So this is an obligatory "Hi, my name is Jason, and I'm a vaper" post. Well, probably not obligatory, but useful to other new vapers.
My story is a bit different than a lot of other new vapers-- I see a lot of "man, vaping worked right off the bat, and I haven't had any difficulties, tra-la-la" posts. This isn't one of those stories-- while I now feel that I have a solid handle on vaping, there's been a lot of trial and error over the first month or so.
So, to start off, I'll discuss what hardware I have. I started off with a Joye 510 starter kit (Two attys, two batterys, five blank carts), a PCC, and a USB Charger, all from Rocky Mountain Vapor. My first order was $75, and arrived in about two shipping days.
For Juice, I ordered 4 1 oz. bottles of 24 mg/ml nicotine, 35% VG juice from Tasty Vapor. I ordered the Apple Pie, Strawberry Cheesecake, Blueberry Cheesecake, and Dulce De Leche flavors. To go with that, I ordered 5 of the mini-dropper bottles to go with that. The first three bottles ran $15, and I got the Dulce De Leche for $10 on their special-- and let me say, I'm very glad I did. Total, my Tasty Vapor order came to $63.50, and arrived in two shipping days.
For the first week, everything was pretty much awesome. The hardest part was waiting for my batteries to fully charge that 24 hours that Joye recommends. After that, everything was golden. I filled a cart with the Blueberry Cheesecake, and everything was awesome. In fact, the droppers the juice came in were sharp enough that I didn't feel I needed the five empty mini-bottles I ordered. I got clouds of vapor, the works. I was very pleased, though I'm not sure if I didn't have an initial poor reaction to the PG as I was ever so slightly nauseous, but that went away in the first couple of days. Over that week, I would fill other carts with other juice, and that worked awesome too. I could basically swap carts and get another flavor in a draw or two. Win!
It was during the second week that I started having problem with my first atty. I figured this was a cleaning problem, so I blew the atty dry onto a paper towel-- it took me a few tries to realize that when they say "blow onto a paper towel," they mean "put the open end of the atty on a paper towel, and then blow through the battery end of the atty." If there's no contact with the paper towel to the atty, then the dry paper towel doesn't wick out the juice you blow out of the atty, and it just sticks to the inside of the atty.
At first the blowing it out worked for a couple days, but then even that was a problem. The draw was still hard and getting harder. So I tryed the dry burn method, which is basically to try to cook off extra juice and gunk by holding the button down until the atty gets red hot... and to skip around that point by holding off on the button until the heating element no longer glows, then to heat it up to glowing again, until the atty neither smokes or vapes anything. This worked for a few more days, but by the end of the second week I was so sick of repeating the process that I broke into my spare atty, figuring I would order a couple more the next week (it was the weekend, and I had to wait for my paycheck anyway, 'cause well, bills...)
After breaking out the spare atty, I tried a more extended dry burn method, which was to rinse the atty in running water, then blow it out, then to dry burn to dry it out, and then to repeat. This method worked on the theory that what made your atty need cleaning was that there was enough gunk built up in it that it needed to be rinsed out, and the thread I read about it there were a lot of people saying the method worked for them. So I tried it with the first atty, and then put a freshly-topped off cart on it-- and the thing didn't vape, period. In retrospect, I know why now-- the cart I thought would be good enough wasn't getting enough juice to the bridge, and the atty was totally dry, meaning that there wasn't any juice getting to the heating element, meaning in turn no vapor. But I thought I had popped the atty, and so gave up on it.
The second atty started showing problems in the first week, and I started to theorize that the problem was the carts. By that point, I had basically settled into smoking either the Apple Pie or Dulce De Leche, and I was realizing that it was about time for me to try to rinse the filler and/or swap out a new cart. So I swapped in the last remaining blank cart I had, and things were better, though not as good as a fresh atty, for a day or two. The atty still had problems, but it was the weekend and I was off to Philly for the weekend. I'd put in my order, but it wasn't likely to be there until Monday at best (payday is a Friday, and things don't ship on Sundays). I ordered two new attys, one "titanium" and one "silver", with express shipping, also from Rocky Mountain Vapor. Total was $20.
