This blog is third installment of my vaping guide and will go into the specifics of day to day use
juice
The final component in the vaping experience is the most subjective.
People like different flavors what is the favorite of one vaper will make another gag.
Be bold, one of the great things about Ecigs is that you actually get some stuff that tastes good rather than burnt weed so don’t be afraid to try some different flavors.
At the beginning you’ll want to try a variety of flavors to get an idea of what you like.
One down side to this is that flavors tend to stick in an atomizer so once it’s been used for say menthol every other flavor you stick in that atomizers is going to have a menthol taste to it for a long damned time.
This is a case where a 510 with Cartomizers might work really well since the cartos tend to be cheap and you’re only out a couple bucks if you put some juice that turns out to be vile in one.
I suggest a sample pack to start with so you can try some different juices and get an idea of what you like.
In keeping with my plan for success advice I suggest getting a large supply of tasteless juice in whatever strength you decide you want to go with. Then you can always use that to extend the supply of a juice you like or DIY a flavor or in a pinch or when you’re just lazy you can just vape the tasteless.
This also covers the realm of cartridges fillers and tanks.
A lot of this is a matter of preference. Some people swear by dripping others love their cartomizers while still others have great success with the various juice feed systems.
I mainly drip though I use a cartridge to keep some reserve liquid above the atomizers bridge. I’ve found that this really helps me avoid running an atomizer dry and ruining it while at the same time providing me with that good clean tasty dripping experience.
Store your juice in a cool dark place well outside the reach of animals and children. This stuff is poisonous if ingested in volume. Children and animals will ingest some weird stuff and you don’t want to be the one to make the papers because you couldn’t take basic precautions.
There is a lot more that could be said on this subject but I suggest people check out some of the EFC resources I'm pretty easy sticking with plain old PG but there are other options for people who have allergies to PG and a lot of stuff about flavoring you may want to read up on.
Mess
This can get messy at times. There have been plenty of times I’ve gotten a bit over zealous with the drips into my atomizers and the excess will come out into the top of my adapter.
Some atomizers seem to be particularly prone to leakage as such it’s useful to keep some paper towels or tissues around to wipe up any excess liquid. Vapor will condense onto the atomizer tube, on the side of the cartridge and in the mouth piece.
Make a habit of regularly wiping off the cartridge and even using a rolled up bit of paper towel to clean out the atomizer tube. Periodically take the mouth piece off the cartridge and run it under some water to clean it out.
Regularly remove the atomizer and clean the threads and contacts of excess liquid including twisting up a small bit and feeding it up into the center draw hole of the atomizer this will remove a lot of excess liquid and improve its performance.
If an atomizers ends up really flooded another method is to stick a bit of paper towel to cover the threaded side (including a twisted up bit stuck in the center hole) then gently blow into the cartridge end. This will push excess liquid out into the paper towel.
Day to day use.
OK so you’ve got your device and you got your supplies and your juice and batteries and all the stuff I’m going to recommend you buy in the next blog. Now it’s time to actually use that stuff.
What you want to have on you at all times is your PV, a spare set of batteries and a small bottle of juice. I use little a sample bottle that was sent to me that has a relatively easily removable top and a nice long thin neck for precision dripping, Unless you are a pretty crazy vaper a 10ml bottle should be plenty for a day or two.
Keep an extra charger at work as well as some spare atomizers and extra juice.
This is the minimum, you might want to bring an extra atomizer and a second set of batteries if you expect to be away from your home and work for a while. You can always keep those spares in your car.
If you travel you’ll want to carry even more spares as well as a charger and a power inverter in your car to run your charger off your cigarette lighter if you plan on driving any long distance.
Keep your main juice supply at your home in your secure storage space. use a small syringe to transfer juice from your larger supply into a smaller bottle to take around with you.
Ok so now everything is ready you have your supplies you got your travel kit and you’re ready to vape.
If you are using cartridges that aren’t prefilled you’ll want to fill them I do this by holding them with the batting up (the fibrous material in the cart that hold the liquid) then drip a few drops into the batting wait for it to saturate a bit then repeat.
I’ve found it to be useful to use a tooth pick to compress the batting and force excess air out of it then add more liquid and use the toothpick to tease the batting back up to the top then top off with a drip or two of liquid until the batting is saturated. This can repeated several times until you need to do more service.
Eventually the batting will harden from the heat and it’s good to occasionally clean it all out by using a tooth pick or some other long narrow device or tweezers to pull it out. Wash it in warm water then dry with a paper towel. Trim off any hardened or burnt material then roll it into a tube and reinsert into the cart and refill using the method described earlier. Be sure to keep it thick enough that it will completely fill the void in the cartridge once it expands out but not so thick that the liquid can wick through it.
For cartos or tanks find one of the threads describing their use as I have no experience with them.
Start by putting fully charged batteries in your device, attach your atomizer then assuming you are using BE112s you remove the tip/cart from the atomizer drip 3-4 small drops of juice directly onto the bridge wait a few seconds then hit the switch for a second to ensure you get some vapor production, it may fizzle a bit that’s ok.
