) within 2 vapes.

Point is: Buy this fucking thing.

Edit: Also! It's a cool to warmish vape that provides the best flavor I've had from an atty that isn't an RBA with wrapped ekowool or direct dripping. If any of that is relevant to anyone.

BONUS - Here's a list of my favorite liquids and where to buy them (trust me when I say I wouldn't want to figure out how to make these myself):

The Vapor Chef (this guy is a WIZARD - A WIZARD I TELL YOU)- Hobbes' Blood (http://thevaporchef.com/collections/frontpage/products/hobbes-blood) & Honey Pearry (http://thevaporchef.com/collections/frontpage/products/honey-pearry)

Alice in Vapeland (their hours blow, they open at Tuesday at like midnight central time or some shit, also slow as fuck) - Black & White Cookie (https://aliceinvapeland.com/products/1/bw-cookie-30ml) & Pun'kin Tumble (https://aliceinvapeland.com/products/1/punkin-tumble-30ml)

Velvet Cloud Vapor (hippies, the lot of them) - Mewlews Magic (http://www.velvetcloudvapor.com/collections/e-liquid-blends/products/mewlews-magic) - this is a motherfucking Chocolate Covered Donut

Grant's Vanilla Custard (comes out in batches, good fucking luck / also, UK based) - Grant's Vanilla Custard (http://www.grantsvanillacustard.com/) - this took a full goddamn month of steeping, but it's basically the best flavor I've ever had. I had a chance to order more but it hadn't steeped long enough and now I feel like a putz. I hope it lasts, I have 120ml and burn through like 5-6ml a day when I'm jonesing it.

Vapor Train (ignore the name of this site, their customer service is great / name just BLOWS) - Choo Choo Crunch (http://www.myvaporgasm.com/collections/vapor-train/products/choo-choo-crunch)

while you're there

Uncle Junk's Genius Juice (same site as the last one) - Monica's Eyes (http://www.myvaporgasm.com/collections/uncle-junks-genius-juice/products/monicas-eyes)

Next on my list of vendors/brewers to try:
The Plume Room
The Standard Vape (Stndrd Vape) / Jameson's Irish Vapor (same dudes)
Flavorz by Joe
Faded Vapes

I might if all that shit you typed made any sense to me at all. This is why I'm so greatful for the disposable Blus. I don't have to have another fucking thing to know like Trek nerds know Klingon history in order to just fucking vape.

*Edit* It's not just you, Schild. It seems every time I go online to check out vaporizers I get conflicting opinions and technical blabble.

I feel like that was pretty clear. BUT, I had the same problem when I decided to like, get an actual Ecig instead of a disposable. So I'll tell you what I read that made sense.

There are 2 parts to an ecig. The battery and the tank. Most batteries (from Ego Cs to high end $225 Chi Yous) have something call 510 threading. Basically every tank ever made fits into 510 threads (the part where the tank screws into the battery). What I was talking about was the tank portion (see a picture in an earlier post). One of the reason basic Ego Batteries and Vivi Nova tanks do so well is its basically where EVERY converted smoker starts (unless there's an intermediary period where you use disposables).

Almost none of what I said was relevant to you other than the following: A Kamry X10 is a good tank. It fits into nearly any battery on the market. Put juice in it. Vape.

Vaping isn't complicated, it's not like a fucking language or Trek bullshit. Part of the problem is that there's no real "levels" to vaping. Sure, you could be rebuilding shit and futzing around with ohm readers and stuff, but at the end of the day you're still screwing a tank into a battery and pressing a button to fire it.

Disposable blus use basically the exact same tech, it's just concealed.

Thanks for all the good info Schild. I have been waiting for someone to go into that level of detail for a while.

Maybe I missed something tho, is this K10 not available yet? I would like to look into it. I just tried my first Kanger and I'm pretty luke warm on it, tbh. Metal tip tastes metallic. Duh. Also, why'd you say you need to wash a Kanger before use? I mean, that ship has sailed now but just wondering what kind of cancerous growth I can be expecting.

