I just recently did some research involving how much juice can go into one V4L carto and decided to post my results. This was because the little 5ml bottles of juice I've been getting always seemed only half full and I was wondering if I was actually getting 5ml. That led to my questioning whether or not the prefilled cartos were actually full as well.
For the sake of these experiments, I used a brand new bottle of Red Cow because I had heard this described as being a 'thick' juice, and also because I had a couple unopened ones still left (ordered lots since I love it so). I also repeated these experiments with straight Glycerin USP (Walmart). I used tap water as my 3rd liquid and for a control.
First I wanted to know whether all 'drops' were the same. I used a 1ml syringe that gives measurements in 1/100th of a ml. I pull 1ml of juice into the syringe and started slowly dripping it back into the bottle to count how many drops I got. The times when I got 29, I got a half drop at the end that wouldn't fall on it's own with gravity, so was slightly less than 1 complete drop.
I did this ten times and got these results:
30 - 29 - 30 - 30 - 29 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30
I did the same with water and got these results:
30 - 30 - 30 - 29 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30
I did the same with glycerin and got these results:
29 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 29 - 30 - 29 - 29 - 30 - 29
This led me to the conclusion that even though these liquids were of different thickness, they still made the same size droplet when only assisted by gravity.
Next I had to find out if the droplets that come from the V4L bottle were the same size as the droplets that come from my syringe (since opening size is different). Most of us refill from the bottle, so that's the measurement that we need to refer to when talking about how many drops we refill our cartos with. To do this, I dripped the liquid into my syringe to measure and counted the drops. Because I've already verified that droplets will be the same regardless of the liquid, I did this purely with water as not to waste any more juice (or make a big mess). After carefully dripping into my syringe (not an easy task) and counting the number of drops, this is what I came out with, after 10 times:
25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25
This shows me that the dropper for the 5ml bottle has a slightly bigger hole than my syringe to allow for bigger droplets. But for all intents and purposes, 25 drops from a 5ml bottle from V4L is exactly 1ml.
We've been told that V4L prefilled cartos have a full 1ml of juice filled by syringe at the factory. If this is the case, all prefilled cartos should have started out with the equivalent of 25 drops from the 5ml bottles. When I refilled a carto, I'm able to easily get 30 drops in by using the 10(spin)10(spin)10 method, and have been able to get 36 drops into a few. I have recently limited myself to only 30 drops to prevent any accidental overfilling and gurgling. When refilling a cart, I wash it and only blow it out by mouth, so there is some residual moisture still left in I'd imagine. What this means is that my REFILLED cartos have MORE juice than the PREFILLED ones do. This is not a complaint against prefilled cartos. I just want to let people know that refilled ones should last just as long as the new ones if filled properly (and refills last the same for me as new ones).
All this started because I was curious if I was getting my full 5ml when the bottles always looked only half full. So.... I pulled exactly 1ml of my juice into the syringe, and squirted it into my empty 5ml bottle, and repeated this 4 more times. I now had a bottle containing exactly 5ml of juice. It only looked half full and when I placed it next to other unopened bottles, the levels were the same.
---------------------------- SUMMARY ------------------------------
For those who couldn't get through my long winded findings.
We are DEFINITELY getting what we paid for through V4L! We are NOT getting cheated on juice or on cartos that we buy from V4L!
YOU CAN refill a cart with the same amount or more juice as was filled from the factory!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your time, and please keep in mind that just because your cart may be a refill, it doesn't mean it's not as good.
For the sake of these experiments, I used a brand new bottle of Red Cow because I had heard this described as being a 'thick' juice, and also because I had a couple unopened ones still left (ordered lots since I love it so). I also repeated these experiments with straight Glycerin USP (Walmart). I used tap water as my 3rd liquid and for a control.
First I wanted to know whether all 'drops' were the same. I used a 1ml syringe that gives measurements in 1/100th of a ml. I pull 1ml of juice into the syringe and started slowly dripping it back into the bottle to count how many drops I got. The times when I got 29, I got a half drop at the end that wouldn't fall on it's own with gravity, so was slightly less than 1 complete drop.
I did this ten times and got these results:
30 - 29 - 30 - 30 - 29 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30
I did the same with water and got these results:
30 - 30 - 30 - 29 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 30
I did the same with glycerin and got these results:
29 - 30 - 30 - 30 - 29 - 30 - 29 - 29 - 30 - 29
This led me to the conclusion that even though these liquids were of different thickness, they still made the same size droplet when only assisted by gravity.
Next I had to find out if the droplets that come from the V4L bottle were the same size as the droplets that come from my syringe (since opening size is different). Most of us refill from the bottle, so that's the measurement that we need to refer to when talking about how many drops we refill our cartos with. To do this, I dripped the liquid into my syringe to measure and counted the drops. Because I've already verified that droplets will be the same regardless of the liquid, I did this purely with water as not to waste any more juice (or make a big mess). After carefully dripping into my syringe (not an easy task) and counting the number of drops, this is what I came out with, after 10 times:
25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25 - 25
This shows me that the dropper for the 5ml bottle has a slightly bigger hole than my syringe to allow for bigger droplets. But for all intents and purposes, 25 drops from a 5ml bottle from V4L is exactly 1ml.
We've been told that V4L prefilled cartos have a full 1ml of juice filled by syringe at the factory. If this is the case, all prefilled cartos should have started out with the equivalent of 25 drops from the 5ml bottles. When I refilled a carto, I'm able to easily get 30 drops in by using the 10(spin)10(spin)10 method, and have been able to get 36 drops into a few. I have recently limited myself to only 30 drops to prevent any accidental overfilling and gurgling. When refilling a cart, I wash it and only blow it out by mouth, so there is some residual moisture still left in I'd imagine. What this means is that my REFILLED cartos have MORE juice than the PREFILLED ones do. This is not a complaint against prefilled cartos. I just want to let people know that refilled ones should last just as long as the new ones if filled properly (and refills last the same for me as new ones).
All this started because I was curious if I was getting my full 5ml when the bottles always looked only half full. So.... I pulled exactly 1ml of my juice into the syringe, and squirted it into my empty 5ml bottle, and repeated this 4 more times. I now had a bottle containing exactly 5ml of juice. It only looked half full and when I placed it next to other unopened bottles, the levels were the same.
---------------------------- SUMMARY ------------------------------
For those who couldn't get through my long winded findings.
We are DEFINITELY getting what we paid for through V4L! We are NOT getting cheated on juice or on cartos that we buy from V4L!
YOU CAN refill a cart with the same amount or more juice as was filled from the factory!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for your time, and please keep in mind that just because your cart may be a refill, it doesn't mean it's not as good.
