Noob trying to help other noobs

[JamesK852]

Hey guys, although I'm relevantly new to the current gen ecig scene (picked it up when it first came out, went back to analogs) I'm getting really into it, but as a noob again I found there is a LOT of information that which has taken me 2 full days to compile what feels like basic knowledge. So after getting a few, watching countless reviews, researching on pretty much everything I've decided to compile a list to make the Complete Beginners Getting Started Guide To Ecig Video. So my question to you other then the Juices, DIY, batts (types, mods, watts, voltages etc.), and other basics and things covered in the beginners section, what information did you find that really helped you or you think all new vapors could benefit from? Admittedly I'm in the middle of my Masters Course Exam period so this video wont be made for awhile but I just want to compile a list.

 

[lumalju]

For me the most important thing for beginners is to have a backup mode or an e-Go battery.
If there is only one and if it fails they will reach out again to analog cigarettes.
It is better to have two of the cheapest e-cigarettes rather than just one expensive.

 

[Thrasher]

in the juice section make sure you mention when trying samples or whatever to make sure you keep a steady supply coming, my very first time I ordered samples waited too long and was out b4 the real bottles came, bought a pack of smokes while i waited.

at every step make sure to stress being prepared when a carto or batt or charger fails we cant just run to 7-11 for another one.

 

[tnt56]

Try this.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/blogs/shoganinja/2998-vapers-handbook.html

 

[kiwivap]

I'd suggest not limiting your suggestions to one device, or one size device. People have different wants and needs.

 

[catoliver]

As a noob myself, there are 3 things I wish I had known in the very beginning. 1) spare batteries (at least 2) 2) LOTS of juice (even if it's just sample size and 3) drink LOTS of water

 

[JamesK852]

For me the most important thing for beginners is to have a backup mode or an e-Go battery.
If there is only one and if it fails they will reach out again to analog cigarettes.
It is better to have two of the cheapest e-cigarettes rather than just one expensive.

Good to note, did not really think about back ups in that regard

in the juice section make sure you mention when trying samples or whatever to make sure you keep a steady supply coming, my very first time I ordered samples waited too long and was out b4 the real bottles came, bought a pack of smokes while i waited.

at every step make sure to stress being prepared when a carto or batt or charger fails we cant just run to 7-11 for another one.

Very good point, so far my ejuice section wont stop expanding

Try this.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/blogs/shoganinja/2998-vapers-handbook.html

....This almost feels like the only resource I need, Thank you

I'd suggest not limiting your suggestions to one device, or one size device. People have different wants and needs.

Yup, There will be no actual recommendations in the video, I'm going to emphasize heavily that the combination of ecig and what you use is largely dependent on the actual users, when it comes to devices, I'm going to list the most popular ones talk about each type explain how each works so that way they wont have to Google every word they don't understand and can make their own decision which they feel is the best for them to start with. I will cover the most popular ones just so they know what everyone is talking about as well.

As a noob myself, there are 3 things I wish I had known in the very beginning. 1) spare batteries (at least 2) 2) LOTS of juice (even if it's just sample size and 3) drink LOTS of water

Good points, curious what is your PV/VG Ratio?

 

[xb9rguy]

Keep it simple. I dove in and started trying all kinds of different clearos and cartos and carto tanks and didn't always have backups so I smoked on occasion when things went wrong and I didn't have a spare (backup) at work. Backups are a must for all things related not just batteries! And keeping hydrated too, I had no idea it would/could dehydrate me.

 

[ardelleg]

Do not think that the first one you buy, battery or juice, will be the only one you buy.... your expectations will more than likely change.

So it isn't necessary to understand everything before you get started..... go ahead with the cig sized one to get you started if you want...

And backups, backups, backups......

 

[Kamoch]

Spare batteries are a must of you want to stay away from the lung SCUDS.

 

[Madmx]

Hi I'm a noob and was wondering what the benefits of bottom feeders are?
Is there any one that can help??
Cheers Jase

 

[AppleCheeksAlice]

For me, I would have liked to learn about pg and vg. I've ordered a lot of juices from various places only to find out that I have a sensitivity to vg. If I'd known this was possible I wouldn't have gone crazy on the ordering of juices with various pg/vg mixes. I can only handle 80 pg 20 vg but have some 70/30 and lots of 50/50 that I now have to try and alter to suit me.

 

[texacola]

Hi I'm a noob and was wondering what the benefits of bottom feeders are?
Is there any one that can help??
Cheers Jase

Not everyone likes bottom feeders, perhaps because it's not the same as having that phallic looking device in your face. I love them because of the ease of carrying a bottle with enough ejuice to last me a full day with a spare battery in my pocket. I prefer the simple ones without all the (to me) odd vapour chambers, draw to refill type stuff. I just like to give the bottle a squeeze to keep the cartomizer slightly wet and get a nice neckfull of vapor to suck down.

Right now I'm using 2 Old Goat (search his nickname here on the forums for his sales thread) cheap and cheerful bottom feeders with 3ml bottles. One for walkabout with a normal 14500 3.7 volts with LR (Low Resistance) boge cartomizers and the other for sitting at home on the computer where I live and work is a 6 volt wall wart charger fed one with a standard boge cartomizer. I get about the same amount of vapor from each.