So off to Philly I went. Things with the atty continued to deteriorate on the trip up, to the point that by Friday night blowing the atty out or dry burning weren't doing anything to help the matter. I got the atty working a little bit Saturday morning, but by Saturday afternoon, it was just too much hassle. Luckily for my nicotine habit, though probably less fortunate for my lungs, I still had most of a pack of analog cigarettes from before my hardware and juice arrived.
Going back to analogs was an enlightening experience. Though it had only really been three weeks since I'd had an analog cigarette, the difference was astonishing. The analog, my brand for years, was disgusting. I couldn't believe I'd been doing it for over 10 years, that there had been times when I enjoyed the flavor of sooty, tarry ..... But I was out, and didn't have time to do any major cleaning efforts on the lone atty I had that I thought was working, so I finished the half-a-pack I had that day. By the end of the day I had resolved not to buy another pack, but to hold off on smoking until I got the new atties I had ordered if it came to it.
That Sunday morning, I did another serious blow out/dry burn operation, out of which I got about a cigarette's worth of vapor before the atty stopped working again, and drove home. When I got home, I was having a pretty good nic fit, so I was scouring ECF for a better cleaning method that might make my atty work.
That's when I discovered that a popped atty won't heat up to cherry red-- which my first atty was still doing. I also discovered that after a cleaning, you need to 'prime the pump' as it were, by direct dripping a few drops onto the bridge. I tried that with my first atty, and whalla-- it was producing vapor again. But it started to flood very easily-- which I determined was a matter of carts. I didn't have any fresh carts available, so took out the filler of another cart, squeezed it dry, and used that.
That worked for maybe a day or two... but by then, I was over the prohibition I felt about direct dripping. I had read a few places on ECF that direct dripping a 510 atty was a bad idea-- but that worked way better than any other option I had on hand.
Now mind you, the atty wasn't functioning perfectly. It still had a hard draw, and if I vaped on it for too long, it would get a nasty burned taste, and I had to blow it out a bit every day. But it was better than nothing-- and my new atties would be getting there shortly.
Once my new atties arrived, I did two things, the first being to really boil the second atty to see if boiling it would get it back. At this point, I was thinking that the problem could be that juice was drying out in the atty and causing problems, and that the only way to get it out was to boil it out. I let it sit for a couple days to dry.
At the same time, I fully squeezed dried the filler of all the carts I had, boiled them then dried it with the second atty. I did this even with the couple carts with the Cheescake flavors that had been sitting for a couple weeks with a cart-condom and not used, which theoretically have been 'fresh.' Doing this made me start to think that it was a cart issue I was having, as even sitting with a cover on I found dried clumps of juice in the carts, and more so with the carts I had been using regularly.
I also had determined by that point that maybe it was the juice that was 'killing' my atties at such a rate (they weren't really dead, just developing hard draws and reduced vapor). I had been vaping the Apple Pie and Dulce De Leche-- which while very, very tasty, were still much darker juices than the two cheesecake varieties I had, and more viscous. So on the new atty, I only vaped the Strawberry Cheesecake, and continued to direct drip vape Dulce De Leche on under-performing first atty.
The second atty came back after the boiling, and I had my third atty, and the first that was vaping at about half-power for direct dripping, and things were honky dory, if not perfect, for the next week or so. Then I heard a pop in the second atty, and it started to lose vapor production. I'm pretty sure that the boiling did some damage to it. The third atty started showing the same problems of the draw becoming harder, a new problem of flooding easily, and of the vapor starting to taste... scortched is the best way to put it.
At that point, my first atty was the most 'reliable,' in that direct dripping it produced the best vapor for longer. I had still be looking through ECF for better cleaning methods-- and that's when I found the place that the model specific discussions were tucked away on ECF (I can't post links yet, but they're under E-Cigarette Reviews > Model Specific Discussion, and the 510 forum. There, they had a post-it of Joye's recommended cleaning practices.
Something surprising to me was that Joye actually recommended cleaning with alcohol. I'd read ECF posts on cleaning with alcohol, both rubbing alcohol and liquor alcohol, and had read a number of alarming reports about the atties catching fire even after drying. The Joye recommendations had the missing half of the equation there, though, in that after cleaning with alcohol they wanted you to rinse it with water thoroughly.
