Lavatube Noob Thread - ??? about LAVATUBES and Accessories for them...Post your questions here....

[bullet]

hi there,

for lavatube version 1, does anyone knows the maximum mah that can be safely used?
saw an 18650 3000mah and just wondering if I can use it on my lavatube V1...

 

[orachel]

Nope... you need to stick to IMRs 2000mah and less, and there may be a tiny gap between the cap and body on the 2000mah IMR. Anything in a protected batt or an IMR over 2000 mah and you literally can't get the cap on. And actually, I'd be surprised if you could get a protected 2000 to fit at all, since they tend to be larger than IMRs. BEST choice is getting the Panasonic 18650 2200mah CGR, because they DO fit, and last considerably longer even than much higher mah imrs. Pretty remarkable batts, and cheaper than aw imrs, too. Um.. Orbtronic.com and Crystal Clear Vaping both have them with free shipping. Oh, and you want the flat top one. I'll get you a link so you know what I'm talking about.. Oh, i lied... not seeing em at CCV yet, but I know they're coming there and discount vapers. Here's the orbtronic Panny 18650 Hybrid CGR... $7.99 w free shipping.
http://www.orbtronic.com/batteries-...0a-18650-rechargeable-battery-cell-high-drain

 

[bullet]

^
alrighty, thanks!

 

[o0StatiK]

How often should I change the cartomizer? I ordered an extra two with my lavatube just in case? How long do the batteries last as well?

 

[orachel]

What kind of cartomizer and batt are you using? Or if you got it all in a kit, I can figure it out from link to the kit, no problem.

 

[o0StatiK]

I'm using the standard 18650 high drain battery and a 1.5 ohm dual coil carto.

 

[orachel]

Like a generic IMR? Hmmm.... those don't last quite as long as the good ones... but I'm thinking you'll get a good 15 hours out of it. I might not be the best one to answer since I haven't used em in a while. Anyone else? how long do your 'with kit' or generic imr batts last on a charge?

As for the carto, totally depends on you and how much you vape, how thick/dark your juice is, if its in a dual coil tank or not. I get less time out of dual coils than single coils. I vape 1.7ohm smoktech single coil at about 4.4v, and one will usually last me a good 3 weeks or so, and then it'll get gunky and want cleaning. But after that might go another 3 weeks or so. I go thru about 15 in 2-3 mos, but most of that is cause I vape a whole bunch of flavors. Now with dual coils, I didn't get that long, and if they're generic and not smoktech i'd say maybe 2 weeks or so. If its in a tank, maybe a week to 10 days, but you can extend the life by cleaning em when they get hard to hit, and get another few weeks out of em. I almost always want to stop using them because performance is funky long long before they actually die. But all that being said, you'll need a LOT more than 2. Crystal Clear Vaping has a killer 15 carto deal with free drip tip of choice and free shipping, and that's about the cheapest way I know of to stock up. They have the 1.7single coils, and also dual coils, and things like Boge 2.0 and 3.0. Not a huge selection of cartos, but they're all the most popular ones, and you can buy them in the 5 pack, or cheaper per carto in 15 pack. Crystal Clear Vaping
Single coil 1.7s are more like $20 for 15, or you can check price at Welcome to SmokTek, LLC - The Better Smoking Alternative - Your source for personal vaporizers, e-cig supplies and e-liquids, and he sells them by the single, but DOES give amazing bulk deals if you buy more than 5 or 10... but again, ccv has free shipping, so factor that in when shopping for cheapest cost. Yell out if you need anything else.

 

[orachel]

oh and i've got directions for cleaning if you find you need those. Lots of people don't bother, just get a new one, its all down to you and your budget.

 

[o0StatiK]

Like a generic IMR? Hmmm.... those don't last quite as long as the good ones... but I'm thinking you'll get a good 15 hours out of it. I might not be the best one to answer since I haven't used em in a while. Anyone else? how long do your 'with kit' or generic imr batts last on a charge?

