Why Vaping won't ever convert the masses (of smokers)

[devilzrox]

Here's the thing.

You'll flame me. You'll say TL;DR...

But there's a number of points I need to get off my chest...

I love vaping, by the way. I still have the occasional analog (crazy term but still). I've recently got into sub-ohm vaping because:

1. My ....ty ego batts and clearomisers were just, well, crap.
2. I 'accidentally' bought a Kanger Subox Mini

So as you see, I never planned for subohm, I just got a box mod as basically a better vaping device, as someone who might upgrade from a Ford Focus to a BMW 3 series.

Then problems started occurring, which made me realize that for all the bad longevity of the ego, they were, at least, maintenance-free. Now I was trying to fix leaks, taking pieces apart, re-wicking coils. I needed to set aside a mini workshop in my home just for the maintenance. To the forums, I thought. Surely no-one else has to put in this much effort just to vape, right?

Wrong. You all do, but more surprisingly, you all seem to love it. Rather like if you drive a car, as most of us do, but have little technical knowledge about it, and how we occasionally venture to a car forum. You'll often hear people saying "oh it's the rear axle manifold, but it's easy to do yourself. You just blah, blah, blah". Fine if you have the time, an empty garage, etc, etc. Fine if you love fixing up cars, right.

But with smoking, I never 'loved' smoking, not the concept at least. I just had to smoke. I didn't go around with paraphanlia dedicated to smoking, prosletyzing ways of keeping tobacco fresher or going to smoking conventions. I just smoked. Now of course 'some' smokers are like this, but the majority aren't.

Vaping, sadly, is a steep learning curve for the non-initiated, and whereas I expect most of you to disagree with me, I feel there is a silent majority who may stumble across boards like this, read diagrams of how to convert pi's theorum of fibonacci numbers so you get the right balance between 'balancing your ohms' and causing the device to blow a hole in your face (more on that in a bit), that I bet most people who have lives, but who happen to smoke in them, just think, "erm... okay. I think I'll stick with smoking then".

When I tell friends that I've managed to give up, but talk about RBAs and introducing liquid into Japanese Cotton through a dropper, they glaze over and say "wow, you must really love vaping then". Thing is I don't. I wanted something to replace regular cigarettes, not a 24/7 craft hobby.

My fear is, even though most of you will vehemently defend your love of tinkering, eternally pursuing that perfect 'hit', I am right in saying that a lot of people will just find it too much effort, that even a working piece of kit will fail after a few weeks unless you learn about maintenance, cleaning and a lot of stuff I could do without.

Then there's the whole safety thing...

I preached for months to friends (and even strangers) that were smokers and non-smokers alike, telling them there was this new thing that allowed you to feel like you were smoking but was PERFECTLY SAFE. There were a lot of nay-sayers, let me tell you, but I won through for the most part in that I argued that however bad these eliquids could be, could they really be worse than the contents of a real cigarette (or analog, w/e)?

Unfortunately it was never the liquid we should have feared. It was the hardware.

The fundamental problem with all e-cigarettes, the ones that 'do the job' correctly, the flaw that will always be the thorn in it's size.

...is China.

You may call me racist, I have nothing against the Chinese. But let's put the cards on the table. They aren't known globally for their standards. You read stories every day about people dying over there, or being horrifically injured by machinery that has failed or gone awry due to their poor (or non-existant) safety standards.

All the box mods, it appears, without exception (please someone tell me I'm wrong. PLEASE!) are made in China.

So then I was on another forum, or maybe it was this one, I don't know, and someone posted a list of e-cigarette accidents...

Now bear in mind this isn't like "singed an eyebrow" type ..... This is like scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through events and then realizing you are still in April 2016, casually looking at the scroll bar on the right, not being able to see it, then seeing a pixel-wide line, still close to the top of the screen.

But not all these incidents are bad, right? For this list to be so long. Right?

Kinda. It reads sorta like.

1. 3rd degree burns on leg, scarred for life
2. 3rd degree burns on arm, scarred for life
3. Entire front teeth blown out, scarred for life.

Ah but that's not too bad right

4. Child loses eye while staff DEMONSTRATE an ecig to him at a mall.

HE'S NOT EVEN BOUGHT THE ....ING THING YET!

Aha, but before you rebut, I already know what you're going to say. It will echo the comments that usually follow news stories like this.

"Ah yeah but I bet he was using a calibrated mechanical with a dripper with a non-compatible 510 without calculating his ohm resistance using pythagoras' equation of Lancelot's Diversion and failed to think about the solar flare activity that day. ....ing noob."