So I gave it a shot-- the problem I found with the Joye instructions was that they wanted you to shake the alcohol around in the atty for 2 minutes minimum, but the alcohol leaked out of the two little holes at the end of the screw before you'd shaken it for 15 seconds. So I found a mini-tupper ware thingy, dropped the atty and the alcohol in that, and rinsed.
The first thing that appeared to me was that the alcohol became discolored pretty rapidly-- and it occurred to me that there are things in the juice that probably don't dissolve in water easily, but which dissolve in the alcohol rapidly. So I rinsed both my second and third atties like this. Even from the second atty, the one that had been boiled, there was lots of stuff that dissolved into the alcohol. So I rinsed both of them like this until they rinsed clear in the alcohol, and then flushed them under tap water. Then blew them out and let them sit for about 18 hours or so (Joye had recommended 16).
By this point I had also decided to dispense with carts altogether until I could order a whole new batch. My adventures in trying to recycle the filler didn't really go so well-- if I go back to carts, I will (a) wait until I'm actually going to use a cart to fill it, as opposed to trying to 'prefill' them for later use, and (b) never use a cart more than 3 days old, which would mean I'd go through about 10 carts/month, or $6 (still less than the price of a single pack of cigarettes where I live in Maryland).
The second atty, sadly, was totally popped. It won't heat up to cherry red no matter how long I apply power to it.
It was direct dripping with the newly cleaned third atty that makes me consider giving up on carts altogether, 'cause boy howdy was the direct dripping experience with the newly cleaned third atty EVEN BETTER than vaping with a new atty and a fresh cart. The flavor of the vapor was better-- and there was more vapor. This is true until the atty starts to dry out, and then you start to get a mildly scortched flavor. Once the atty starts to dry out, then you get less vapor, and the vapor you do get has a slighly bad taste that I'm pretty sure is from the juice starting to burn a little rather than merely vaporize. This is easily solved by dripping more juice when it starts to happen. It has the advantage of letting you be more certain your atty is dry when you put it away, to boot.
I am very happy with this, and it's worked for a week and a half now. I've cleaned my first atty using the alcohol method the same way, and it vapes like a champ using the direct drip method too. I am less concerned about buying fresh carts now, because vaping without them is pretty awesome and better than any experience I had with a cart.
I've come to think that juice makes an enormous difference in atty life, one that really seems to be underestimated. My hypothesis on this is that while PG, VG, and Nicotine all vaporize at about the same temperature (which is why vaping works), the flavoring in the juices will vaporize at different rates, espeacially if we're talking natural flavoring, which will have natural juices that have sugar in them. My experience shows that the Apple Pie and Dulce De Leche flavors clog the atties and make them need to be cleaned faster than when I'm using the Cheesecake Juices-- and everything is the same nicotine concentration and PG/VG ratio from the same juice shop, so at this point I'd make a strong bet that has everything to do with the flavoring used. Once I break my 15 and can start posting in other forums, I'll speculate more on this, but I'd hazard to guess that tobacco flavors gunk up less.
What I think causes the gunk-up is a process like carmelization, where the PG/VG and nicotine vape out of the juice faster than the flavoring, building concentration of the flavoring near the heating element that eventually becomes more sticky and solid than liquid-- making it harder to draw, and reducing vapor production as less actual juice is getting to the heating element. This is compounded if you flood the atty and then let it dry-- say you've got a cart that floods the atty, and then leave the cart on the atty overnight. Once you get enough gunk, then some of the flavoring actually starts to burn, leaving carbon deposits and giving everything a burnt taste. Even if you keep your atty dry and free of gunk with a rinse or boil, that carbon will continue to build, as a dry atty will scortch the juice.
In my opinion, that's probably why cleaning with alcohol works better for me than just rinsing or boiling with water-- the carbon crap dissolves in alcohol better (alcohol is a much stronger solvent than water).
I haven't had any battery difficulties, really-- all of my difficulties have been with carts and atties. There's been once or twice where I forgot to charge, and had to wait an hour or two to have a charged battery, but that's the worst complaint I have. My USB charge is attached to my computer at work, and my wall charger is at home. The PCC uses the same Mini-USB charger I use for charging my phone, so it's easy to charge too-- and the battery in the PCC can charge at the same time you're charging the PCC, so every morning I start with two freshly charged batteries and a freshly charged PCC. I find that even long into the night, the PCC has enough juice to charge the battery I'm not using at the moment by the time the other battery runs dry. I heart the PCC-- well worth the investment.