It took me forever to quit smoking.  Gordon was able to do it six months earlier using some of those patches and willpower.  My skin can't tolerate the patches and I have no willpower.  I did use those Quest cigs with trace amounts of nicotine, which helped a lot even though they tasted awful.  If I knew about all this, or if it even existed, I would have been all over it.  I wonder if Colorado will be allowed to use liquid THC in them.  That would be heaven.

I missed this thread, mostly because I'm an eternal random lurker, but nonetheless.  I have been vaping since October of last year.  2 pack a day smoker for 20+ years, to 0 since my ecig kit came in.  I use ego 510 batteries with a T3 clearomizer with the replaceable atomizer heads.
Schild mentioned steeping, can you explain this better?  I understand what it means, but how do you tell the difference between "needs to steep longer" and "just tastes like shit"?  I tried a bunch of different liquids, but I got really sick of cleaning the atomizers with every new test flavor, so I've found two that I have used exclusively for the last 9 months.  I'm thinking this steep process may be why I found so few I actually like.

Thanks

For some reason, this all reminds me of hooka smoking, what with the fanciful flavors and such.

Kind of a combination of that and pipe smoking, since there's a considerable amount of geek-out opportunities with selecting and maintaining the gear.

--Dave

Thanks man. I got a little cranky there. :)

So, not a huge fan of the eRoll. It's not bad but it's not amazing either. The personal charger could not be more poorly designed. ANYWAY, I shoved a Protank head into the Innokin X10.

Man. What a perfect combination. The X10 was advertised as being able to take Evod heads, but I figured the long neck on the protank could possibly completely prevent any gurgling or flooding - and it does. It's basically a Protank now with a tighter draw and much more vapor.

I've become so lazy since the store opened near me that sells liquids and just regular ol' Ego batteries and tanks.

They're built like bricks, though. I managed to drunkenly drop one in a pool and it worked fine after fishing it out.

I'll be straightforward: If you're in California, you have no reason to be using Chinese knockoffs. There's real product out there and super good juice. At the end of the day, $200 for a good mod and tank (or even better, for an all in one, a hybrid) + good juice (let's say, $20-$40 every few weeks) is WAY less than smoking even half a pack a day for a year.

Yes Colorado does, and the gf is in love with them.

A friend of mine is trying to quit and is currently using the non-disposable blu ecig.

I keep telling him to get a better ecig and about the flavors, etc.

The guy is my age (37) and the least tech-savvy guy around. I destroyed his world today by putting a small post-it on the bottom of his mouse.

At any rate, what's a good option for this guy? He won't be homebrewing devices ever.

I've decided to buy a starter kit for my lovely nephew who has been trying to quit smoking.  This is the one:

http://www.apolloecigs.com/standard-electronic-cigarette-s/45.htm

It's on sale for $54 and I have a 20% off coupon which brings the total to around $44 and free shipping.  Is this good?

Why would someone use an e-cig if they are trying to quit smoking?  The key to quitting is breaking the nicotine addiction through tapering.  Using a new nicotine source, while better, still won't end the addiction.

I thought because he's having no luck at all that at least this wouldn't kill him as fast.  No?

Because it works. It's also a whole fuckton easier to taper off on your own using various mg of nic liquid than it is using pharmaceutical-controlled ideas of how to taper off through the patch or some other Nicotine Delivery System. As someone who doesn't smoke, Nebu, I can't actually expect you to understand. Also, those of us who love caffeine tend to love nicotine as well.

Edit: I started at 24mg, roughly the same as the cigarettes I'm smoking. Now, depending on the device I range from 12-18. That's in 100 days. My next round of liquid orders will be even smaller. Until it's at zero and my body accepts the placebo effect. That's basically EVERYONE'S story, not just mine.

The lowest barrier for a good Ecig device where you can define flavor/nic level is an E-go Twist with an easy to use tank.