But, some people don't like them.

 

[Madmx]

Tex
Thanks again for your info
They really do sound amazing
Did Ron build you the 6v version or did you mod that yourself?
Would you say the boge is better then an atomiser?

 

[Dearth Vapir]

Regarding spares as others have mentioned - spare batteries, spare charger, and spare atties/carts, and, for home, a pass-through type set-up - pass-through doesn't only save on the charge of your batteries, it will save on their service life too - these lithium things don't last forever, and performance can start dropping off quite quickly with some, esp. from eavy use.

- Myself I have 2 home made pass-throughs - a ~4.5V one for the PC I made myself from an old cig-alike tube I gutted after it died, and one to run from the couch I made (I made the PT, not the couch LOL!) - it uses an ego-type tube and regulator/switch (~3.2V to the atty/carto) and runs connected to a 14VA (watt) switchable (3, 4.5, 6, 7.5 and 12V) voltage PSU designed for running various desktop devices (printers etc.) I have set to 6V. - these get far more hours use than my batteries and mods.

I've been through the usual tanks and atties before going for rebuildable style atties, which I'm still fiddling with and learning how to set up well, so for backup for when these fail or don't work well/need a rebuild for instance, I keep a pack of Boge XXL (or is it triple XL?!? - Not sure now but I just woke up LOL!)) cartos as back-up.

Also - may be a good idea for some to keep different strengths of juice to hand - different devices deliver different amounts of vapour in different ways - i.e. my rebuildables give *lots* of vapour, and need, for me, a much lower strength juice (I'm at about only 3mg/ml!), but when using the Boge cartos I can go up to 6 to 9ml/mg to get the same nicotine hit.Tanks and attie combos, the way I ran them, fell somewhere in the middle of these. Since I mix my own flavours etc. this isn't too hard for me, though.

Good Hunting!

DV.

 

[JamesK852]

Do not think that the first one you buy, battery or juice, will be the only one you buy.... your expectations will more than likely change.

So it isn't necessary to understand everything before you get started..... go ahead with the cig sized one to get you started if you want...

And backups, backups, backups......

This is an interesting point, I like to research well into things before I make any sort of financial decisions with pretty much anything over $60 I don't like spending money until I feel way confident in my purchase and I am satisfied with my knowledge. Of course this is all subjective, when it comes to new phones/gadgets/software which I know about I will want the newest greatest and best...est but when it comes to something I know very little about I like to be very informed. One point which I will heavily emphasis is that NO ONE is the same, I have noticed that e-cigs are arguably TOO customizable not that I'm saying this is a BAD thing but with ecig you can tweak every single aspect, which obviously results in a huge amount of verities and can be tuned to literally an individual's taste. This in some ways is AWESOME and a massive pain in the ...; no one is the same and everyone can have things exactly the way they want it but it makes it very difficult for newbies to start, you'll get 100 people to tell you to do it one way another 100 to do it another and so on.

Currently most e-cig users are transitioning from analogues (maybe one day this will change, maybe not) they had a choice of what ever was over the counter and apart from rolling your own amount and packing a deck, you cant really change it, you cant really tweak it. You got what you got and you had to make do with what you got. Now we have voltages/watts, Mods, VV, APV, resistances, attys, clearos, genesis, tanks, wicks, cotton wicks, fiber wicks, freaking SS wicks, etc. and this isn't even touching JUICES. One man's deck/pack and a lighter has turned into a e-cig purse. I was surprised how much my interest in electronic engineering helped me understand what was actually going on and what a little tweak meant now to someone who doesn't know anything I'm sure all this can be a little overwhelming, but there is something that PBusardo said in one of his latest videos that sort of reminded me of why I first started;

1. Find a potentially safer alternative to analogues and possibly quit sometime in the future
2. Save Money

If you can buy a little cheapy and some refillable Volt cartridges and satisfy those main criterion then you don't need all this stuff (if that is truly your only goals)

Everything past that becomes a hobby and that is fine, if you enjoy it why not? Its just that number 2 sort of goes out the window and I'm going to emphasis this very early on in the video because when you go to any ecig shop these days I'm sure someone who knows nothing about this technology would feel quite overwhelmed.

Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant more then a reply but this is a big thing on my list and I guess I wanted to get peoples opinion of this POV before I go forward with it.

Spare batteries are a must of you want to stay away from the lung SCUDS.

SCUDS?

For me, I would have liked to learn about pg and vg. I've ordered a lot of juices from various places only to find out that I have a sensitivity to vg. If I'd known this was possible I wouldn't have gone crazy on the ordering of juices with various pg/vg mixes. I can only handle 80 pg 20 vg but have some 70/30 and lots of 50/50 that I now have to try and alter to suit me.

Yup Juices is already a major section of it

spares

- Myself I have 2 home made pass-throughs ...I have set to 6V. - these get far more hours use than my batteries and mods.

I've been through the usual tanks and atties before going for rebuildable style atties...cartos as back-up.