Yeah he probably was. ....ing noob is right. In fact is there another hobby that people can just wander into, with so many self-proclaimed experts, that can be so cruel to the uninitiated? Failing DIY base-jumping, that is?

The point I'm trying to make is if vaping now is so fraught with potential danger, and it's necessary to have a certain amount (oh, who are we kidding, quite a reasonable amount) of knowledge about the subject, what not to do, etc, then how can it hope to attract smokers that weren't tobacco-fetishists, you know, the normal, everyday people who just happened to smoke.

I mean I used to enjoy smoking most when I was drunk. Now I can't dare vape if I'm drunk. What if I need to change a coil mid-way? Well not too much, as I have that 'reasonable' degree of knowledge. But what about first-timers? Maybe those bomb disposal outfits that armies have should come with?

But the worst thing has to be the elitism I've found amongst the most hard-core vapers on forums. They will offer no sympathy to the uninitiated, and resent people who just want to get on with things without any effort (you know, like regular smoking) and try to either tell them they should invest more of their time to achieve what used to be so simple, and then shunning said questioner if they point out that they don't have the time, the willpower, etc.

Oh yeah, when I bought my Subox, the site in question said on the order page "this doesn't come with a battery... it needs THIS battery... would you like to buy THIS battery from us as well as the boxmod?"

I said "sure, why not". It came. I charged it. I used it. Then there was a product recall about two weeks later. "Buy this one from us" they now said. "okay, I said".

They sent me an E Fest 18650. You know, the kind that are now generally known as being slightly more stable than carrying around a pack of C4 in a bag full of hammers...

So yeah, had to become an expert in batteries now too. Just so I could scour forums, spend hours on search engines trying to find which battery wouldn't take a limb from me, or knock a six inch hole into my neighbor's house. No really. I'm loving this new hobby.

In fact I'm looking forward to the next part. Maybe my tanks are leaking because they're plastic? .... it, lemme learn glass blowing and I'll make my own Pyrex ones. Ultimately there'll be no time for anything but this, I may as well quit my job.

Or, as new initiates will find, simply go back to smoking...

 

[bigdancehawk]

Here's the thing.

You'll flame me. You'll say TL;DR...

But there's a number of points I need to get off my chest...

I love vaping, by the way. I still have the occasional analog (crazy term but still). I've recently got into sub-ohm vaping because:

1. My ....ty ego batts and clearomisers were just, well, crap.
2. I 'accidentally' bought a Kanger Subox Mini

So as you see, I never planned for subohm, I just got a box mod as basically a better vaping device, as someone who might upgrade from a Ford Focus to a BMW 3 series.

Then problems started occurring, which made me realize that for all the bad longevity of the ego, they were, at least, maintenance-free. Now I was trying to fix leaks, taking pieces apart, re-wicking coils. I needed to set aside a mini workshop in my home just for the maintenance. To the forums, I thought. Surely no-one else has to put in this much effort just to vape, right?

Wrong. You all do, but more surprisingly, you all seem to love it. Rather like if you drive a car, as most of us do, but have little technical knowledge about it, and how we occasionally venture to a car forum. You'll often hear people saying "oh it's the rear axle manifold, but it's easy to do yourself. You just blah, blah, blah". Fine if you have the time, an empty garage, etc, etc. Fine if you love fixing up cars, right.

But with smoking, I never 'loved' smoking, not the concept at least. I just had to smoke. I didn't go around with paraphanlia dedicated to smoking, prosletyzing ways of keeping tobacco fresher or going to smoking conventions. I just smoked. Now of course 'some' smokers are like this, but the majority aren't.

Vaping, sadly, is a steep learning curve for the non-initiated, and whereas I expect most of you to disagree with me, I feel there is a silent majority who may stumble across boards like this, read diagrams of how to convert pi's theorum of fibonacci numbers so you get the right balance between 'balancing your ohms' and causing the device to blow a hole in your face (more on that in a bit), that I bet most people who have lives, but who happen to smoke in them, just think, "erm... okay. I think I'll stick with smoking then".

When I tell friends that I've managed to give up, but talk about RBAs and introducing liquid into Japanese Cotton through a dropper, they glaze over and say "wow, you must really love vaping then". Thing is I don't. I wanted something to replace regular cigarettes, not a 24/7 craft hobby.

My fear is, even though most of you will vehemently defend your love of tinkering, eternally pursuing that perfect 'hit', I am right in saying that a lot of people will just find it too much effort, that even a working piece of kit will fail after a few weeks unless you learn about maintenance, cleaning and a lot of stuff I could do without.

