December 2010,
I wish I could say it was a cold day, but alas I live in deep south Texas and the temperature was in the 80s. My wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child (son) and I had made the conscious decision to quit smoking. I had tried in past to quit using the conventional methods: Cold Turkey, the patch, the gum, etc but none of them seemed to work more than 1 day for me. I had heard about these new fangled "Electronic Cigarettes" on the radio, in newspapers, and on TV and decided to give them a try. I went online and did some research, watched some youtube videos, and read some forums. I purchased a 510 kit from an online retailer and waited patiently for the mail to arrive. When the kit finally arrived I felt the joy and excitement only felt by young kids on Christmas morning. Finally I was going to quit smoking for good. I opened the kit, charged the batteries, and read the instructions. Someone had to have been looking out for me that day; for the kit came with pre-filled cartridges and I had not ordered any juice. Once the batteries finish charging I assembled my e-cigarette and started vaping. Oh how I fell in love with it. It provided everything I could ever want in a quit smoking program. I continued to use my e-cigarette the whole weekend while not even touching a normal cig. I was starting to feel great! I could smell things I couldn't before. I could take deep breaths and even started to jog again. Things were going great! I knew that I was going to need to get more juice so I went online and did a lot of research. Sweet Caroline there it is the juice I would call my own. I placed the order and sparingly used my e-cig so I wouldn't run out of liquid before my order arrived. My order arrived just in time, I was down to my last pre-filled cartridge. I replenished the cartridges and continued vaping, loving every day of it. Everything was perfect for the first 3 weeks. Until, I started having problem with my hardware. I was not experienced enough so I didn't know these atomizers were delicate machines. I would over flood them on occasion, starve them sometimes, and never cleaned them out. My vapor production kept getting worse and worse and I finally decided to try and clean them. That is when thing went horribly wrong. I do not know what exactly I did to them but they never worked again. I was now e-cigarette less and needing my nicotine. I broke down and bought a pack of my favorite smokes. Ohh how they tasted horrible. I was now a smoker once more.
June 2011
My son is now 5 months old and I hate having to leave him every hour or so to smoke. I work an 8-5 M-F and want to maximize the time I get to spend with him. I have decided to quit smoking again, I go online and order 2 replacement atomizers, because hey that is what went wrong the first time right? I continue to smoke analogs until the atomizers arrive. This time I am going to protect them, clean them, and everything will be alright. I get them in the mail and blow out the primer juice, add a few drops to the wick and set everything up. With the first puff I think to myself "Ohh how I missed you sweet caroline". I still didn't know how much liquid an atomizer needed but that was ok. I was going to clean them weekly and everything would be hunky dory. A week passed and again my lungs started to function normal and my sense of smell returned. I was living in non smoking heaven once more. Then things got bad; it seems my cleaning methods were not the best out there. On my first cleaning I ended up killing one atomizer and no matter how much I tried (and I tried) I couldn't resurrect it. My second was on its last breath; the vapor production was horrible and cleaning it made no difference. I got frustrated and decided that e-cigs were too much hassle, not reliable enough, and replacements would take days to arrive. Back to the smoking section for me
June 2012
My wife has gone from working full time to working part time. This has put a major strain on our budget and my smoking has not helped in the least. I have decided to return to my electric cigarette to help save money. And if it gets me to quit smoking analogs then I can kill two birds with 1 stone. This time I was not going to swan dive into the lake without first checking the depth like I had before. I went online and purchased some new juice and a few atomizers. I got online and started doing some research to see where I previously went wrong. I found these forums and the troves of information to be had. After researching I think I found out what I was doing wrong before. I would first flood my atomizer and then run it dry. This was putting a lot of strain on the very delicate hardware. I decided that using the drip method would suit me best. I could constantly maintain the perfect levels of juice on the atomizer without over doing it or over using it. I made a game plan with a set schedule on what to order and when to order it. If I loose and atomizer or battery due to poor maintenance I would have a backup and another backup for that backup. I also decided that I would reduce the amount of analogs I smoked per day instead of doing a complete switch over. This made the psychological switch much easier. This time I was not going to be 100% dependent on the e-cig from the start so if I ran into any problems down the road it wouldn't derail my goal.
I have successfully went from a pack a day smoking to 4 analogs a day with the intention of reducing that to 3 next week. I have not had any problems with my atomizers now that I am not flooding them nor starving them. I can feel my lung functionality returning and can not wait for the day I am completely off the analogs and can smell once more. If you have made it this far into the post I thank you for your time; I really just wanted to get my experience out there for fellow noobs to read. I want the post to have some helpful guidance for new vapers so below is a quick summary of what I have learned.
1. Have plenty of supplies. Do not just get a kit and think that will suffice
2. Have even more supplies. You might think you have enough but you don't!
3. I have found the drip method is personally the easiest. You have less of a chance to over fill or starve the atty
4. You do not have to jump both feet first and completely quit analogs day 1. It is ok to ease your way into it as long as you stay on course.