So, it's been about two months for me. In total, I've spent $158.50 on vaping. Over that same period, I would have spent $112 or so on analog cigarettes, so I'm coming up to the point where I will break even soon. Even though I've had difficulties, I'm never going back to analogs, and I'm more consious of having backups (note that I have never mentioned using the fourth atty I ordered-- I am keeping it in reserve in case of some emergency).
For the future-- my next order will be for 10 carts, and one or two new atties. I want one of the red atties I've seen in a few places, and maybe a red battery to go with it. Though I haven't had any problems with my batteries yet, I want a spare, just in case. I'm willing to try using carts more properly this time, instead of expecting a cart to last for a week, and see if that makes a difference. In the farther future, I want to get a KR808D-1 adapter, and try my atties with the KR808D-1 battery (I read ScottBee's thread on 510 compatible batteries, and want to try 3.7 volts). I may even order an 808 atty to go with that, to see how I end up liking a different atty. Even further down the line, I may mess with a cart mod, though at this point I am highly satisfied with direct dripping so that is a more distant experiment to try. I expect by the end of next month, I will have broke even on my investment vs. my 1/2 pack a day habit with analogs, even though I intend to continue trying different mods and such.
I even have a mod project of my own to try at some point-- the steampunk vaporizer. My idea is to get a huge honking battery, and either paint it brass or copper, or order it that way if I can find one, then to get a brass/copper atomizer. The trick will be the 'stem', as I'd like a curved 'cart' or somesuch, and preferably in a gold or silver color, but all the carts I've seen are pretty much straight and black plastic. Since I'm comfortable with direct dripping, I may just fashion a stem myself, and direct drip out of an old fashioned glass dropper for steampunk authenticity.
Hopefully, my story helps others who start out with early difficulties in vaping, and maybe even contributes to the ongoing discussion on better cleaning methods, atty life, etc. I know that reading a wide array of posts here at ECF has helped me a lot in my early experiences, and hope to provide others with similar help.
My story is a bit different than a lot of other new vapers-- I see a lot of "man, vaping worked right off the bat, and I haven't had any difficulties, tra-la-la" posts. This isn't one of those stories-- while I now feel that I have a solid handle on vaping, there's been a lot of trial and error over the first month or so.
So, to start off, I'll discuss what hardware I have. I started off with a Joye 510 starter kit (Two attys, two batterys, five blank carts), a PCC, and a USB Charger, all from Rocky Mountain Vapor. My first order was $75, and arrived in about two shipping days.
For Juice, I ordered 4 1 oz. bottles of 24 mg/ml nicotine, 35% VG juice from Tasty Vapor. I ordered the Apple Pie, Strawberry Cheesecake, Blueberry Cheesecake, and Dulce De Leche flavors. To go with that, I ordered 5 of the mini-dropper bottles to go with that. The first three bottles ran $15, and I got the Dulce De Leche for $10 on their special-- and let me say, I'm very glad I did. Total, my Tasty Vapor order came to $63.50, and arrived in two shipping days.
For the first week, everything was pretty much awesome. The hardest part was waiting for my batteries to fully charge that 24 hours that Joye recommends. After that, everything was golden. I filled a cart with the Blueberry Cheesecake, and everything was awesome. In fact, the droppers the juice came in were sharp enough that I didn't feel I needed the five empty mini-bottles I ordered. I got clouds of vapor, the works. I was very pleased, though I'm not sure if I didn't have an initial poor reaction to the PG as I was ever so slightly nauseous, but that went away in the first couple of days. Over that week, I would fill other carts with other juice, and that worked awesome too. I could basically swap carts and get another flavor in a draw or two. Win!
It was during the second week that I started having problem with my first atty. I figured this was a cleaning problem, so I blew the atty dry onto a paper towel-- it took me a few tries to realize that when they say "blow onto a paper towel," they mean "put the open end of the atty on a paper towel, and then blow through the battery end of the atty." If there's no contact with the paper towel to the atty, then the dry paper towel doesn't wick out the juice you blow out of the atty, and it just sticks to the inside of the atty.