Then there's the whole safety thing...

I preached for months to friends (and even strangers) that were smokers and non-smokers alike, telling them there was this new thing that allowed you to feel like you were smoking but was PERFECTLY SAFE. There were a lot of nay-sayers, let me tell you, but I won through for the most part in that I argued that however bad these eliquids could be, could they really be worse than the contents of a real cigarette (or analog, w/e)?

Unfortunately it was never the liquid we should have feared. It was the hardware.

The fundamental problem with all e-cigarettes, the ones that 'do the job' correctly, the flaw that will always be the thorn in it's size.

...is China.

You may call me racist, I have nothing against the Chinese. But let's put the cards on the table. They aren't known globally for their standards. You read stories every day about people dying over there, or being horrifically injured by machinery that has failed or gone awry due to their poor (or non-existant) safety standards.

All the box mods, it appears, without exception (please someone tell me I'm wrong. PLEASE!) are made in China.

So then I was on another forum, or maybe it was this one, I don't know, and someone posted a list of e-cigarette accidents...

Now bear in mind this isn't like "singed an eyebrow" type ..... This is like scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through events and then realizing you are still in April 2016, casually looking at the scroll bar on the right, not being able to see it, then seeing a pixel-wide line, still close to the top of the screen.

But not all these incidents are bad, right? For this list to be so long. Right?

Kinda. It reads sorta like.

1. 3rd degree burns on leg, scarred for life
2. 3rd degree burns on arm, scarred for life
3. Entire front teeth blown out, scarred for life.

Ah but that's not too bad right

4. Child loses eye while staff DEMONSTRATE an ecig to him at a mall.

HE'S NOT EVEN BOUGHT THE ....ING THING YET!

Aha, but before you rebut, I already know what you're going to say. It will echo the comments that usually follow news stories like this.

"Ah yeah but I bet he was using a calibrated mechanical with a dripper with a non-compatible 510 without calculating his ohm resistance using pythagoras' equation of Lancelot's Diversion and failed to think about the solar flare activity that day. ....ing noob."

Yeah he probably was. ....ing noob is right. In fact is there another hobby that people can just wander into, with so many self-proclaimed experts, that can be so cruel to the uninitiated? Failing DIY base-jumping, that is?

The point I'm trying to make is if vaping now is so fraught with potential danger, and it's necessary to have a certain amount (oh, who are we kidding, quite a reasonable amount) of knowledge about the subject, what not to do, etc, then how can it hope to attract smokers that weren't tobacco-fetishists, you know, the normal, everyday people who just happened to smoke.

I mean I used to enjoy smoking most when I was drunk. Now I can't dare vape if I'm drunk. What if I need to change a coil mid-way? Well not too much, as I have that 'reasonable' degree of knowledge. But what about first-timers? Maybe those bomb disposal outfits that armies have should come with?

But the worst thing has to be the elitism I've found amongst the most hard-core vapers on forums. They will offer no sympathy to the uninitiated, and resent people who just want to get on with things without any effort (you know, like regular smoking) and try to either tell them they should invest more of their time to achieve what used to be so simple, and then shunning said questioner if they point out that they don't have the time, the willpower, etc.

Oh yeah, when I bought my Subox, the site in question said on the order page "this doesn't come with a battery... it needs THIS battery... would you like to buy THIS battery from us as well as the boxmod?"

I said "sure, why not". It came. I charged it. I used it. Then there was a product recall about two weeks later. "Buy this one from us" they now said. "okay, I said".

They sent me an E Fest 18650. You know, the kind that are now generally known as being slightly more stable than carrying around a pack of C4 in a bag full of hammers...

So yeah, had to become an expert in batteries now too. Just so I could scour forums, spend hours on search engines trying to find which battery wouldn't take a limb from me, or knock a six inch hole into my neighbor's house. No really. I'm loving this new hobby.

In fact I'm looking forward to the next part. Maybe my tanks are leaking because they're plastic? .... it, lemme learn glass blowing and I'll make my own Pyrex ones. Ultimately there'll be no time for anything but this, I may as well quit my job.

Or, as new initiates will find, simply go back to smoking...

Congrats! This elevates hyperbole to an art form. There are lots of inexpensive, effective, easy to use, toppers and regulated box mods with internal batteries that require virtually no maintenance, don't leak and present essentially zero risk to users. But you already knew that.

 

[defdock]

I do understand some of the points, but some literaly are in-excusable regardless.
The mall incident, "demonstrating"? How many alcoholics/shop owners demonstrate alcohol to an underaged kid by illegaly handing them a bottle of booze in a public area?