Drip 2-3 more drops in then replace the tip/cart. One thing to bear in mind is that generally batteries are not shipped with a full charge so you’ll want to give them a good 4 hours on the charger before starting.
At this point you are ready to start vaping stick the tip in your mouth push the button then gently inhale and draw the vapor into your lungs. Keep your draws to 2 or 3 seconds at a time. I find that I will do this then set the device down for a bit then repeat.
Don’t feel like you have to smoke it like a cigarette.
One of the really nice things about a PV is that you aren’t committed to 5-7 minutes of smoking every time you pick it up. You can take a hit or two as needed while you do other things or you can just sit around and enjoy the experience. I do find it useful to periodically rest the atomizer so it can cool off a bit.
A lot of the rest can only be learned through experience. Eventually you’ll learn to taste when the atomizer is getting a bit dry and tell when you’ve over saturated it. When it starts getting dry put a few more drops in. If you oversaturate then follow the instructions on cleaning out excess juice.
Troubleshooting.
So these things sometimes stop working and you’ll need to figure out why.
When my PV stops working I go through some basic part swapping. First make sure your batteries are well charged by swapping in spares, if that doesn’t work then the next most likely culprit will be the atomizer start by removing it and checking for excess liquid on the contacts. Clean it all off with a paper towel as instructed in the mess section and try again.
If it still doesn’t work try another atomizer. If you have a back up PV it can be useful to test the atomizer to ensure that you don’t just have two busted atomizers.
If neither the atomizer nor batteries seem to be the problem the next step will be to check the device. You’ll want to start by removing the end cap and or adapter and check/clean the threads.
I’ve found times where the contact points on the adapter get some corrosion or varnish to them and cleaning them with a wire brush or some fine grain sand paper can help restore functionality. If none of that works then the most likely failure point will be the switch.
If it’s an electrical tact switch you could potentially test it with a multi-meter or ideally you’ll have a spare around to swap out, As far as mechanical switches go there really isn’t all that much that can fail other than corroded contact points or possibly a weak spring.
At this point if you don’t have spare parts (switches, springs etc) you’ll be sending it in for repair. If you were smart and got some spare repair parts, you just swap in a new part and send the defective part in for repair/replacement.
Storage
There are some more involved procedures I’ve seen detailed on the site but I’m lazy, a lot of people remove their atomizers and let them drain in a coffee cup or something over night, there are some procedures floating about on cleaning them using various solvents like mouth wash or hi proofed grain alcohols.
Personally I just leave my cig together sitting on its ..... With the sealed adapter any leakage just ends up in the overflow cup of my adapter and a quick wipe of everything in the morning fixes that right up.
Next specific device recommendations.
juice
The final component in the vaping experience is the most subjective.
People like different flavors what is the favorite of one vaper will make another gag.
Be bold, one of the great things about Ecigs is that you actually get some stuff that tastes good rather than burnt weed so don’t be afraid to try some different flavors.
At the beginning you’ll want to try a variety of flavors to get an idea of what you like.
One down side to this is that flavors tend to stick in an atomizer so once it’s been used for say menthol every other flavor you stick in that atomizers is going to have a menthol taste to it for a long damned time.
This is a case where a 510 with Cartomizers might work really well since the cartos tend to be cheap and you’re only out a couple bucks if you put some juice that turns out to be vile in one.
I suggest a sample pack to start with so you can try some different juices and get an idea of what you like.
In keeping with my plan for success advice I suggest getting a large supply of tasteless juice in whatever strength you decide you want to go with. Then you can always use that to extend the supply of a juice you like or DIY a flavor or in a pinch or when you’re just lazy you can just vape the tasteless.
This also covers the realm of cartridges fillers and tanks.
A lot of this is a matter of preference. Some people swear by dripping others love their cartomizers while still others have great success with the various juice feed systems.
I mainly drip though I use a cartridge to keep some reserve liquid above the atomizers bridge. I’ve found that this really helps me avoid running an atomizer dry and ruining it while at the same time providing me with that good clean tasty dripping experience.
Store your juice in a cool dark place well outside the reach of animals and children. This stuff is poisonous if ingested in volume. Children and animals will ingest some weird stuff and you don’t want to be the one to make the papers because you couldn’t take basic precautions.
There is a lot more that could be said on this subject but I suggest people check out some of the EFC resources I'm pretty easy sticking with plain old PG but there are other options for people who have allergies to PG and a lot of stuff about flavoring you may want to read up on.
Mess
This can get messy at times. There have been plenty of times I’ve gotten a bit over zealous with the drips into my atomizers and the excess will come out into the top of my adapter.
Some atomizers seem to be particularly prone to leakage as such it’s useful to keep some paper towels or tissues around to wipe up any excess liquid. Vapor will condense onto the atomizer tube, on the side of the cartridge and in the mouth piece.
Make a habit of regularly wiping off the cartridge and even using a rolled up bit of paper towel to clean out the atomizer tube. Periodically take the mouth piece off the cartridge and run it under some water to clean it out.
Regularly remove the atomizer and clean the threads and contacts of excess liquid including twisting up a small bit and feeding it up into the center draw hole of the atomizer this will remove a lot of excess liquid and improve its performance.
