First Time Mixing DIYer

[neonerz]

Im going to be mixing for the first time. I'm just getting all the required stuff together.

Ordering a bunch of tools and flavors from OneStopDIYShop and a 30ml bottle 7.5% nic juice from Blip Labs.

My quesiton is, what is the pros and cons for PG straight verses VG straight verses a mixture of the two?

From my reading, it seems VG gives better vapor, but its thicker. The 7.5% stuff from Blip Labs says its already cut with PG, is that enough PG when cutting the rest with VG to dilute to 18mg and 34mg?

Vapor isn't the most important thing, but I would like to get the most vapor out of my hits as I can without chancing damage to my atomizer.

I heard JohnsonCreek uses a 80/20 PG/VG mixture. I like their juice, but how much could I push that without harming my atomizer? 70/30, 50/50, 30/70?

 

[Scottes]

VG thickens the juice and produces more vapor. PG doesn't thicken and produces less vapor than VG.

More people have sensitivities to PG than those that have sensitivities to VG, but both can happen. It seems that both are generally tolerable in small amounts (<20%).

Neither VG nor PG will damage your atomizer. Juice that's too thin may flood it - just blow it out and it's good to go. And maybe add some VG to thicken it - but remember that there's many ways to flood an atty so don't immediately blame your juice.

If VG makes the e-juice too thick, thin it with water or vodka or pure grain alcohol. I recommend starting with 1 drop for each milliliter of VG used. Some people go up to 5 drops per ml.

The ratio of PG to VG depends on you, your atomizer model, your filler material, and your vaping habits. Too many things to quantify. So make some juice and vape. If you have a problem - flooding, dryness - check everything else first. Is your atty flooded? Have you been puffing like crazy and not giving the juice time to wick? Once you nail the problem down and you're sure it's your juice, adjust the juice. If it floods the aty, add some VG to thicken. If the filler goes dry too quick, add some water or vodka or PGA to thin it.

You can compare the viscosity before starting to vape it though. Get a juice that you know works well for you, and put a drop on a very clean mirror laid flat down. Put a drop of you juice next to it lift the mirror 90 degrees. If your juice slides down faster then it's too thin so thicken it with some VG. If you drop slides slower then thin it with water/vodka/PGA. It doesn't have to be exact. (By the way, most people - myself included - consider JC to be too thin, but that's a very general statement with many variables. But I'd still recommend leaning towards making your juice a little thicker than JC.)

Because of all the variables involved, there is no magic ratio fit for everyone and every device. People vape everything from pure PG to pure VG, so it all works. DIY allows you to tweak your juice to make it work perfectly with all your variables. But it doesn't have to be perfect.


By the way, Blip 75mg is about the most expensive way to make DIY juice. You're generally far better off getting the appropriate strength of nic-juice that allows you to make e-juice in the strength you desire.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/diy-e-liquid/32963-did-i-find-75mg-liquid-5.html#post682366

 

[neonerz]

Thanks you, that was VERY informative.

One thing that doesn't make sense to me is you saying blip is the most expensive way of DIY. My math makes it the least costly. I smoke mostly ~18mg nic juice. Using the mixing calculator I've come up with, I could make about 125ml of unflavored 18mg from the 30ml 7.5% @ about $0.50/ml. Whereas at a place like totallywicked and it comes out to about $1/ml. Even if I cut it to 36mg, it still comes out a couple cents cheaper then TW, and I haven't even factored in flavoring, which should push those numbers down a little bit more.

Also, quality is a big deal to me. What I've read, people are really happy with the nic juice from blip. It seems to be missing all those impurities that the stuff coming from China has. I don't mind paying a little bit more for that.

If my formulas are off, please let me know. Also, if you know a place where I could get similar strength nic juice for cutting, at a cheaper price, I'm all ears.

 

[Scottes]

Blip's 38mg is cheaper to use. From the post I linked:

"Making a 30ml bottle of 24mg e-juice using Blip's weakest nic-juice (38mg) will cost you $15.41, but making the same exact e-juice using their 75mg will cost you $20.76."

