I ordered my ePuffer EAZE Magnum on February 14th and was very very excited about it. I kept watching Leaford and Dusty's reviews of various e-cigs almost constantly for 2 days before and after ordering, and was happy with the good reviews my particular model had recieved from each of them (particularly Leaford's "New 5 Favs", where he absolutely raved about the ePuffer Magnum batteries). I was so excited I could hardly contain myself, this was about to be my first e-cig experience. I also ordered a 5 pack of carts (in addition to the 2 sample carts and bonus 5 pack in the starter kit). Now for my review, since I currently can't start new threads anywhere else, and I also need some advice.
The first thing that sort-of frustrated me was the fact that I placed my order on the 14th of February, yet ePuffer didn't even ship the order until February 23rd (the item was never listed as "Out of Stock" on their website at all during that entire week). ePuffer did not offer any explaination as to why they were so slow to ship it, as I was told my order would be in my mailbox in 4 -10 business days, not that they would wait about 10 days before shipping it. It finally arrived on February 28th (8 days before the date of this post).
The batteries came fully charged, which I was VERY happy about (I heard they took an 8 hour initial charge and didn't want to wait). So that was a nice added bonus in my opinion. The kit also came in a very nice, sturdy, heavy-duty fully branded collectible box (similar to the one I have seen on the images for the Bloog), which was also a nice surprise, as I was expecting it to be packaged in a cheap flimsy unbranded box as was shown in Dusty's unboxing/ review of the same kit. Obviously some things have changed since Dusty did his video review.
I immediately began to vape a few puffs from each battery, to make sure both were charged, worked, and to see if there were any inconsistencies between the smaller and larger batteries. I noticed 2 differences in performance immediately. The first thing I noticed on the small battery was that the draw was harder than on the larger battery - I can live with that, still a slight disappointment. The second inconsistency I noticed was the fact that on the larger battery, the pressure switch engaged immediately upon drawing on it - not so with the smaller battery. With the smaller one, the pressure switch only engaged after a short primer puff, even if your initial draw was 5 seconds or more long it would not engage without a primer puff. That was a big disappointment because while it doesn't render it useless, it is a bit of an inconvenience and the inconsistency between draw strength and switch performance when switching between batteries got very annoying. Requires almost a completely different method of vaping between the two, which in my opinion definitely takes away from the seamless interchange I was hoping for between main and backup batteries.
Unfortunatlely, I can't say that's all the battery issues I've already had. The smaller battery would sometimes not engage at all after only a couple of days, even on a full charge, inless I repeatedly sucked and blew through the both ends of the battery with the cartridge off, which would seem to get the pressure switch to again function properly at least for a short time before having the issue again. I do not refill my cartridges, I do not even have e-liquid (yet) so I would say the chances of the switch getting stuck due to liquid in the battery are pretty slim - this battery preformed badly off the start. As of March 5th (6 days after recieving this kit), the small battery's switch appears to have completely gone out. No amount of sucking or blowing through either end of the battery has been able to get this battery to turn on again, however it is fully charged and when attached to the charger the LED on the battery does come on for a brief second to indicate charging, then it goes back off since it is fully charged. The battery is not dead, I believe the problem to be with the switch.
Now the larger battery. I had no issues with the large battery all week until today. It had appeared that the switch in the large battery had gone out as well, until I did the same trick (sucking and blowing through each end of the battery until the switch unstuck). It is again working, but I did notice that at least one component inside the battery tube started sounding like it was rattling around in there if I hold it by the cartridge and give it a light shake. I fully expect that this battery will soon take the same fate as the small one and crap out on me.
The cartidges I recieved from ePuffer I believed to be sub standard from what I heard they should have been. I found that out of my batch of 12 initial cartridges, at least 8 of them only lasted for about 50 puffs before starting to get a paper burning taste and smell, as well as a very harsh breathing-in-burnt-notebook-paper-smoke throat and chest hit. After only 50 puffs at best, and at $3/ cart plus shipping I find this completely unacceptable as well.
On the morning of February 16th (well before I recieved my e-cig), I had started to worry that when I received my new e-cig I would not have enough cartridges to last. Taking Leaford's advice I ordered three 5-packs (15 carts) of cartridges from Smoke51, as Leaford DID caution that ePuffer may produce a large amount of bad cartridges and said the Smoke51 carts were better. My experience so far with Smoke51 has been this: as of Tuesday THIS WEEK, they STILL had not even shipped my order out yet! Almost 2 weeks after the order was placed! I sent them an email first thing in the morning on Tuesday asking why the order had not shipped and told them if they cannot fill the order in a timely manner to let me know and I will do a chargeback and order from someone who could ship it quicker. Talking about doing a chargeback must have lit a fire under their butts because 3 hours later I got a confirmation email from both them and UPS stating that my order had shipped. At first I was elated, but then I noticed that Smoke51 had given UPS the WRONG CITY AND ZIP code, and my order was on it's way to another city in Ohio. I promptly emailed Smoke51 again and told them they got the address wrong and to let UPS know the correct address. They replied back the next day and said they corrected the address with UPS. That order was supposed to arrive yesterday, but lo and behold I checked UPS's website to track the order when it didn't arrive yesterday, and they said "PACKAGE UNDELIVERABLE. INCORRECT SHIPPING ADDRESS. ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE CORRECT ADDRESS, DELIVERY RESCHEDULED." Great. Awesome. Smoke51 did not correct the address as they said they did.