Battery saftey, is well common knowledge even to children - 1st grade, my teachers showed us all kinds of battery experiments and what happens when a 9volt battery is "shorted" in your pocket with change. Same with lighters, how many warning labels do you see to not leave them in direct sunlight? Or the simple fact that fire is bad, yet people still manage to burn/singe their mustache/nose/hair/ect.

Saftey is in the hands of the user 99% of the time.

 

[Hitmetwice]

There sure is a lot to be aware of if one chooses to go beyond starter kits. And yes one must even learn the starter kit properly. Millions have done this and smoke no more.
Unfortunately many smokers, on the advice of others, do not get a good starter kit to start with. The advanced units are made for those willing to do the homework required. There are great performing plug and play devices nowadays that are so much more effective than the devices of a couple years ago. It's a great day to become a new vaper. Gets better every day. Just my opinion.

 

[Vaslovik]

Oh gosh, where to start? I did the ego/clearo thing to start out with too, and quickly realized that it just didn't cut it. It never gave me a satisfying vape, and I moved on, motivated strongly by the urgent NEED to quit smoking! If that motivation isn't there then you are right, they are not going to convert to vaping. For my part I knew there had to be a better way than the shabby ego/clearo route, and it took me about 3 weeks to find it. I didn't plan on going sub-ohm either, that's just where my pursuit of a satisfying vape took me.

I didn't belabor the failure of ego/clearo, I just moved on. Three weeks and an array of unsatisfactory hardware later I was vaping on a sub-ohm genny on a mech and I was finally happy. I had really put myself into it and applied myself to the pursuit. That was 3 years ago. I'm still happy, still using the same hardware and have not had a single cigarette since.

My point is that if you don't really want to quit the cigs, you won't, no matter the hardware. Some just don't want to bother with saving their own lives, and that's just how they are. For them we have morgues.

 

[Grimwald]

OK. There have always been 2 paths available. The KISS (Keep it simple) path and the hobby path. You can choose your own path. Many folks (like me) choose both...simple for out and about and hobby for home. Today there are any number of simple devices available - I believe they are making a come back of sorts - so you can certainly find a high quality plug and play type of device.

As for the dangers, well, there's is a need to take care with modern battery devices. Just google "exploding cellphone" and then you can start a thread extolling the dangers of all modern technology.

Also, I can't recall ever reading about a house burning down because someone fell asleep with an e-cig...just sayin'.

 

[daviedog]

One picture is worth a 1000 words..

 

[ashes to batteries]

Eh, I see your point but I don't. The community here, for the most part, is a niche group of hobbyists. In no way do we really represent the general public. We strive, build, research and play because as you said WE ENJOY IT. But in now way is that the only path to vape.

Every day people quit using Blu, evod, ego and so on. Many of the equipment, INCLUDING the subox you mentioned are fairly idiot proof and low maintenance. One moves into the hobbyist level because they enjoy it.

I'm still a dual user. Not because vaping is too hard, complex or times consuming, but because I'm lazy and really quitting takes WORK. And I would gather the same is true for nearly everyone who has not ceased use through analogs.

But I build because someone once told me girls don't build and I took that as a dare. I spend hours researching new build techniques and new equipment because I like to apply what I've learned. It's fun! But in no way is there one way. In no way does vaping have to be complex. You make your own experience.

 

[Jdurand]

There are those who think a Honda Accord is the perfect car, put gas in it and go. Some like performance cars, love to tinker and get the most out of it. No one style of vaping or smoking is right, what is right for you and works for you is what matters. As pointed out the desire to quit is paramount to the success of any attempt to quit via any method.

 

[herb]

Here's the thing.

You'll flame me. You'll say TL;DR...

But there's a number of points I need to get off my chest...

I love vaping, by the way. I still have the occasional analog (crazy term but still). I've recently got into sub-ohm vaping because:

1. My ....ty ego batts and clearomisers were just, well, crap.
2. I 'accidentally' bought a Kanger Subox Mini

So as you see, I never planned for subohm, I just got a box mod as basically a better vaping device, as someone who might upgrade from a Ford Focus to a BMW 3 series.

Then problems started occurring, which made me realize that for all the bad longevity of the ego, they were, at least, maintenance-free. Now I was trying to fix leaks, taking pieces apart, re-wicking coils. I needed to set aside a mini workshop in my home just for the maintenance. To the forums, I thought. Surely no-one else has to put in this much effort just to vape, right?

