A thread on here reminded me nicotine is absorbed without inhaling. That made me realize my mother (a smoker with COPD) could vape her nicotine without hurting her lungs. She's open to try it, so I want to make that happen soon, even though that means trying to get twice as much gear with the same budget (~$80-$100).
I was thinking about a Pico Plus (or similar) and jumping right to the Vapefly Brunhilde RTA, start with prebuilt coils, and get a roll of SS 316L 30ga. A Brunhilde could be comically oversized on that mod, but I don't really care.
For her, I'm not sure. Her needs are different than mine. Something cheap but good, good MTL coils, easy to use. So many choices. A cheap mod with integrated battery is probably best but not a requirement. Been looking at a Pico + a Uwell Whirl II ($2), a Uwell Whirl S2 Pod Kit. Pico Baby and smok Novo 5 came up too. Still looking. Putting together an order on Health Cabin.
Maybe going to shop around for a bit before I pull the trigger, poke around the local shops, check out classifieds.
So that's where I'm at. As always, I'm open to all suggestions.
I was thinking about a Pico Plus (or similar) and jumping right to the Vapefly Brunhilde RTA, start with prebuilt coils, and get a roll of SS 316L 30ga. A Brunhilde could be comically oversized on that mod, but I don't really care.
For her, I'm not sure. Her needs are different than mine. Something cheap but good, good MTL coils, easy to use. So many choices. A cheap mod with integrated battery is probably best but not a requirement. Been looking at a Pico + a Uwell Whirl II ($2), a Uwell Whirl S2 Pod Kit. Pico Baby and smok Novo 5 came up too. Still looking. Putting together an order on Health Cabin.
Maybe going to shop around for a bit before I pull the trigger, poke around the local shops, check out classifieds.
So that's where I'm at. As always, I'm open to all suggestions.
Thanks for the info. Sounds like a Berserker might make sense too.
I appreciate the offer. I'll probably take you up on that at some point.
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As far as the mom with COPD goes nicotine will absorb right through the skin. The higher the concentration the faster it does it. I’ve used vape juice on airplanes as hand cream. It seemed to work. VG is actually a primary base of hand cream. So it will even work as hand cream. Just get her a bottle of unflavored and you’re golden. If you get flavored it will of course smell like whatever the flavor is but that will work too. Theres a hand cream called “corn huskers” that is basically just VG with some perfume in it. It’s even clear. So it would be a lot like that.
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That's a creative solution. Nice way to avoid a plane ride without nicotine too. Thanks.
Guess I finally ran out of patience (with researching products and trying to pinch pennies, that is). Bought the Pico Plus + Brunhilde for myself and a couple of pods for my mother. Hopefully Health Cabin handles preorders OK; they were sold out of the Pico by the time I ordered. Now to get some batteries at 18650 and I'll be good (going to get a couple Molicel P28a)
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Fantastic to hear you got yourself a few goodies Mate and great that you're mother is going to give vaping a try as well, I very much do hope it works out well for her
I do think that you will enjoy the Brunhilde MTL RTA!! Try out all of the the airflow inserts and see which one suits you the best before building it. I myself don't use any insert at all and have the airflow wide open on mine. You may like a tighter draw than me though so just play around until you get it spot on!!
Enjoy
Thanks for that
And thanks again for the recommendation. That thing looks like an absolute beast and perfect for me in a lot of ways. I love that I can try dripping with it too.
Going to PM JCinFLA about buying a Berserker tomorrow too. Getting late, don't want to wake them up. Be nice to have a second RTA.
And thanks again for the recommendation. That thing looks like an absolute beast and perfect for me in a lot of ways. I love that I can try dripping with it too.
Going to PM JCinFLA about buying a Berserker tomorrow too. Getting late, don't want to wake them up. Be nice to have a second RTA.
Here's a list of what I bought, if anyone's curious. Probably enough cotton for years, but it sure was cheap. Didn't spend much on Ma's setup, but I figure the important thing is to get her away from smoking.
Looking into nicotine and concentrate at the moment, if anyone has any recommendations. Edit: I think I got DIY supplies sorted out. Probably gonna go with Nicotine Giant or Vapor Lab for small quantity nic, Nicotine River for large quantity. Bull City or Nic River for concentrates.
Any recommendations for Turkish tobacco flavor? I'll vape premixed stuff from local vape shops first, but plan to move to DIY soon after.
@JCinFLA I sent you a PM about those Berserkers.
Looking into nicotine and concentrate at the moment, if anyone has any recommendations. Edit: I think I got DIY supplies sorted out. Probably gonna go with Nicotine Giant or Vapor Lab for small quantity nic, Nicotine River for large quantity. Bull City or Nic River for concentrates.