Kamry X10 (what I'm using): http://stormysvaporcellar.com/oc_1/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=740
Protank Atomizers (the one with the X10 kind of blows): http://www.sun-vapers.com/buy/kanger-protank-heads-in-1-8-or-2-5-ohms-5-pack/
Ego Passthrough 1000mah kit (charges through standard USB!): http://stormysvaporcellar.com/oc_1/index.php?route=product/product&path=100_102&product_id=147

Liquid:
Fruit: http://thevaporchef.com/products/honey-pearry
Tobacco: http://www.indigovapor.com/product_p/t-theduke.htm
Savory: http://www.velvetcloudvapor.com/collections/e-liquid-blends/products/mewlews-magic

Also, I will never link to an illegitimate vendor here, nor one that has a known credit card processing issue (CC companies & Paypal treat ecigs like tobacco right now, so it's in a weird place for online ordering). Also nearly every company is mom & pop, so like, fuckups happen.

Excellent explanation.  Thanks for that.  I get it now.

The biggest hurdle for alternative delivery devices has ALWAYS been the physical part. For gamers, it's likely more mental than physical as now I can just vape and get my nic fix while gaming (which again, is almost cheating in strategy games, particularly late at night). But vaping solves all those problems in a solution that uses reusable batteries. And it's all 510 connections, so when it's done I can turn my devices into Mag Lights!

I found a brick and mortar vape shop near me this past weekend.  Holy crap, god's gift!

Not only do they make their own juices, but you can sample them in the shop (clearo + disposable plastic tip covers filled with every flavor).

My biggest issue has been finding flavors I enjoy, the trial and error stuff really sucks.

I picked up some CE5 clearo's, with the replaceable wicks,  which I honestly didn't even know about until I was in there talking to the owners, and found 2 new flavors that I can actually buy locally.  They pre-mix the flavors, then do the nicotine adding at whatever level on demand.

The place is called e-six in Branford CT, and I'm not a shill, for anyone that uses an e-cig, you'll realize how awesome it is to be able to try new things out, ask questions, and sample flavors!

Hopefully this is the start of more of these types of shops, it's not a head shop that sells Joyetech, it's a real vape shop, which sells DIY parts and not water pipes.

I've found most in-house vape liquids to be pretty crap due to lack of steep time. We have one here, it's not very good. E-Six carries real shit though, so maybe their liquid is up to snuff also.

I quit smoking 4.5 years ago, since then I've smoked maybe a total of a pack's worth of cigarettes, usually to be social.  Yes, I still get my nicotine, much as I would if I used patches or gum, but at a far lower cost.  I have *zero* interest in giving up nicotine.

The key reason to quit smoking is to stop destroying your lungs with tobacco smoke.  I have that.  Why does that not count as "quitting"?

--Dave

Alright guys, met up with a game industry dude that had a bunch of shit. But anyway, I've used the high end stuff now, including iHybrids, Chi Yous, Paps (both the GP Mod and S&P tank), and vaped a whole bunch of weird high end shit.

I can talk at length about what's going on at both ends of the spectrum (from $20 ego twists to $50 erolls to $60 Chinese clones to $250 mods). If you want me write up a bit about this and how the various things work, I'd be happy to. Also gonna poke this dude and see if he wants to post here, I know he already reads shit here.

Edit: SPOILER: I ordered a Nemesis Kalafan and iHybrid / Doc Dave Collabo Stainless Steel Pure after using his stuff. Which is to say, the high end stuff DOES make difference.

I'd love to hear more.

Same here, would love to hear more.

The kit for my nephew was delivered although he hasn't picked it up yet so I'd be interested, too.  I just got him a medium tobacco flavour because I had no idea what to get.  I'd love some recommendations.  His birthday is on Talk Like a Pirate Day so maybe I'll buy him a variety.  Thanks.

This seems like it might be nice....http://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10004394/1359402-vamo-vivi-stainless-steel-voltage-adjustable-e-cig (http://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10004394/1359402-vamo-vivi-stainless-steel-voltage-adjustable-e-cig)

I'll talk about Vamos when I finally get around to writing all of this shit up.