That's a 35% cost increase for no reason at all.


To make 30ml at 18mg, you need 540mg of nicotine, regardless of which strength nic-juice you use, you need 540mg of nicotine in that bottle.

Using Blip's 38mg, that requires 14.2ml of juice - 540 / 38. A 30ml bottle of Blip 38mg is $20, or $.667 per ml, so your bottle of e-juice would require $9.47 of Blip 38mg nic-juice.

Using Blip's 75mg, that 540mg of nicotine requires 7.2ml of juice - 540/75. A 30ml bottle of Blip 75mg is $55, or $1.83 per ml, so your bottle of e-juice would require $13.20 of Blip 75mg nic-juice.

The Blip 38mg has 14.2 ml, the Blip 75 has 7.2ml, so this 7.0ml difference will be made up in PG. PG costs about $5 for 120ml, or about $0.04 per ml. So making up the difference will cost $0.28, bringing your total using Blip 75mg to $13.48. You now have two bottles, both with 14.2ml of liquid containing 540mg of nicotine.

The rest of the ingredients - flavoring, VG, and more PG, used will be identical, so there's no reason to check their cost.

So, we now have two bottles, both containing 14.2ml of juice with 540mg of nicotine. And the costs?
Blip 38mg - $9.47
Blip 75mg - $13.48

It's generally cheaper to use the lowest strength nic-juice that will allow you to make e-juice of the desired strength. Just make sure that you can achieve your desired nic-strength after adding other ingredients like flavoring and PG. If you use 38mg nic-juice and want to make 36mg e-juice then you're not going to have much room left for flavoring.

More info:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...o-you-like-money-why-everyone-should-diy.html
Some examples, and a cost calculator in Excel:
http://www.itsanadventure.com/postimages/DIY_Costs.xls

For the exact same e-juice.

 

[Scottes]

Using the mixing calculator I've come up with, I could make about 125ml of unflavored 18mg from the 30ml 7.5% @ about $0.50/ml.

125ml of 18mg juice requires 2250mg of nicotine. 125 * 18.

For Blip 75, that would require exactly one 30ml bottle at $55.

Blip 38mg is exactly half the strength, so it would require exactly two bottles, at $20 each, for a total of $40.

Platinum Ice is 54mg, and $45 for a 30ml bottle. Your juice would require 41.7ml of PI, or 1.4 bottles. $45 * 1.4 = $63.

$63 vs $55 vs $40.

 

[statsdaman]

I'm in the middle of going through exactly what you are.

I decided to diy because truthfully, after about a month of vaping, I'm looking for an improved throat hit and more flavor. I'm not sure if it's a tolerance level issue or just more of a familiarity thing, but I can't seem to taste the juice or feel the hit the same as when I began.

After reading through some of the diy threads, I decided to follow the advice of one of the forum members, Dvap, who is listed as a 'supporting chemist' (good enough for me). He actually tests the strengths of the nic juices, among other things. He recommended myfreedomsmokes based upon the consistency of their stated strengths. Their 60mg juice is priced at 1.38x their 36mg and 1.16x their 48mg juice, which represents savings in buying the higher strength juice (ignoring the pg/vg addition factors). It also will allow me to boost the strength of any existing mixed ejuice I already have. Reading your posts, this cost factor does not seem to be the case at Blip.

Lastly, my interest in diy is stated above but initially I felt that there may be some cost savings as well. There probably can be savings but I think if that's your sole motivation, you may probably be better off just ordering from reasonably priced suppliers. In my case:

myfreedomsmokes (nic juice etc): $198
loranns (flavorings): $70
homesciencetools (measuring stuff): $58

Granted, I'll have enough supplies to mix away for quite awhile, perhaps reordering just nic juice every now and then, however, $300+ would have gotten me a whole lot of mixed ejuice from, for instance, myfreedomsmokes, in the first place.

I'm still waiting on the flavors from Lorann's as well as the to-be-assembled 'home lab' kit but should be complete by Monday.

If you're interested, Dvap's recommendations are here (post #12):
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...whose-got-cheap-straight-nicotine-liquid.html