At first the blowing it out worked for a couple days, but then even that was a problem. The draw was still hard and getting harder. So I tryed the dry burn method, which is basically to try to cook off extra juice and gunk by holding the button down until the atty gets red hot... and to skip around that point by holding off on the button until the heating element no longer glows, then to heat it up to glowing again, until the atty neither smokes or vapes anything. This worked for a few more days, but by the end of the second week I was so sick of repeating the process that I broke into my spare atty, figuring I would order a couple more the next week (it was the weekend, and I had to wait for my paycheck anyway, 'cause well, bills...)
After breaking out the spare atty, I tried a more extended dry burn method, which was to rinse the atty in running water, then blow it out, then to dry burn to dry it out, and then to repeat. This method worked on the theory that what made your atty need cleaning was that there was enough gunk built up in it that it needed to be rinsed out, and the thread I read about it there were a lot of people saying the method worked for them. So I tried it with the first atty, and then put a freshly-topped off cart on it-- and the thing didn't vape, period. In retrospect, I know why now-- the cart I thought would be good enough wasn't getting enough juice to the bridge, and the atty was totally dry, meaning that there wasn't any juice getting to the heating element, meaning in turn no vapor. But I thought I had popped the atty, and so gave up on it.
The second atty started showing problems in the first week, and I started to theorize that the problem was the carts. By that point, I had basically settled into smoking either the Apple Pie or Dulce De Leche, and I was realizing that it was about time for me to try to rinse the filler and/or swap out a new cart. So I swapped in the last remaining blank cart I had, and things were better, though not as good as a fresh atty, for a day or two. The atty still had problems, but it was the weekend and I was off to Philly for the weekend. I'd put in my order, but it wasn't likely to be there until Monday at best (payday is a Friday, and things don't ship on Sundays). I ordered two new attys, one "titanium" and one "silver", with express shipping, also from Rocky Mountain Vapor. Total was $20.
So off to Philly I went. Things with the atty continued to deteriorate on the trip up, to the point that by Friday night blowing the atty out or dry burning weren't doing anything to help the matter. I got the atty working a little bit Saturday morning, but by Saturday afternoon, it was just too much hassle. Luckily for my nicotine habit, though probably less fortunate for my lungs, I still had most of a pack of analog cigarettes from before my hardware and juice arrived.
Going back to analogs was an enlightening experience. Though it had only really been three weeks since I'd had an analog cigarette, the difference was astonishing. The analog, my brand for years, was disgusting. I couldn't believe I'd been doing it for over 10 years, that there had been times when I enjoyed the flavor of sooty, tarry ..... But I was out, and didn't have time to do any major cleaning efforts on the lone atty I had that I thought was working, so I finished the half-a-pack I had that day. By the end of the day I had resolved not to buy another pack, but to hold off on smoking until I got the new atties I had ordered if it came to it.
That Sunday morning, I did another serious blow out/dry burn operation, out of which I got about a cigarette's worth of vapor before the atty stopped working again, and drove home. When I got home, I was having a pretty good nic fit, so I was scouring ECF for a better cleaning method that might make my atty work.
That's when I discovered that a popped atty won't heat up to cherry red-- which my first atty was still doing. I also discovered that after a cleaning, you need to 'prime the pump' as it were, by direct dripping a few drops onto the bridge. I tried that with my first atty, and whalla-- it was producing vapor again. But it started to flood very easily-- which I determined was a matter of carts. I didn't have any fresh carts available, so took out the filler of another cart, squeezed it dry, and used that.
That worked for maybe a day or two... but by then, I was over the prohibition I felt about direct dripping. I had read a few places on ECF that direct dripping a 510 atty was a bad idea-- but that worked way better than any other option I had on hand.
Now mind you, the atty wasn't functioning perfectly. It still had a hard draw, and if I vaped on it for too long, it would get a nasty burned taste, and I had to blow it out a bit every day. But it was better than nothing-- and my new atties would be getting there shortly.
Once my new atties arrived, I did two things, the first being to really boil the second atty to see if boiling it would get it back. At this point, I was thinking that the problem could be that juice was drying out in the atty and causing problems, and that the only way to get it out was to boil it out. I let it sit for a couple days to dry.