As for the carto, totally depends on you and how much you vape, how thick/dark your juice is, if its in a dual coil tank or not. I get less time out of dual coils than single coils. I vape 1.7ohm smoktech single coil at about 4.4v, and one will usually last me a good 3 weeks or so, and then it'll get gunky and want cleaning. But after that might go another 3 weeks or so. I go thru about 15 in 2-3 mos, but most of that is cause I vape a whole bunch of flavors. Now with dual coils, I didn't get that long, and if they're generic and not smoktech i'd say maybe 2 weeks or so. If its in a tank, maybe a week to 10 days, but you can extend the life by cleaning em when they get hard to hit, and get another few weeks out of em. I almost always want to stop using them because performance is funky long long before they actually die. But all that being said, you'll need a LOT more than 2. Crystal Clear Vaping has a killer 15 carto deal with free drip tip of choice and free shipping, and that's about the cheapest way I know of to stock up. They have the 1.7single coils, and also dual coils, and things like Boge 2.0 and 3.0. Not a huge selection of cartos, but they're all the most popular ones, and you can buy them in the 5 pack, or cheaper per carto in 15 pack. Crystal Clear Vaping
Single coil 1.7s are more like $20 for 15, or you can check price at Welcome to SmokTek, LLC - The Better Smoking Alternative - Your source for personal vaporizers, e-cig supplies and e-liquids, and he sells them by the single, but DOES give amazing bulk deals if you buy more than 5 or 10... but again, ccv has free shipping, so factor that in when shopping for cheapest cost. Yell out if you need anything else.

Thanks for the advice! Yes it's the standard IMR battery. I just got my Lavatube today and I'm still figuring out what voltage I should be using. I saw a chart here somewhere, gotta go find it haha.

 

[orachel]

Chart for voltage is in first page of this thread, first post actually. BUT its tiny, so you need to save to hard drive and zoom way in. lol A better indicator even than that (cause that's just a general vv guideline) is to watch the LAVATUBE REVIEW by Phil Busardo at his site 'www.tasteyourjuice.com'. Just look under 'devices' on the left hand menu, and you'll see it. THAT is a totally killer review. He'll tell you exactly how high your lt will allow you to vape with a 1.5ohm... so even if you have it set to 6v, it'll only deliver a maximum of 2.5 amps because of the amp restriction... so it will hold you to somewhere around the high 3s or low 4s, voltage wise, assuming you have a V1 lavatube (which i can tell you with a link to what you bought). He's got charts you can save and everything. AND this is rather important for you, since you do vape such low resistance dual coils. You may WELL find you'd rather get to the mid 4s voltage wise (which you can do with the 1.7ohm smoktech single coils I vape) or that you'd like to get even higher. And you can get your dual coils in a wide range of resistances. I know ccv only sells 1.5s and 2.5ohms I wanna say offhand, but they might have more in the singles category. And smoktek vendor has a TON of dual coil singles, in a huge range of ohms, from 1.25 to I think up to 4, in .25-.5 ohm jumps. So you could grab one each of a bunch of resistances, and see which you prefer at the max voltage LT will let you get to. So watching that Phil B vid will teach you everything you need to know about your LT and voltages with different cartos. Yell out if you get confused about anything, though. Its a LOT of information. Good news is you can save the charts for future reference. I have a link to that review/tutorial within the last page or two of this thread, I just don't have it handy offhand, now.

And you know... thanks for the mention of the charts, cause I've been meaning to email Phil B for a month now and ask him if i can post his charts here to make it simpler, and I keep forgetting. rofl

 

[videodave]

Orachel, I need you again. BTW I hope you know how much I (and I'm sure many others) appreciate your help and the time you spend sharing your help. Anyway I have decided to go with the chrome LT with the original innards because, like you said, if I really enjoy vv mods I'll want another one anyway and by that time hopefully the new one will be out. OK, I have two questions; the first is about batteries. I am going to order the Panasonic CGR 18650 CH. But I noticed on the Orbtronic website that they have this battery with both a flat top and a button top. Will both of these fit the LT? I imagine there is only a couple of mm difference in total length between them but that may be enough to make one not fit or be too loose. BTW I am also following your advice and buying the X-tar WP2 charger. Second question;Do you know of any vendor who sells (and has in stock) the chrome LT and also accepts PayPal. Even if it costs a few dollars more right now my funds are tied up in PayPal and it takes between five days and two weeks to get at it, depending how I do it. It's annoying but a long story about buying inventory for my e-business (which is a different "e" then e-cigs. Oh, I just came up with a third question for you. Lol. Have you heard anything about, or tried the new ViviNova tank system with the LT? If not what tank do you recommend for the LT? Thanks again for your help and I'm looking forward to your answers so I can get the ball rolling!

 

[lettucehead]

Hi Orachel!

I bookmarked this thread as I bought a LT and thought I may have need of it!

I bought a mini VV mod (generic unbranded L-Rider, per seller) off of the classifieds.
I charged the red IMR 18350 battery on the dual Trustfire charger that I bought from him too, until the light turned green.

I put the battery in the mod and checked the battery and it said 4.1 on the LED.
I set the VV to 4.0 with a Stardust 2.2-2.4 resistance and 510-Ego adapter. At first it worked fine.
Unfortunately, within 5 minutes, the mod just completely shut off.