Any recommendations for Turkish tobacco flavor? I'll vape premixed stuff from local vape shops first, but plan to move to DIY soon after.
@JCinFLA I sent you a PM about those Berserkers.
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Can’t read the list because there’s another possibly unrelated pic that conflates with it on my phone. Some old trunk thing.
I'll throw together a quick text list so you can have a look.
Edit: here you go:
$9.72 would indeed be a lifetime or close to lifetime supply of cotton. It stores easily and doesn’t go bad for a real long time so that’s fine. I have little to no experience with any of the other stuff.
I’m not too fond of pods myself but you know your mom better than I do so they may be the right thing. @Mooch did a sheet on good batteries and where to get em once upon a time. Should be floating around here somewhere if you care. You already paid for those ones though so no reason not to use em up first.
I don't like the idea of pods much either. Both were cheap and supposed to MTL vape well, so I figured it's a decent starting point for her. They were pretty well sold out of cheap mods with integrated batteries.
Edit: Thanks, I checked out Mooch's list before I bought those batteries. Molicel P28A's are supposed to be good.
Pods do have one advantage: they don’t get your fingers dirty. They have a couple disadvantages (they cost more in the end and people can vape them too long) but very occasionally the dirty fingers thing beats that. The things are only good for 3 or 4 days each (or that was the way it WAS anyway). It said 5, but that was the long end. It was usually shorter. People often vape them till they stop working or taste bad though which can be more like a month and is waay too long. This can happen with an RDA or rta too, but they’re so cheap to rewick there’s less reason to. With pods (or coil cartridges) “I don’t have any replacements atm” can easily happen. And it’s not like they won’t work. They just won’t be as safe.
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Thanks for the info, I'm pretty clueless with pods. These are supposed to last a little longer thankfully. The coils on the Uwell Whirl S2 are replaceable which surprised me, but seemed like a good idea.
Wicks need to go a lot more often than wire coils do. Even for glass. Glass wicks last longer than cotton ones but have possible silicosis issues(no one to my knowledge has actually GOTTEN silicosis from one that I know of, but it’s theoretically possible I understand) the whole silicosis thing was why cotton wicks came out in the first place. Glass is still around though. Pods and coil cartridges toss the wire with the wick though. With pods it’s the wick, the wire, and the tank.
Glass is usually more-or-less fibreglass. There was some porous ceremic for a while but it went away. My assumption was that it worked poorly.
That's good to know for sure. I'll avoid glass wicks then, no reason to chance it.
Wire works till it doesn’t. This can be anywhere from a year to one wick, depending on how fragile it is. Sometimes even less if you short it. (Metal can melt) this is an advantage coil cartridges and pods have. Because they always throw out the wire they can use coil designs that would be incredibly difficult for RDAs and RTAs to use. This made them start out worse than simple coils but than catch up. These days you pretty much need a well done fused Clapton to match a coil cartridge. They used to just beat them. With a stick. There are exceptions. a steamcrave aromamizer plus can do it with simple coils. It’s a monster though, and it can leak if you don’t wick it right, and close the ring when you open the tank to preserve the vacuum. There may be others. This is why I liked that Russian bellus thing. It would do it too and it’s actually smaller than most cartridge coil CTAs It’s a massive PITA to wick though, and totally different from more standard RTAs. Enough that the thing just died. No one even cloned it.
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Very interesting. I didn't know most of that. Thanks for the explanation.
I look forward to trying different wires for sure and seeing how an RTA build compares with the pods flavor wise.
Going to start with prebuilt fused claptons and then try SS 316L 30ga.
RDAs are supposedly the best of the best. The issue with them though is because they’re not self filling you have to keeep filling them. They’re also called drippers. It makes it difficult to do things like drive. This is a reason I use squonks. The quality of an RDA, but you can drip them with one finger. A really good tank can come very close to matching an RDA. They use more or less the same methodology, but a tank adds complication with the self wetting thing. This can compromise the design, something an RDA doesn’t have to deal with. A really well done tank can match or come very close to matching an RDA. There are (or were) tanks that could be dripped. They were called Rdtas. The avacado was one such. There were multiple avacados though and only the first one was any good.
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Yeah I was very tempted to get a squonker and an RDA instead of the Pico + RTA. Couldn't really find a squonk mod within my cheap budget that I liked. The Vandy Pulse V3 looked pretty good, but durability of the acrylic(?) panels was a concern. Not aware of any MTL RDAs either but didn't really look too closely. A squonker will probably be one of my next vape purchases. At least I can drip with that Brunhilde RTA in the mean time, should give me an idea how I like it.
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