Wrong. You all do, but more surprisingly, you all seem to love it. Rather like if you drive a car, as most of us do, but have little technical knowledge about it, and how we occasionally venture to a car forum. You'll often hear people saying "oh it's the rear axle manifold, but it's easy to do yourself. You just blah, blah, blah". Fine if you have the time, an empty garage, etc, etc. Fine if you love fixing up cars, right.

But with smoking, I never 'loved' smoking, not the concept at least. I just had to smoke. I didn't go around with paraphanlia dedicated to smoking, prosletyzing ways of keeping tobacco fresher or going to smoking conventions. I just smoked. Now of course 'some' smokers are like this, but the majority aren't.

Vaping, sadly, is a steep learning curve for the non-initiated, and whereas I expect most of you to disagree with me, I feel there is a silent majority who may stumble across boards like this, read diagrams of how to convert pi's theorum of fibonacci numbers so you get the right balance between 'balancing your ohms' and causing the device to blow a hole in your face (more on that in a bit), that I bet most people who have lives, but who happen to smoke in them, just think, "erm... okay. I think I'll stick with smoking then".

When I tell friends that I've managed to give up, but talk about RBAs and introducing liquid into Japanese Cotton through a dropper, they glaze over and say "wow, you must really love vaping then". Thing is I don't. I wanted something to replace regular cigarettes, not a 24/7 craft hobby.

My fear is, even though most of you will vehemently defend your love of tinkering, eternally pursuing that perfect 'hit', I am right in saying that a lot of people will just find it too much effort, that even a working piece of kit will fail after a few weeks unless you learn about maintenance, cleaning and a lot of stuff I could do without.

Then there's the whole safety thing...

I preached for months to friends (and even strangers) that were smokers and non-smokers alike, telling them there was this new thing that allowed you to feel like you were smoking but was PERFECTLY SAFE. There were a lot of nay-sayers, let me tell you, but I won through for the most part in that I argued that however bad these eliquids could be, could they really be worse than the contents of a real cigarette (or analog, w/e)?

Unfortunately it was never the liquid we should have feared. It was the hardware.

The fundamental problem with all e-cigarettes, the ones that 'do the job' correctly, the flaw that will always be the thorn in it's size.

...is China.

You may call me racist, I have nothing against the Chinese. But let's put the cards on the table. They aren't known globally for their standards. You read stories every day about people dying over there, or being horrifically injured by machinery that has failed or gone awry due to their poor (or non-existant) safety standards.

All the box mods, it appears, without exception (please someone tell me I'm wrong. PLEASE!) are made in China.

So then I was on another forum, or maybe it was this one, I don't know, and someone posted a list of e-cigarette accidents...

Now bear in mind this isn't like "singed an eyebrow" type ..... This is like scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through events and then realizing you are still in April 2016, casually looking at the scroll bar on the right, not being able to see it, then seeing a pixel-wide line, still close to the top of the screen.

But not all these incidents are bad, right? For this list to be so long. Right?

Kinda. It reads sorta like.

1. 3rd degree burns on leg, scarred for life
2. 3rd degree burns on arm, scarred for life
3. Entire front teeth blown out, scarred for life.

Ah but that's not too bad right

4. Child loses eye while staff DEMONSTRATE an ecig to him at a mall.

HE'S NOT EVEN BOUGHT THE ....ING THING YET!

Aha, but before you rebut, I already know what you're going to say. It will echo the comments that usually follow news stories like this.

"Ah yeah but I bet he was using a calibrated mechanical with a dripper with a non-compatible 510 without calculating his ohm resistance using pythagoras' equation of Lancelot's Diversion and failed to think about the solar flare activity that day. ....ing noob."

Yeah he probably was. ....ing noob is right. In fact is there another hobby that people can just wander into, with so many self-proclaimed experts, that can be so cruel to the uninitiated? Failing DIY base-jumping, that is?

The point I'm trying to make is if vaping now is so fraught with potential danger, and it's necessary to have a certain amount (oh, who are we kidding, quite a reasonable amount) of knowledge about the subject, what not to do, etc, then how can it hope to attract smokers that weren't tobacco-fetishists, you know, the normal, everyday people who just happened to smoke.

I mean I used to enjoy smoking most when I was drunk. Now I can't dare vape if I'm drunk. What if I need to change a coil mid-way? Well not too much, as I have that 'reasonable' degree of knowledge. But what about first-timers? Maybe those bomb disposal outfits that armies have should come with?

