Hyped up juice or vaping gear that was a disappointment?

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proudrookie

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Nov 3, 2014
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I don't even know if the products I could gripe about were ever considered "hyped" at one point, but I do have a list and LOL why not get it off my chest.

1) Kanger Mini Protank 2. Mainly coil issues. I work in a B&M and cringe whenever I have customers ask for Protank coils. But the tank leaked a lot. I don't dislike all Kanger products; I'm using the Aerotank Mini on an MVP2 at 8.5 watts and it's working fine (for the purpose I use that setup) and the newer EMOW kits seem awesome.

2) Add my name to the Mother's Milk "whaaa?" list. I had a love affair with that flavor for approximately three days when I could really taste a lovely creamy strawberry. Soon the flavor became tangy and left an unfortunate aftertaste. I bought two more bottles just to make sure it wasn't just a one-off weird bottle. OTOH I just got a bottle of OB and so far I'm happy with it (in an Atlantis).

3) Very sadly, Custard's Last Stand was a great disappointment. Even kept trying it periodically but after a four-month "steep" almost half a bottle made its way to the trash can. "Taste is Subjective"

4) SVD. Fire button issues, of course. Had it for a month before it turned itself off far too frequently to be attributed to user error. PIF to a friend and she reported it stopped working beyond redemption another month later (about three months after purchase).

5) Five Pawns Castle Long Reserve (just my preference) and Perpetual Check. Again, I work at a B&M and whenever someone comes in all hyped to try it for the first time I just keep a poker face. Lol

6) my first istick's threading stripped quickly. Afterwards I installed the 510 connection on my other two and no issues since.

7-1000) The multitude of e-liquids I've bought in the hopes I'd find a new ADV. Now I'm content to almost really love three flavors. I hate being so picky but I just can't fall in love with fruity or candy flavors.

On the other hand, I'm extremely happy with the gear I own now. Between some box mods and knowing how to rebuild (not to mention the Atlantis) I'm a lot less prone to buy duds or a product I'm not sure will perform well. The learning curve was steep and I didn't include a bunch of things (mainly tanks) that were stumbling blocks to the place where I am now in my vaping journey. It's frustrating trying to help customers who are having problems like the problems I used to have without ending up overselling to them for where they are comfortable being. The best I know to do is reassure them that they can get to where they want to go if they are patient with the learning process, and not every coil will work as well as the last one.

Hahaha! That's why I wanted to post this thread, I just felt the extreme need to get it off my chest.

I agree, the coils that come with the Protanks are not great, the tank itself was also disappointing. I rebuild the coils now but it still doesn't solve the gurgle issue I have with both my minis. I also had problems with the firing button on my SVD! The store I bought it from replaced mine and it worked fine for about a week, and then the fire button started not working again. The button was sticking and wouldn't fire unless I pressed down really hard with my thumb.
 

purelyscientific

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Pluid would be the most hyped liquid disappointment I've tried.

This sums up my thought's on pluid^^^^^^^ ...and I like licorice! I thought that boba's bounty tastes similar to laundry detergent. Not in a soapy kind of way...more of a fresh linen kind of way.

I tend to stick with what I got as far as hardware goes. I'll wait a year or two and see how many of these 'hyped up' devices are still around and have good reviews then buy one if I want a alternate to my provari..
 

wshanncap

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I've had bad luck with juice all around. I can't even name them all. Space Jam Pluto was tolerable. I like the house juices from The Planet Vape. And I like Happy's Sweet Vanilla. My biggest disappointment though is the Brass Stingray. I love magnetic switches. And I can't even get a measurable voltage drop on it. But it doesn't reach the positive pin on most of my drippers. And it hits hard about the first 5 hits on a fresh batt and then gets hot and just fades to nothing. I'm only running a 0.6 ohm coil. I can pull the dripper and put it on my Knight and get plenty of vape. I don't get it. It just seems like a VW with the watts cranking down suddenly.
 

Astron

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@proudrookie

I never even owned an Evod tank. Went straight from cheapo smoke-shop plastic tanks to the Mini Protank 2 (went so far as to even have an airhole drilled larger). But I sell Evod starter kits, generally because new Vaping customers just often aren't comfortable with the size/appearance of even Aspire "starter kits" (think carbon fiber 650/Aspire glassomizer or 1000mah CF/Nautilus Mini). New vapers want something smaller, which is totally understandable as that's where I also started. I try to prepare them as well as I can without scaring them with all the potential troubleshooting issues that can arise.