At the same time, I fully squeezed dried the filler of all the carts I had, boiled them then dried it with the second atty. I did this even with the couple carts with the Cheescake flavors that had been sitting for a couple weeks with a cart-condom and not used, which theoretically have been 'fresh.' Doing this made me start to think that it was a cart issue I was having, as even sitting with a cover on I found dried clumps of juice in the carts, and more so with the carts I had been using regularly.
I also had determined by that point that maybe it was the juice that was 'killing' my atties at such a rate (they weren't really dead, just developing hard draws and reduced vapor). I had been vaping the Apple Pie and Dulce De Leche-- which while very, very tasty, were still much darker juices than the two cheesecake varieties I had, and more viscous. So on the new atty, I only vaped the Strawberry Cheesecake, and continued to direct drip vape Dulce De Leche on under-performing first atty.
The second atty came back after the boiling, and I had my third atty, and the first that was vaping at about half-power for direct dripping, and things were honky dory, if not perfect, for the next week or so. Then I heard a pop in the second atty, and it started to lose vapor production. I'm pretty sure that the boiling did some damage to it. The third atty started showing the same problems of the draw becoming harder, a new problem of flooding easily, and of the vapor starting to taste... scortched is the best way to put it.
At that point, my first atty was the most 'reliable,' in that direct dripping it produced the best vapor for longer. I had still be looking through ECF for better cleaning methods-- and that's when I found the place that the model specific discussions were tucked away on ECF (I can't post links yet, but they're under E-Cigarette Reviews > Model Specific Discussion, and the 510 forum. There, they had a post-it of Joye's recommended cleaning practices.
Something surprising to me was that Joye actually recommended cleaning with alcohol. I'd read ECF posts on cleaning with alcohol, both rubbing alcohol and liquor alcohol, and had read a number of alarming reports about the atties catching fire even after drying. The Joye recommendations had the missing half of the equation there, though, in that after cleaning with alcohol they wanted you to rinse it with water thoroughly.
So I gave it a shot-- the problem I found with the Joye instructions was that they wanted you to shake the alcohol around in the atty for 2 minutes minimum, but the alcohol leaked out of the two little holes at the end of the screw before you'd shaken it for 15 seconds. So I found a mini-tupper ware thingy, dropped the atty and the alcohol in that, and rinsed.
The first thing that appeared to me was that the alcohol became discolored pretty rapidly-- and it occurred to me that there are things in the juice that probably don't dissolve in water easily, but which dissolve in the alcohol rapidly. So I rinsed both my second and third atties like this. Even from the second atty, the one that had been boiled, there was lots of stuff that dissolved into the alcohol. So I rinsed both of them like this until they rinsed clear in the alcohol, and then flushed them under tap water. Then blew them out and let them sit for about 18 hours or so (Joye had recommended 16).
By this point I had also decided to dispense with carts altogether until I could order a whole new batch. My adventures in trying to recycle the filler didn't really go so well-- if I go back to carts, I will (a) wait until I'm actually going to use a cart to fill it, as opposed to trying to 'prefill' them for later use, and (b) never use a cart more than 3 days old, which would mean I'd go through about 10 carts/month, or $6 (still less than the price of a single pack of cigarettes where I live in Maryland).
The second atty, sadly, was totally popped. It won't heat up to cherry red no matter how long I apply power to it.
It was direct dripping with the newly cleaned third atty that makes me consider giving up on carts altogether, 'cause boy howdy was the direct dripping experience with the newly cleaned third atty EVEN BETTER than vaping with a new atty and a fresh cart. The flavor of the vapor was better-- and there was more vapor. This is true until the atty starts to dry out, and then you start to get a mildly scortched flavor. Once the atty starts to dry out, then you get less vapor, and the vapor you do get has a slighly bad taste that I'm pretty sure is from the juice starting to burn a little rather than merely vaporize. This is easily solved by dripping more juice when it starts to happen. It has the advantage of letting you be more certain your atty is dry when you put it away, to boot.
I am very happy with this, and it's worked for a week and a half now. I've cleaned my first atty using the alcohol method the same way, and it vapes like a champ using the direct drip method too. I am less concerned about buying fresh carts now, because vaping without them is pretty awesome and better than any experience I had with a cart.