But the worst thing has to be the elitism I've found amongst the most hard-core vapers on forums. They will offer no sympathy to the uninitiated, and resent people who just want to get on with things without any effort (you know, like regular smoking) and try to either tell them they should invest more of their time to achieve what used to be so simple, and then shunning said questioner if they point out that they don't have the time, the willpower, etc.

Oh yeah, when I bought my Subox, the site in question said on the order page "this doesn't come with a battery... it needs THIS battery... would you like to buy THIS battery from us as well as the boxmod?"

I said "sure, why not". It came. I charged it. I used it. Then there was a product recall about two weeks later. "Buy this one from us" they now said. "okay, I said".

They sent me an E Fest 18650. You know, the kind that are now generally known as being slightly more stable than carrying around a pack of C4 in a bag full of hammers...

So yeah, had to become an expert in batteries now too. Just so I could scour forums, spend hours on search engines trying to find which battery wouldn't take a limb from me, or knock a six inch hole into my neighbor's house. No really. I'm loving this new hobby.

In fact I'm looking forward to the next part. Maybe my tanks are leaking because they're plastic? .... it, lemme learn glass blowing and I'll make my own Pyrex ones. Ultimately there'll be no time for anything but this, I may as well quit my job.

Or, as new initiates will find, simply go back to smoking...

I thought i worried needlessly , your more intense than i am . With devices like the Innokin Endura the whole hardware issue is pretty much null and void .

You don't have to be a tinkerer to vape successfully day in day out , you have many choices.

If people are hell bent on beating cigarettes they will eventually get involved with vaping , if they are not really determined to quit they probably won't .

Their choice

 

[Bonskibon]

For me the investment in learning all about ecigs was well worth it. I no longer smoke cigarettes and that is an amazing thing for me.

 

[bwh79]

You may call me racist, I have nothing against the Chinese. But let's put the cards on the table. They aren't known globally for their standards. You read stories every day about people dying over there, or being horrifically injured by machinery that has failed or gone awry due to their poor (or non-existant) safety standards.

Chinese manufacturers are perfectly capable of putting out electronic devices that meet any standards you set them. Just look at the iPhone. These aren't just some rickety pieces of junk. It's all about what the client is willing to pay for. Higher standards and stricter tolerances cost money. If you have the money, they'll make it however you want.

 

[puffon]

All the box mods, it appears, without exception (please someone tell me I'm wrong. PLEASE!) are made in China.

You are wrong. My best quality mods are made in the US.
Many great quality mods are made in Italy, Germany and elsewhere.
Vaping is as complicated as one wants to make it.

 

[mauricem00]

there are plenty of tanks on the market that come with replaceable coils and do not leak.it is not hard to upgrade from an EGO with out a lot of work or maintenance.

 

[herb]

Eh, I see your point but I don't. The community here, for the most part, is a niche group of hobbyists. In no way do we really represent the general public. We strive, build, research and play because as you said WE ENJOY IT. But in now way is that the only path to vape.

Every day people quit using Blu, evod, ego and so on. Many of the equipment, INCLUDING the subox you mentioned are fairly idiot proof and low maintenance. One moves into the hobbyist level because they enjoy it.

I'm still a dual user. Not because vaping is too hard, complex or times consuming, but because I'm lazy and really quitting takes WORK. And I would gather the same is true for nearly everyone who has not ceased use through analogs.

But I build because someone once told me girls don't build and I took that as a dare. I spend hours researching new build techniques and new equipment because I like to apply what I've learned. It's fun! But in no way is there one way. In no way does vaping have to be complex. You make your own experience.

Actually i would bet half are not hobbyist's at all , tons of people here who are just wanting to know what to buy and what is an e cigarette and can they be successful with them.

 

[Izan]

Here's the thing.

You'll flame me. You'll say TL;DR...

But there's a number of points I need to get off my chest...

I love vaping, by the way. I still have the occasional analog (crazy term but still). I've recently got into sub-ohm vaping because:

1. My ....ty ego batts and clearomisers were just, well, crap.
2. I 'accidentally' bought a Kanger Subox Mini

So as you see, I never planned for subohm, I just got a box mod as basically a better vaping device, as someone who might upgrade from a Ford Focus to a BMW 3 series.

Then problems started occurring, which made me realize that for all the bad longevity of the ego, they were, at least, maintenance-free. Now I was trying to fix leaks, taking pieces apart, re-wicking coils. I needed to set aside a mini workshop in my home just for the maintenance. To the forums, I thought. Surely no-one else has to put in this much effort just to vape, right?