I tried it several more times, recharging the batt inbetween attempts - first it would all work fine and within 5 min completely shut off like the batt was dead.

I've tried to clean off all the connectors and such.
Now I'm realizing that if I take off the clearomizer, the mod LED screen will light up again (having reset to 3.0V). The battery indicator shows 4.0 (meaning there is still life in the batt?).
I tried using a 510 XL dual coil LR on it and the same thing happened - the mod just shut down - even just trying to use it on 3.0V vaping.

Does this mean it's a defective mod or a defective batt?
I would have thought a mini VV mod would be able to vape at 3.0V with 2.2 resistance stardust without going over the 2.5 amp limit....

What am I doing wrong?
I'm getting frustrated...

I contacted the seller, but he got a little, um, snippy with me...

Can you help me please?!!!!

 

[orachel]

You want the flat top panny.. i gave a link for em a few posts back, free shipping at orbtronic. And cheap xtar at 310 vapers. As for the tube, gotta go Apollo, i'm thinking. I know they have 30% off right now on the stainless, but not sure if its chrome too or not. BUT either way is great, and apollo gives a 1 year warranty, which is nice. Best price on em I've seen, too. As for tanks... Um, thinking i'd stay away from the nova. You can look at DiscountVapers - Your source for savings on electronic cigarettes and accessories, Go-go eGo, vGo (and yeah, they take paypal) for the tanks.. he's got a TON of clearo tanks, and quite a few carto tanks, too, I believe. Hearing good things about the 'apollo' tank at DV, and a ton of others. I'll get into more detail on that later. As for Apolloecigs.com, not sure if you can use paypal or not, but if you email sunny818, and tell em orachel sent you, and asked him to take good care of you, I'm sure if its possible, he'll know how. Guessing its a work outable thing. Will get into more detail later, but its 6am here and I've not been to bed yet. Oh, and don't forget to stick your free disposable in your cart at apollo if they're still running that You know, contact us might be faster at apollo, just ask for Rob/aka sunny 818.

BTW, discount vapers price will be about the same as 310 vapers after you factor in the extra vendor shipping on the xtar, so thatmakes that simpler. lol

 

[orachel]

Ooh, that's one for one of our more techy helpers, lettucehead! So sorry! I'm not a techy person. My only suggestion is to to try to take the top cap off and leave it sitting overnight. No, there's no logical reason I'm suggesting that, but it worked for one of us, so maybe there's just a little liquid in there and its acting glitchy. Other thing is, try another battery. Sometimes batts are funky out of the box, especially cheap kit ones. I'll ask a few techy people to pop in here and see if anyone has better advice for you. ALSO, might still be under warranty with the seller.

 

[MASTER0FDAMPF]

If you are using IMR batts there is no protection circuit. If you are not, then you NEED to be. If you are unsure, I would suggest getting a new batt to try out on the Mod. I get my AW's from RTD Vapor. Great prices and great vendor. You may also be getting the thermal shutoff from the LT if you are vaping the crap out of it. It can happen and some are touchier than others. Mine (SS mini and full) can get my tank hot enough hot enough to almost scald my skin before it does it but one of my other mini's (regular plastic caps) will cut out from hefty vaping after about 5-10 minutes. Let it cool a bit and it kicks back on (although sometimes I have to take the batt out first). Usually when it cuts out and an atty disconnect will reset it the cause is a short in the carto (or atty). Most likely because as it heats up and the metal expands and a coil or solder point hits the shell.

Try different carto or atty first, then battery. If that does not fix it then do a thurough cleaning of the connectors.

 

[Bmays]

Hi Orachel!

I bookmarked this thread as I bought a LT and thought I may have need of it!

I bought a mini VV mod (generic unbranded L-Rider, per seller) off of the classifieds.
I charged the red IMR 18350 battery on the dual Trustfire charger that I bought from him too, until the light turned green.

I put the battery in the mod and checked the battery and it said 4.1 on the LED.
I set the VV to 4.0 with a Stardust 2.2-2.4 resistance and 510-Ego adapter. At first it worked fine.
Unfortunately, within 5 minutes, the mod just completely shut off.

I tried it several more times, recharging the batt inbetween attempts - first it would all work fine and within 5 min completely shut off like the batt was dead.

I've tried to clean off all the connectors and such.
Now I'm realizing that if I take off the clearomizer, the mod LED screen will light up again (having reset to 3.0V). The battery indicator shows 4.0 (meaning there is still life in the batt?).
I tried using a 510 XL dual coil LR on it and the same thing happened - the mod just shut down - even just trying to use it on 3.0V vaping.

Does this mean it's a defective mod or a defective batt?
I would have thought a mini VV mod would be able to vape at 3.0V with 2.2 resistance stardust without going over the 2.5 amp limit....