That being said, I have customers that come in and buy those coils very very regularly and have been for months, so they must be working well for some people (which makes me very happy! Whatever works for them is the best product on the market, IMO). I don't ever try to sell them something else unless they come in upset and exasperated. I must have gotten some bad coil batches back in April of this year.
 

proudrookie

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Nov 3, 2014
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@proudrookie

I never even owned an Evod tank. Went straight from cheapo smoke-shop plastic tanks to the Mini Protank 2 (went so far as to even have an airhole drilled larger). But I sell Evod starter kits, generally because new Vaping customers just often aren't comfortable with the size/appearance of even Aspire "starter kits" (think carbon fiber 650/Aspire glassomizer or 1000mah CF/Nautilus Mini). New vapers want something smaller, which is totally understandable as that's where I also started. I try to prepare them as well as I can without scaring them with all the potential troubleshooting issues that can arise.

That being said, I have customers that come in and buy those coils very very regularly and have been for months, so they must be working well for some people (which makes me very happy! Whatever works for them is the best product on the market, IMO). I don't ever try to sell them something else unless they come in upset and exasperated. I must have gotten some bad coil batches back in April of this year.

I bought the Protanks and coil replacements in September and I'm also convinced that my coils might have been from a bad batch. Either that or I'm completely spoiled from using RDAs and expect too much from a stock coil. One of my best friends quit smoking recently off a mini protank and ego battery I bought for her and she loves it! She's been on the same coil head for about a month with no complaints. So yes I agree, whatever keeps people off darts :)
 

proudrookie

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Nov 3, 2014
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Great White North
I've had bad luck with juice all around. I can't even name them all. Space Jam Pluto was tolerable. I like the house juices from The Planet Vape. And I like Happy's Sweet Vanilla. My biggest disappointment though is the Brass Stingray. I love magnetic switches. And I can't even get a measurable voltage drop on it. But it doesn't reach the positive pin on most of my drippers. And it hits hard about the first 5 hits on a fresh batt and then gets hot and just fades to nothing. I'm only running a 0.6 ohm coil. I can pull the dripper and put it on my Knight and get plenty of vape. I don't get it. It just seems like a VW with the watts cranking down suddenly.

I have the same problem with my stainless steel Stingray, it just won't make connection with most of my attys. I can only use my Kayfuns and my Trident on it, which is why I rarely pick it up anymore. And yes the stingray really gets weak fast.. My copper Pegasus on the other hand works with all my drippers and the voltage drop isn't nearly as noticeable. I love it to death.
 

sjducks

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Juices: ITC Vapes (dirty dutchman and the silver RY4). After reading the lengthy thread on them I placed an order. Unfortunately the taste just didn't do it for me at all (even when mixing it with Nicoticket CB, which I love). They are still sitting in a box in the closet "steeping" lol.

Devices/Attys: None that I've personally bought.
 

Serendipity_Stables

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Hawk Sauce was a huge disappointment for me. Ditto for pluid. If anyone wants 30ml of pluid steeping for 9 months, give me a shout. :facepalm: It was horrid. I have a bunch of juice that I mix with 2mg of vanilla just to go through them. sigh. I won't even touch the pluid though. Yuck
 

Circa Survivor

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Maybe I should update myself. Lemo wasn't really a "disappointment," I guess I just didn't have a good build. It is overhyped though.

Ok I have had a lot of disappointing devices and juices bought.

Devices:

1) Veritas clone - such a PIA to build on, and I could NEVER get it to work right. The top cap never sat on the deck right. O rings were crap.
2) SquapeR clone - Great design, it's just most likely the clone is crap. BUT it's so damn fickle with how you wick it, it has to be PERFECT, and ain't nobody got time for that.
3) Erlkonigin clone - Another one with a good design but has fickle wicking. Can never get a good build on it.
4) Sigelei 50w - I had that stupid ohm jumping problem right off the bat, and just decided to throw it in a drawer. Probably should have sent it back, but never got arounf to it.
5) iStick - That damn center pin :mad:
6) Rocket RTA - This was when the Kayfun and Russian craze was still in effect. Build quality on this thing was garbage, and it leaked like a .....
8) iClear30s/Aerotank/Nautilus/etc. - I could probably just list every clearo i bought when I started vaping. They weren't very good at the time and are just terrible looking back.