Wrong. You all do, but more surprisingly, you all seem to love it. Rather like if you drive a car, as most of us do, but have little technical knowledge about it, and how we occasionally venture to a car forum. You'll often hear people saying "oh it's the rear axle manifold, but it's easy to do yourself. You just blah, blah, blah". Fine if you have the time, an empty garage, etc, etc. Fine if you love fixing up cars, right.

But with smoking, I never 'loved' smoking, not the concept at least. I just had to smoke. I didn't go around with paraphanlia dedicated to smoking, prosletyzing ways of keeping tobacco fresher or going to smoking conventions. I just smoked. Now of course 'some' smokers are like this, but the majority aren't.

Vaping, sadly, is a steep learning curve for the non-initiated, and whereas I expect most of you to disagree with me, I feel there is a silent majority who may stumble across boards like this, read diagrams of how to convert pi's theorum of fibonacci numbers so you get the right balance between 'balancing your ohms' and causing the device to blow a hole in your face (more on that in a bit), that I bet most people who have lives, but who happen to smoke in them, just think, "erm... okay. I think I'll stick with smoking then".

When I tell friends that I've managed to give up, but talk about RBAs and introducing liquid into Japanese Cotton through a dropper, they glaze over and say "wow, you must really love vaping then". Thing is I don't. I wanted something to replace regular cigarettes, not a 24/7 craft hobby.

My fear is, even though most of you will vehemently defend your love of tinkering, eternally pursuing that perfect 'hit', I am right in saying that a lot of people will just find it too much effort, that even a working piece of kit will fail after a few weeks unless you learn about maintenance, cleaning and a lot of stuff I could do without.

Then there's the whole safety thing...

I preached for months to friends (and even strangers) that were smokers and non-smokers alike, telling them there was this new thing that allowed you to feel like you were smoking but was PERFECTLY SAFE. There were a lot of nay-sayers, let me tell you, but I won through for the most part in that I argued that however bad these eliquids could be, could they really be worse than the contents of a real cigarette (or analog, w/e)?

Unfortunately it was never the liquid we should have feared. It was the hardware.

The fundamental problem with all e-cigarettes, the ones that 'do the job' correctly, the flaw that will always be the thorn in it's size.

...is China.

You may call me racist, I have nothing against the Chinese. But let's put the cards on the table. They aren't known globally for their standards. You read stories every day about people dying over there, or being horrifically injured by machinery that has failed or gone awry due to their poor (or non-existant) safety standards.

All the box mods, it appears, without exception (please someone tell me I'm wrong. PLEASE!) are made in China.

So then I was on another forum, or maybe it was this one, I don't know, and someone posted a list of e-cigarette accidents...

Now bear in mind this isn't like "singed an eyebrow" type ..... This is like scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through events and then realizing you are still in April 2016, casually looking at the scroll bar on the right, not being able to see it, then seeing a pixel-wide line, still close to the top of the screen.

But not all these incidents are bad, right? For this list to be so long. Right?

Kinda. It reads sorta like.

1. 3rd degree burns on leg, scarred for life
2. 3rd degree burns on arm, scarred for life
3. Entire front teeth blown out, scarred for life.

Ah but that's not too bad right

4. Child loses eye while staff DEMONSTRATE an ecig to him at a mall.

HE'S NOT EVEN BOUGHT THE ....ING THING YET!

Aha, but before you rebut, I already know what you're going to say. It will echo the comments that usually follow news stories like this.

"Ah yeah but I bet he was using a calibrated mechanical with a dripper with a non-compatible 510 without calculating his ohm resistance using pythagoras' equation of Lancelot's Diversion and failed to think about the solar flare activity that day. ....ing noob."

Yeah he probably was. ....ing noob is right. In fact is there another hobby that people can just wander into, with so many self-proclaimed experts, that can be so cruel to the uninitiated? Failing DIY base-jumping, that is?

The point I'm trying to make is if vaping now is so fraught with potential danger, and it's necessary to have a certain amount (oh, who are we kidding, quite a reasonable amount) of knowledge about the subject, what not to do, etc, then how can it hope to attract smokers that weren't tobacco-fetishists, you know, the normal, everyday people who just happened to smoke.

I mean I used to enjoy smoking most when I was drunk. Now I can't dare vape if I'm drunk. What if I need to change a coil mid-way? Well not too much, as I have that 'reasonable' degree of knowledge. But what about first-timers? Maybe those bomb disposal outfits that armies have should come with?

But the worst thing has to be the elitism I've found amongst the most hard-core vapers on forums. They will offer no sympathy to the uninitiated, and resent people who just want to get on with things without any effort (you know, like regular smoking) and try to either tell them they should invest more of their time to achieve what used to be so simple, and then shunning said questioner if they point out that they don't have the time, the willpower, etc.