I've come to think that juice makes an enormous difference in atty life, one that really seems to be underestimated. My hypothesis on this is that while PG, VG, and Nicotine all vaporize at about the same temperature (which is why vaping works), the flavoring in the juices will vaporize at different rates, espeacially if we're talking natural flavoring, which will have natural juices that have sugar in them. My experience shows that the Apple Pie and Dulce De Leche flavors clog the atties and make them need to be cleaned faster than when I'm using the Cheesecake Juices-- and everything is the same nicotine concentration and PG/VG ratio from the same juice shop, so at this point I'd make a strong bet that has everything to do with the flavoring used. Once I break my 15 and can start posting in other forums, I'll speculate more on this, but I'd hazard to guess that tobacco flavors gunk up less.
What I think causes the gunk-up is a process like carmelization, where the PG/VG and nicotine vape out of the juice faster than the flavoring, building concentration of the flavoring near the heating element that eventually becomes more sticky and solid than liquid-- making it harder to draw, and reducing vapor production as less actual juice is getting to the heating element. This is compounded if you flood the atty and then let it dry-- say you've got a cart that floods the atty, and then leave the cart on the atty overnight. Once you get enough gunk, then some of the flavoring actually starts to burn, leaving carbon deposits and giving everything a burnt taste. Even if you keep your atty dry and free of gunk with a rinse or boil, that carbon will continue to build, as a dry atty will scortch the juice.
In my opinion, that's probably why cleaning with alcohol works better for me than just rinsing or boiling with water-- the carbon crap dissolves in alcohol better (alcohol is a much stronger solvent than water).
I haven't had any battery difficulties, really-- all of my difficulties have been with carts and atties. There's been once or twice where I forgot to charge, and had to wait an hour or two to have a charged battery, but that's the worst complaint I have. My USB charge is attached to my computer at work, and my wall charger is at home. The PCC uses the same Mini-USB charger I use for charging my phone, so it's easy to charge too-- and the battery in the PCC can charge at the same time you're charging the PCC, so every morning I start with two freshly charged batteries and a freshly charged PCC. I find that even long into the night, the PCC has enough juice to charge the battery I'm not using at the moment by the time the other battery runs dry. I heart the PCC-- well worth the investment.
So, it's been about two months for me. In total, I've spent $158.50 on vaping. Over that same period, I would have spent $112 or so on analog cigarettes, so I'm coming up to the point where I will break even soon. Even though I've had difficulties, I'm never going back to analogs, and I'm more consious of having backups (note that I have never mentioned using the fourth atty I ordered-- I am keeping it in reserve in case of some emergency).
For the future-- my next order will be for 10 carts, and one or two new atties. I want one of the red atties I've seen in a few places, and maybe a red battery to go with it. Though I haven't had any problems with my batteries yet, I want a spare, just in case. I'm willing to try using carts more properly this time, instead of expecting a cart to last for a week, and see if that makes a difference. In the farther future, I want to get a KR808D-1 adapter, and try my atties with the KR808D-1 battery (I read ScottBee's thread on 510 compatible batteries, and want to try 3.7 volts). I may even order an 808 atty to go with that, to see how I end up liking a different atty. Even further down the line, I may mess with a cart mod, though at this point I am highly satisfied with direct dripping so that is a more distant experiment to try. I expect by the end of next month, I will have broke even on my investment vs. my 1/2 pack a day habit with analogs, even though I intend to continue trying different mods and such.
I even have a mod project of my own to try at some point-- the steampunk vaporizer. My idea is to get a huge honking battery, and either paint it brass or copper, or order it that way if I can find one, then to get a brass/copper atomizer. The trick will be the 'stem', as I'd like a curved 'cart' or somesuch, and preferably in a gold or silver color, but all the carts I've seen are pretty much straight and black plastic. Since I'm comfortable with direct dripping, I may just fashion a stem myself, and direct drip out of an old fashioned glass dropper for steampunk authenticity.
Hopefully, my story helps others who start out with early difficulties in vaping, and maybe even contributes to the ongoing discussion on better cleaning methods, atty life, etc. I know that reading a wide array of posts here at ECF has helped me a lot in my early experiences, and hope to provide others with similar help.