What am I doing wrong?
I'm getting frustrated...

I contacted the seller, but he got a little, um, snippy with me...

Can you help me please?!!!!

Shuts off as in "off"? Completely "off"? Hmm. Sounds like its thinking the amps are too high, does it get warm? Ive had mine get warm where the guts are when chain vaping but never shut off.

Have you tried more than one battery to rule that out? If so, then for sure I would be doing a warranty if you purchased it recently.

And as to the seller getting "snippy". I'd love to know who that was. Not to bash anyone, but that is not necessary at all. There are more than enough "snippy" sellers now-a-days. In the beginning they were all helpful, now that most have made pretty good money, they pick and choose there "teachers pets". There are a few I wont buy from again for that reason.

 

[orachel]

Thank you guys so much! I was praying one or both of you had a likely suspect in mind for the problem! These guys know their stuff, lettucehead, so hoping the ideas work!

 

[videodave]

Hi orachel, You helped me and didn't even know it. I looked back through the thread and found a link for the batteries you posted so I already ordered them and the charger. Brent at Hoosier's took PayPal so I ordered my tube and some other stuff from him. Get some sleep and thanks again. It's 12 noon here (Florida) and I haven't slept yet either. Finally getting tired so I'm going to walk the dogs and try to sleep. Have a good weekend!

 

[orachel]

Oh yay! Glad it went so simply for you! I know its a mess when funds are tied up in paypal. Its happened to me many a time.. can't believe not all the vendors have a paypal option, but if that's a regular thing for you, between hoosier and discountvapers.com, you should be taken care of for most your stuff. Now its all over but the stalking the postman! lol Hope you love it!

And bmays.. I think the situation with lettucehead is bought LT from a private seller in the classies. STILL no excuse for them getting snippy, though. And strikes me as unusual that thing would be working perfect, and then suddenly start shutting off for no reason.

And lettucehead... very possible that your carto is also either mismarked, or just started out incredibly low ohm. Bmays idea makes total sense... wasn't even thinking along those lines. I've seen that happen time and time again, especially with clearo type stuff. I'll get 5 clearo dual coils (kind with no filler) and they're all supposed to be 1.5ohm, and one of them is under 1ohm right out of the box. They can also drop WAY low with use. I can tell you straight out.. a v1 lavatube doesn't like stuff at 1.5 and below. It'll vape em, but only VERY low voltage range. It can hold voltage back to the low to mid 3s with some of those super low res cartos, so if you got a dud that's under 1ohm, or used it till it dropped that low, that makes perfect sense. Not heard of it shutting down before, but guessing as bmays mentioned thats because its reading the ohms as super low, and doesn't want to fire it at all 3range because amps would be too high at its 2.5 amp restriction. Really hoping trying a new carto will resolve it, and if that doesn't work, thinking crummy battery. I seem to remember you saying 18350 batteries... which means you have a mini. Second (don't remember if it was carlton or bmays idea) the suggestion of RTD Vapor... their AW brand 18350s... best you can get... are under $7.50 each. Here's a link. And if my memory is funky and its 18650s you're needing, good price on those too.
AW IMR 18350 3.7V 700 mah

And totally off topic, and not sure if I mentioned it already or not (memory issues on my end... lack of sleep arisn't helping. rofl) but if you like the stardusts aka CE4, discountvapers has CE5s, which are super cool. Lower priced than many places ce4s, too. First, they have long wicks... you can chop em short, but they start out long, which I love. Second, they have a 'replaceable core'. So you get say 3 CE5s (under $6 each) and buy say 7 replacement coils for under $1.75 each... you've essentially got 10 stardusts there. And while most places charge like $7 for a CE4... which would cost $70 for 10... that would only cost you $30... you can keep using the 'body' of the Ce5 till it corrodes or breaks, and just replacing coils. They're getting killer reviews. Plus, makes em easy to switch flavors, since you just replace 'coil' itself. They're a little larger than the ce4, as well, but otherwise identical, shapewise. He also carries the CE6 which is a decidedly different design, so that's an option. He's got a ton of clearotanks cheap that are getting good reviews. There's an 'apollo' tank there, and an Esomething, I think... anyway, I'd say all of those would be a safer more reliable option to try than the ViviNovas. Lots of people are liking the novas (or as I call them '70s porn stars'.. something about that Vivi name just tickles me), but they tend to work best for very experienced modders. Sometimes newer vapers get lucky with really good ones, but they do seem rather 'fussing and troubleshooting' intensive.

 

[idgie2269]

This might be something that was already answered awhile back, but do the mini SS take 18350 with a button top?