Juice:

1) Killer Vapes - I too fell for that cheap juice. It was all completely disgusting. I tried to get a good mix of flavors, but they were all just flavorless and chemical tasting.
2) Nicoticket - I love how their office is only a couple miles away, so i can usually get juice the next day, but I just wasn't "WOWd" by anything. Custards Last Stand was decent, but I was disappointed in everything else. Grape Ape, Wakonda, Apricot Ambition, Betelgeuse, The Virus, GCD, and Gravity were disappointments.
3) Hawk Sauce - I couldn't understand the hype for this one. I found it pretty disgusting.
4) Mt. Baker Vapor - Could never find anything that tasted "good." Still looking though xD
 

Train2

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I like the fancy paint bucket mixer ("gyrometric"!!!).
And they won't show us their secret proprietary steeping system (microwave? hot water? - what do you think?)






You bet I've had some absolutely atrocious juices, and not all were cheapo s either

some of the claims that vendors make about multi layered this and complex that

for what is basically 4 chemicals mixed in differing ratios is laughable

It reminds me of the story of the emperors new clothes

Rant over
 

AndriaD

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The nautilus. You'd think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread from all the hype. I thought it sucked rocks.

Ditto the Caterpillar; "wide open airflow" = "trying to smoke a straw"; at least the Caterpillar was cheap.

And I'm slightloy disappointed with the Smok RSBT; it's too much like a wide-open-airflow dripper, and very finicky to build and wick; much too easy to get either dry hits, or leaking like a sieve.

Pretty much everything from Halo. None of them taste like what they're supposed to be, except the Kringle's Curse peppermint and the Belgian Cocoa, but neither are sweet enough to suit me; in fact the Belgian Cocoa tastes like trying to huff unsweetened cocoa powder from the hershey's can. The Voodoo is probably the worst; certainly the biggest waste of money of anything vape-related I've bought.

And of course, "high VG vaping." For me, that equals "asthma attack so bad I can't breathe at all."

Andria
 

inswva

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I've had reasonably good luck with my hardware. No real complaints on that front.

As for juice, Bombies 'nana cream was a huge let down after reading a lot of hype. It's not that it tasted bad, it simply had almost no flavor at all. I let it sit for a couple of months and came back to it. Same deal, no flavor - like vaping straight VG.

Silver RY4 from ITC Vapes was also a disappointment. It was absolutely unvapeable. I couldn't even have the bottle open for more than a couple of seconds due to the offensive smell. It still makes me shudder just thinking about it.

Taste surely is subjective. A few of the posts in this thread had me shaking my head thinking "sheesh, some of you people have no taste at all", lol.
 

InTheShade

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Truely hyped equipment - Protank 1. Dubbed the "everything else" killer I couldn't get a decent vape out of that thing. I revisited it quite recently, and with a rebuilt head, it's alright - but that metal drip tip is horrible - like putting aluminum foil on a filling.

E-liquid - I don't want to really call any one liquid out as taste is super subjective, but I will say I tried Bobas one time at a B&M and hated it. I remember being devastated, like I'd been fed a lie from all those that hyped it. So disappointed.
I tried it the second time and I was hooked. I have 200ml of it in various phases of steeping right now and it's the only pre-made liquid I buy with any regularity.

I've liked about 10% of all pre-made e-liquid I have tried - hyped or not.

Provari - Controversial maybe, but there's no denying that it's super-hyped. Yes it works well, yes it's very well made - but 4 volts is 4 volts. My Vamo gave me just as good as a vape as it did. Still, it looks pretty sitting on my vape shelf (I'm half kidding with this selection before I get slaughtered, I actually do use my Provari occasionally)

RSST - Ugh, maybe I was too new for this RBA when I bought it, but there is no other device out there that has left me drained in a heap almost in tears because I couldn't get it to work. I know I could have just not used mesh, but I wanted in on that hype-wagon so bad at the time.

Kanger Subtank - added this in because I rarely use clearomizers and I just ordered one. What on earth am I thinking? I keep jumping on that hype wagon.
 
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vince01

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FWIW I've found that a lot of bad (to me anyway) juices

can be made vapable and in some cases even enjoyable

by the addition of varying amounts of menthol

Tobacco flavours are not for me, I miss the taste of

smoke not the leaf, but about 15% addition of menthol

and they taste like Consulate (dont know what you'd call them in the States)
 

AndriaD

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Why so, if I may ask?

R

Probably just too thick; it seems to completely shut down my airways. I go around coughing but nothing coughs up, hacking but nothing comes up; and some asthma attacks so severe I almost can't even breathe in from my inhaler. It just feels like a hairball in there all the time. So I stick to 80%-85% PG and have no issues.

Andria
 
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