Oh yeah, when I bought my Subox, the site in question said on the order page "this doesn't come with a battery... it needs THIS battery... would you like to buy THIS battery from us as well as the boxmod?"

I said "sure, why not". It came. I charged it. I used it. Then there was a product recall about two weeks later. "Buy this one from us" they now said. "okay, I said".

They sent me an E Fest 18650. You know, the kind that are now generally known as being slightly more stable than carrying around a pack of C4 in a bag full of hammers...

So yeah, had to become an expert in batteries now too. Just so I could scour forums, spend hours on search engines trying to find which battery wouldn't take a limb from me, or knock a six inch hole into my neighbor's house. No really. I'm loving this new hobby.

In fact I'm looking forward to the next part. Maybe my tanks are leaking because they're plastic? .... it, lemme learn glass blowing and I'll make my own Pyrex ones. Ultimately there'll be no time for anything but this, I may as well quit my job.

Or, as new initiates will find, simply go back to smoking...

Thanks for sharin'
Keep coming back!

It works IF you work it.

I

 

[sawlight]

I agree, it can be as complicated, or as simple as you want it. I've got a neighbor, doesn't have a mechanical fiber in his body, he took to vaping like a duck to water! Runs an Atlantis tank and is happy as a clam, takes him about a min to swap coils out, doesn't make a mess and he's on it. He's also a heavy drinker as well as pain meds, doesn't phase him a bit.
I've converted other people as well. I had another buddy that wanted to try RTA's, just wasn't his thing, somehow he managed to make a Kayfun leak? But he's happy replacing coils.
Then with the advancements being made, it's just getting easier by the day, I think the new notch coil technology is going to make it even easier for people to get into it.
As for smokers, most are more industrious than you think! With the prices of cigs skyrocketing many have switched to RYO or MYO, there is a lot of effort involved in that process as well, but look at how many people have converted to that for the cost savings.
Go hang out at a vape shop for a few hours, count the customers, then count how many are brand new and just buying gear. I'd bet it's more than 50% of them that are new customers. It's taking off and with the continues sin taxes imposed on smokers, everyone is looking for a cheaper alternative. If not to quit smoking, at least to save money!

 

[7sixtwo]

Likening building coils/changing wicks to major auto repair is a bit silly.

Last night, half drunk, I built a decent pair of Clapton coils with a q-tip, (wound the wire around the shaft), and a Swiss army knife. It took me ~20 minutes. They ain't perfect, (0.31 ohm, 6 wraps), but they're working just fine in my Twisted Messes v2 RDA, and they're the first pair I've ever built. I used an organic cotton pad for the wicking, but the q-tip could've provided that as well.

This ain't rocket surgery.

 

[Completely Average]

I have two quick points to make.

#1. I've been vaping for close to 3 years. I use a "fiddle free" setup, but subohm all of the time. I refill my tanks and once on a while replace the coil, and that's pretty much it. I don't do any of the nonsense you talked about. Sure, some people do, but that's entirely optional, and anyone who doesn't want to go through the hassle doesn't need to. I sure don't.

#2. There are no warning labels on bathtubs, but an average of 87 people per year die in the bathtub in the US alone. 450 Americans die every year from falling out of their bed. I have yet to hear of a single person dying because of an ecig. Let's try to keep a little proper perspective on the dangers of ecig hardware, shall we?

 

[Frenchfry1942]

Nice to read, good thoughts. I am not saying right or wrong, though. Everyone has their opinion and it is usually based on their experience.

For me, it took talking to vapers and doing a lot of reading and experimenting on my own. It takes commitment.

This site, being a major information site doesn't do well for the beginner. There are some threads that help the initial vaper, but their is no specific direction; it takes commitment which is time consuming. Speaking of the beginner threads, they are there, just not well labelled.

I would quickly say that their is a lot of good, helpful people, but their are also those that lead towards the hobby side. That gets the simple "switching" people into things they don't need. I wish their was a clearer labeling for the "get off smoking" and hobbyist areas. I know that is tough, but if a person wants to get info on how to switch from smoking, they will have to wade through quite a bit of hobbyist opinions. I guess it is like having a guide. I think taking a simpler approach as to what gear these people should get is the best way.

There is a lot of good people and a lot of good information here, I just wish new members that are wanting to switch are not led to complicated stuff. More than anything, I hope that people wanting to get off cigs are well-guided. The press/media don't help, but former smokers can really help the new person just get off cigs.