5. Quitting is just as much a mental game as a physical one. Stay strong there will be bumps in the road.
Thank you,
Tech_Dan
I wish I could say it was a cold day, but alas I live in deep south Texas and the temperature was in the 80s. My wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child (son) and I had made the conscious decision to quit smoking. I had tried in past to quit using the conventional methods: Cold Turkey, the patch, the gum, etc but none of them seemed to work more than 1 day for me. I had heard about these new fangled "Electronic Cigarettes" on the radio, in newspapers, and on TV and decided to give them a try. I went online and did some research, watched some youtube videos, and read some forums. I purchased a 510 kit from an online retailer and waited patiently for the mail to arrive. When the kit finally arrived I felt the joy and excitement only felt by young kids on Christmas morning. Finally I was going to quit smoking for good. I opened the kit, charged the batteries, and read the instructions. Someone had to have been looking out for me that day; for the kit came with pre-filled cartridges and I had not ordered any juice. Once the batteries finish charging I assembled my e-cigarette and started vaping. Oh how I fell in love with it. It provided everything I could ever want in a quit smoking program. I continued to use my e-cigarette the whole weekend while not even touching a normal cig. I was starting to feel great! I could smell things I couldn't before. I could take deep breaths and even started to jog again. Things were going great! I knew that I was going to need to get more juice so I went online and did a lot of research. Sweet Caroline there it is the juice I would call my own. I placed the order and sparingly used my e-cig so I wouldn't run out of liquid before my order arrived. My order arrived just in time, I was down to my last pre-filled cartridge. I replenished the cartridges and continued vaping, loving every day of it. Everything was perfect for the first 3 weeks. Until, I started having problem with my hardware. I was not experienced enough so I didn't know these atomizers were delicate machines. I would over flood them on occasion, starve them sometimes, and never cleaned them out. My vapor production kept getting worse and worse and I finally decided to try and clean them. That is when thing went horribly wrong. I do not know what exactly I did to them but they never worked again. I was now e-cigarette less and needing my nicotine. I broke down and bought a pack of my favorite smokes. Ohh how they tasted horrible. I was now a smoker once more.
June 2011
My son is now 5 months old and I hate having to leave him every hour or so to smoke. I work an 8-5 M-F and want to maximize the time I get to spend with him. I have decided to quit smoking again, I go online and order 2 replacement atomizers, because hey that is what went wrong the first time right? I continue to smoke analogs until the atomizers arrive. This time I am going to protect them, clean them, and everything will be alright. I get them in the mail and blow out the primer juice, add a few drops to the wick and set everything up. With the first puff I think to myself "Ohh how I missed you sweet caroline". I still didn't know how much liquid an atomizer needed but that was ok. I was going to clean them weekly and everything would be hunky dory. A week passed and again my lungs started to function normal and my sense of smell returned. I was living in non smoking heaven once more. Then things got bad; it seems my cleaning methods were not the best out there. On my first cleaning I ended up killing one atomizer and no matter how much I tried (and I tried) I couldn't resurrect it. My second was on its last breath; the vapor production was horrible and cleaning it made no difference. I got frustrated and decided that e-cigs were too much hassle, not reliable enough, and replacements would take days to arrive. Back to the smoking section for me
June 2012
My wife has gone from working full time to working part time. This has put a major strain on our budget and my smoking has not helped in the least. I have decided to return to my electric cigarette to help save money. And if it gets me to quit smoking analogs then I can kill two birds with 1 stone. This time I was not going to swan dive into the lake without first checking the depth like I had before. I went online and purchased some new juice and a few atomizers. I got online and started doing some research to see where I previously went wrong. I found these forums and the troves of information to be had. After researching I think I found out what I was doing wrong before. I would first flood my atomizer and then run it dry. This was putting a lot of strain on the very delicate hardware. I decided that using the drip method would suit me best. I could constantly maintain the perfect levels of juice on the atomizer without over doing it or over using it. I made a game plan with a set schedule on what to order and when to order it. If I loose and atomizer or battery due to poor maintenance I would have a backup and another backup for that backup. I also decided that I would reduce the amount of analogs I smoked per day instead of doing a complete switch over. This made the psychological switch much easier. This time I was not going to be 100% dependent on the e-cig from the start so if I ran into any problems down the road it wouldn't derail my goal.
I have successfully went from a pack a day smoking to 4 analogs a day with the intention of reducing that to 3 next week. I have not had any problems with my atomizers now that I am not flooding them nor starving them. I can feel my lung functionality returning and can not wait for the day I am completely off the analogs and can smell once more. If you have made it this far into the post I thank you for your time; I really just wanted to get my experience out there for fellow noobs to read. I want the post to have some helpful guidance for new vapers so below is a quick summary of what I have learned.
1. Have plenty of supplies. Do not just get a kit and think that will suffice
2. Have even more supplies. You might think you have enough but you don't!
3. I have found the drip method is personally the easiest. You have less of a chance to over fill or starve the atty
4. You do not have to jump both feet first and completely quit analogs day 1. It is ok to ease your way into it as long as you stay on course.
5. Quitting is just as much a mental game as a physical one. Stay strong there will be bumps in the road.
Thank you,
Tech_Dan