On a positive not though, I actually went without smoking an analog cig for 5 days until I ran out of carts (thanks to Smoke51)
The first thing that sort-of frustrated me was the fact that I placed my order on the 14th of February, yet ePuffer didn't even ship the order until February 23rd (the item was never listed as "Out of Stock" on their website at all during that entire week). ePuffer did not offer any explaination as to why they were so slow to ship it, as I was told my order would be in my mailbox in 4 -10 business days, not that they would wait about 10 days before shipping it. It finally arrived on February 28th (8 days before the date of this post).
The batteries came fully charged, which I was VERY happy about (I heard they took an 8 hour initial charge and didn't want to wait). So that was a nice added bonus in my opinion. The kit also came in a very nice, sturdy, heavy-duty fully branded collectible box (similar to the one I have seen on the images for the Bloog), which was also a nice surprise, as I was expecting it to be packaged in a cheap flimsy unbranded box as was shown in Dusty's unboxing/ review of the same kit. Obviously some things have changed since Dusty did his video review.
I immediately began to vape a few puffs from each battery, to make sure both were charged, worked, and to see if there were any inconsistencies between the smaller and larger batteries. I noticed 2 differences in performance immediately. The first thing I noticed on the small battery was that the draw was harder than on the larger battery - I can live with that, still a slight disappointment. The second inconsistency I noticed was the fact that on the larger battery, the pressure switch engaged immediately upon drawing on it - not so with the smaller battery. With the smaller one, the pressure switch only engaged after a short primer puff, even if your initial draw was 5 seconds or more long it would not engage without a primer puff. That was a big disappointment because while it doesn't render it useless, it is a bit of an inconvenience and the inconsistency between draw strength and switch performance when switching between batteries got very annoying. Requires almost a completely different method of vaping between the two, which in my opinion definitely takes away from the seamless interchange I was hoping for between main and backup batteries.
Unfortunatlely, I can't say that's all the battery issues I've already had. The smaller battery would sometimes not engage at all after only a couple of days, even on a full charge, inless I repeatedly sucked and blew through the both ends of the battery with the cartridge off, which would seem to get the pressure switch to again function properly at least for a short time before having the issue again. I do not refill my cartridges, I do not even have e-liquid (yet) so I would say the chances of the switch getting stuck due to liquid in the battery are pretty slim - this battery preformed badly off the start. As of March 5th (6 days after recieving this kit), the small battery's switch appears to have completely gone out. No amount of sucking or blowing through either end of the battery has been able to get this battery to turn on again, however it is fully charged and when attached to the charger the LED on the battery does come on for a brief second to indicate charging, then it goes back off since it is fully charged. The battery is not dead, I believe the problem to be with the switch.
Now the larger battery. I had no issues with the large battery all week until today. It had appeared that the switch in the large battery had gone out as well, until I did the same trick (sucking and blowing through each end of the battery until the switch unstuck). It is again working, but I did notice that at least one component inside the battery tube started sounding like it was rattling around in there if I hold it by the cartridge and give it a light shake. I fully expect that this battery will soon take the same fate as the small one and crap out on me.
The cartidges I recieved from ePuffer I believed to be sub standard from what I heard they should have been. I found that out of my batch of 12 initial cartridges, at least 8 of them only lasted for about 50 puffs before starting to get a paper burning taste and smell, as well as a very harsh breathing-in-burnt-notebook-paper-smoke throat and chest hit. After only 50 puffs at best, and at $3/ cart plus shipping I find this completely unacceptable as well.
On the morning of February 16th (well before I recieved my e-cig), I had started to worry that when I received my new e-cig I would not have enough cartridges to last. Taking Leaford's advice I ordered three 5-packs (15 carts) of cartridges from Smoke51, as Leaford DID caution that ePuffer may produce a large amount of bad cartridges and said the Smoke51 carts were better. My experience so far with Smoke51 has been this: as of Tuesday THIS WEEK, they STILL had not even shipped my order out yet! Almost 2 weeks after the order was placed! I sent them an email first thing in the morning on Tuesday asking why the order had not shipped and told them if they cannot fill the order in a timely manner to let me know and I will do a chargeback and order from someone who could ship it quicker. Talking about doing a chargeback must have lit a fire under their butts because 3 hours later I got a confirmation email from both them and UPS stating that my order had shipped. At first I was elated, but then I noticed that Smoke51 had given UPS the WRONG CITY AND ZIP code, and my order was on it's way to another city in Ohio. I promptly emailed Smoke51 again and told them they got the address wrong and to let UPS know the correct address. They replied back the next day and said they corrected the address with UPS. That order was supposed to arrive yesterday, but lo and behold I checked UPS's website to track the order when it didn't arrive yesterday, and they said "PACKAGE UNDELIVERABLE. INCORRECT SHIPPING ADDRESS. ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE CORRECT ADDRESS, DELIVERY RESCHEDULED." Great. Awesome. Smoke51 did not correct the address as they said they did.
On a positive not though, I actually went without smoking an analog cig for 5 days until I ran out of carts (thanks to Smoke51)