My Nemesis Kalafan arrives tomorrow. So sometimes this weekend I'm going to take some pics next to basically every other sized piece of gear to show what's going on in the market. I wish I had my own Kayfun or Russian, but alas. I CAN talk about them though. Also, my Nimbus will come in some times next week.

Kalafan did NOT show up. SNARL.

However, I did pick up a Kayfun Lite... and goddamn.

Bloomberg loves cancer. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2388576/New-York-City-looking-ban-electronic-cigarettes-Mayor-Mike-Bloombergs-health-crusade-wages-on.html)

All the shit in New York actually makes Bloomberg an instant cocksucker piece of shit.

I've got one of those and I like it quite a bit. Haven't managed to break it yet, and it's adjustable by voltage or wattage which is nice. That kit comes with batteries that look like they are too long to take advantage of the adjustable size. Mine came with two smaller batteries that can either be used together, or a section of the thing can be removed and it's a bit smaller and fits a single battery. Personally I never take a section off as the impact on battery life is significant.

I'm sorry I haven't written things up here, but you really don't want to stack 18350s in a VAMO. You're basically asking for trouble, even if they've always been stacked and charged at the same rates. You basically have to pair batteries if you're going to stack them.

A small update:
1. I have a DocDave / Faceless iHybrid collaboration arriving in a few weeks.
2. I have about 300ml I won in a giveaway from SAVEUR VAPE (Blueprint, Standard, etc)

I'd really like to get those things in before I write everything up.

My short term advice is: High end vape shit seriously is high end. There's no reason to totally dick around with voltages on spinners/twists and shit if you know what you're doing. High end eliquid is worth the money. I've saved over $1000 in 6 months of not smoking. I've spent less than $1000 between both my fiance and myself but we've - combined - saved $2000+. /chainvapes a kalafan nemesis with a Kayfun Lite full of Grant's Vanilla Custard.

I'm no expert on all of this and I'm genuinely curious...what kind of trouble am I going to have with the 2 batteries? Like I said though, so far I don't think I've not used them together more than a couple times.

With proper venting and regulated circuits in modern mods, it's less of a problem. But stacked batteries are far more likely to vent on a short or another problem, which basically turns your ecig into a pipebomb. The VAMO only has one vent (on the bottom cap), and it's basically a piece of chinese shit. In fact, people didn't even know who made it for a while (turns out it's Rainbow Heaven). Anyway, I would chuck the batteries you've been using in stacked mode and get new ones and quit doing that. If you don't mind the length and want the power / life - just get an 18650.

Potentially?  BANG!  18350's generally don't have safety PCB's, which means they can go into thermal runaway and explode like an equivalent volume of black powder.  Short of that, you can get lithium outgassing that will make you sicker than a dog and effectively a temporary hemophiliac.  Gave myself lithium poisoning once messing around with my homebrew stuff, felt like I had the flu for a week, had a minor cut on my hand bleed for three days straight.

--Dave

Yea, I was trying to be nice. Those fuckers can explode.

I don't understand any of this but now I'm worried.  I bought a kit for my nephew and he's not had a smoke since then.  But have I sentenced him to die in a faux cigarette fire?   :ye_gods:

I have an aunt who closed a car door on my hand one time but at least she never tried to blow me up!

I closed the car door on my nephew once.  I don't know why his hand was in the door, he wasn't even in the car!  It was a crazy mad drive to the hospital.  Thank Johnny Depp there was nothing broken but, geez, the bruise!  It was many years ago and I still have horrible guilty dreams about that day.  See what you nasty nephews do to your aunts?  Diabolical, you are!

I've started typing up a thing, when I'm done I'm gonna lock this thread and make a new thread. Ecigs have come a long way since 2009 and frankly the vast majority of this thread is outdated.

I'm currently at 12,000 characters. I made a terrible mistake in deciding to do this.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=23576.msg1226561#msg1226561

See new thread.