Also - may be a good idea for some to keep different strengths of juice to hand
Good Hunting!

DV.

Good stuff already had most of these down but good to see which points reoccur a lot

 

[Flexxx]

I'm a noob and there is alot to choose from out there, I went with one that cost a bit more and looked pretty cool.

IMO everyone is different but most the time money is a big consideration.

I also think starting out with the right amount of nicotine (the lower the better IMO)

Vaping honestly freaks me out a bit, I have a bit of health anxiety, so if I feel anything different I will blame it on
the newest thing, like right now I have made a the change to the e-cig and feel really strange for some reason, but I think
its being away from the analog smokes as there called here...

Sorry for going off topic

 

[JamesK852]

I'm a noob and there is alot to choose from out there, I went with one that cost a bit more and looked pretty cool.

IMO everyone is different but most the time money is a big consideration.

I also think starting out with the right amount of nicotine (the lower the better IMO)

Vaping honestly freaks me out a bit, I have a bit of health anxiety, so if I feel anything different I will blame it on
the newest thing, like right now I have made a the change to the e-cig and feel really strange for some reason, but I think
its being away from the analog smokes as there called here...

Sorry for going off topic

Same here, still experimenting with nics and other things but you are spot on, but remember when you first started smoking analogues? Made me feel like .... sometimes, head rush if the nic was to high, etc. I like to compare it to that, unfortunately with such little information e-cigs in general its hard to say exactly what's going on and I share your paranoia. I've used my access to journal databases from my University to download a stack of peer reviewed journals and will be reading up on it soon

 

[JamesK852]

I'm a noob and there is alot to choose from out there, I went with one that cost a bit more and looked pretty cool.

like right now I have made a the change to the e-cig and feel really strange for some reason, but I think
its being away from the analog smokes as there called here...

Forgot to mention DRINK LOTS OF WATER. Even if you don't feel overly dehydrated, your mouth might not be dry but vaping does make you very dehydrated!

 

[bea828]

I'm still a complete noob too. I spent about a week - maybe a week and a half trying to sort it all out in my head (with LOTS of help from people posting very helpful you tube vids and sticked things here on the forum) and was honestly going to spend a couple months researching it all out before I decided what I was going to buy.

Then the boyfriend found me on the forum one day and asked about it. I say "Well, I'm thinking that I'm going to ask you for an e-cig set up for chirstmas and I wanted to research what was available and what would work well for me." He gets so excited I want to get off the cigs that he gives me a price point and says "I'll buy them right now for you!"

Well that cut my research time in like half. On one hand that was a good thing, because it forced me to make the plunge and get *something* and commit to it. On the other hand, I wished I'd had more time to learn a few more things. Like it was said above, I looked at it as an investment. I didn't want to spend 80 bucks on something I would hate.

Having got my first kit and my backups of what I thought I needed back ups for..... Having been only less than a week into this so still very much a noob.....

What I wished I'd gotten in that first shipment was a pass through (not even sure yet how/if it's possible with my ego twists) AND spare battery chargers. It's what I struggle with the most. I have three of these things running and I find it impossible to realized when they need a charge till it's darn near too late.

Case in point - as I typed all that it suddenly occurred to me: "Hey bea! You know that one you are vaping on? The one you were vaping on this morning and through your whole shift at work? You might want to swap out the clearomizer to one of the ones you haven't used so much and put the other one on the charger silly girl."

Trying to vape on batteries are that are dying - while waiting for other batteries to charge sucks!

I'm keeping a blog about my experiences - mostly for my own reference as I like to journal. But in it has what I *did* buy and from where.

My starter kit came with pre-filled cartridges while I can see the appeal of the "slap them in and go" method - I did also buy a spare battery (because I REALLY wanted a blue one) and some clearomizers. I'm finding that I like the clearomizers better only because I can see how much juice is left at any given time and I adjust as needed. (I found I like a mix of juices I bought quite by accident....) I took back ups of the back ups to different levels on my first purchase but I can't say I'm sorry about it. If I'd have only had the cartridges I know I would not have kept it up this week like I have... Though again - every person is different so maybe my recommendation is to suggest trying a couple different things in regard to carties, atties, clearomizers and tanks so you can see the difference and figure out which one works best for you.


The other final recommendation I would make to any noob making this plunge is that before you buy - pay careful attention to your triggers. To what makes you smoke cigs. To when you need them MOST. As others have said, vaping is different from smoking. But you have to REALLY understand how and why and when you smoke to understand what sorts of needs you will have with your PV. I have learned in my week of experience is that what I thought would be the easy times to vape (at work because I can just run back to the office and take a hit or two as opposed to going outside for a full smoke) was HARDER for me than being at home because I can just chain vape away at home - at work I have to go HOURS on end with no vaping and no cigs and when the craving gets bad I need the INSTANT satisfaction that cigs give.

I was REALLY worried about nic levels so I only bought high nic levels (some are 18 some are 24) but I wish for nights like right now - I had some low level nic to just chain vape. I don't really *need* the higher ones at this point -but it's all I have.