If an atomizers ends up really flooded another method is to stick a bit of paper towel to cover the threaded side (including a twisted up bit stuck in the center hole) then gently blow into the cartridge end. This will push excess liquid out into the paper towel.
Day to day use.
OK so you’ve got your device and you got your supplies and your juice and batteries and all the stuff I’m going to recommend you buy in the next blog. Now it’s time to actually use that stuff.
What you want to have on you at all times is your PV, a spare set of batteries and a small bottle of juice. I use little a sample bottle that was sent to me that has a relatively easily removable top and a nice long thin neck for precision dripping, Unless you are a pretty crazy vaper a 10ml bottle should be plenty for a day or two.
Keep an extra charger at work as well as some spare atomizers and extra juice.
This is the minimum, you might want to bring an extra atomizer and a second set of batteries if you expect to be away from your home and work for a while. You can always keep those spares in your car.
If you travel you’ll want to carry even more spares as well as a charger and a power inverter in your car to run your charger off your cigarette lighter if you plan on driving any long distance.
Keep your main juice supply at your home in your secure storage space. use a small syringe to transfer juice from your larger supply into a smaller bottle to take around with you.
Ok so now everything is ready you have your supplies you got your travel kit and you’re ready to vape.
If you are using cartridges that aren’t prefilled you’ll want to fill them I do this by holding them with the batting up (the fibrous material in the cart that hold the liquid) then drip a few drops into the batting wait for it to saturate a bit then repeat.
I’ve found it to be useful to use a tooth pick to compress the batting and force excess air out of it then add more liquid and use the toothpick to tease the batting back up to the top then top off with a drip or two of liquid until the batting is saturated. This can repeated several times until you need to do more service.
Eventually the batting will harden from the heat and it’s good to occasionally clean it all out by using a tooth pick or some other long narrow device or tweezers to pull it out. Wash it in warm water then dry with a paper towel. Trim off any hardened or burnt material then roll it into a tube and reinsert into the cart and refill using the method described earlier. Be sure to keep it thick enough that it will completely fill the void in the cartridge once it expands out but not so thick that the liquid can wick through it.
For cartos or tanks find one of the threads describing their use as I have no experience with them.
Start by putting fully charged batteries in your device, attach your atomizer then assuming you are using BE112s you remove the tip/cart from the atomizer drip 3-4 small drops of juice directly onto the bridge wait a few seconds then hit the switch for a second to ensure you get some vapor production, it may fizzle a bit that’s ok.
Drip 2-3 more drops in then replace the tip/cart. One thing to bear in mind is that generally batteries are not shipped with a full charge so you’ll want to give them a good 4 hours on the charger before starting.
At this point you are ready to start vaping stick the tip in your mouth push the button then gently inhale and draw the vapor into your lungs. Keep your draws to 2 or 3 seconds at a time. I find that I will do this then set the device down for a bit then repeat.
Don’t feel like you have to smoke it like a cigarette.
One of the really nice things about a PV is that you aren’t committed to 5-7 minutes of smoking every time you pick it up. You can take a hit or two as needed while you do other things or you can just sit around and enjoy the experience. I do find it useful to periodically rest the atomizer so it can cool off a bit.
A lot of the rest can only be learned through experience. Eventually you’ll learn to taste when the atomizer is getting a bit dry and tell when you’ve over saturated it. When it starts getting dry put a few more drops in. If you oversaturate then follow the instructions on cleaning out excess juice.
Troubleshooting.
So these things sometimes stop working and you’ll need to figure out why.
When my PV stops working I go through some basic part swapping. First make sure your batteries are well charged by swapping in spares, if that doesn’t work then the next most likely culprit will be the atomizer start by removing it and checking for excess liquid on the contacts. Clean it all off with a paper towel as instructed in the mess section and try again.
If it still doesn’t work try another atomizer. If you have a back up PV it can be useful to test the atomizer to ensure that you don’t just have two busted atomizers.
If neither the atomizer nor batteries seem to be the problem the next step will be to check the device. You’ll want to start by removing the end cap and or adapter and check/clean the threads.
I’ve found times where the contact points on the adapter get some corrosion or varnish to them and cleaning them with a wire brush or some fine grain sand paper can help restore functionality. If none of that works then the most likely failure point will be the switch.
If it’s an electrical tact switch you could potentially test it with a multi-meter or ideally you’ll have a spare around to swap out, As far as mechanical switches go there really isn’t all that much that can fail other than corroded contact points or possibly a weak spring.
At this point if you don’t have spare parts (switches, springs etc) you’ll be sending it in for repair. If you were smart and got some spare repair parts, you just swap in a new part and send the defective part in for repair/replacement.
Storage
There are some more involved procedures I’ve seen detailed on the site but I’m lazy, a lot of people remove their atomizers and let them drain in a coffee cup or something over night, there are some procedures floating about on cleaning them using various solvents like mouth wash or hi proofed grain alcohols.
Personally I just leave my cig together sitting on its ..... With the sealed adapter any leakage just ends up in the overflow cup of my adapter and a quick wipe of everything in the morning fixes that right up.
Next specific device recommendations.
