Still smoking support and chat thread

[daleron]

Happy Thanksgiving morning



It's a little cool huh? Come warm yourself by the fire









​

 

[Topdogie01]

Happy turkey day. Don't stuff yourself too much or you might fall asleep on the table.

Got home from trip last night. Gotta finish writing blog entries then ill link to it. Have alot of pictures I need to review

 

[etherealink]

Happy thanksgiving folks, got some new toys to tell you about when it all settles down, but for now, I have a duck to roast...

See everyone later!

 

[Timothy Moore]

I was gonna ask a question about batteries, but I finded the answer already.
SO instead I will just edit my post and say hello to everyone.
Hope you all had a good thanksgiving

 

[Timothy Moore]

I know I have been quiet, but I have been staying on the bandwagon. I should change my counter soon, since it seems this quit has really stuck. Except for the slips on the 6th and 7th, I've been smoke free since Nov 5th.
It has been kinda crazy this last week though, as I am sure it has been for everyone.

Andria wahooooooo, new personal record!

Where is everyone?
Hope you all are. Warm and safe!

 

[Timothy Moore]

Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is awesome

granddaughter #4 has arrived . Mama and baby are wonderful

 

[AndriaD]

I was gonna ask a question about batteries, but I finded the answer already.
SO instead I will just edit my post and say hello to everyone.
Hope you all had a good thanksgiving

Ours was ok; the usual feast. Yesterday somehow I avoided the turkey coma, but tonight I just couldn't, so I went into the living room and evicted the cat from the couch, and fell over sideways onto a heap of pillows. Later I woke up, did the dishes, and had some pumpkin pie with a mountain of whipped cream on it. Yummmmmm. Now the cat is back on the couch in my spot, which seems to be the spot she prefers for her catnaps.

I'm thankful not only to be an EX-smoker, but personally; my mom hasn't been in the hospital this year since the 1st of June, and that is so wonderful; last year, the entire autumm was one hospital trip after another, all the way to xmas -- that was one of the factors that got me interested in e-cigs. I called her yesterday and told her how thankful I was that her health was better enough to avoid all those hospital trips, and she agrees, hating hospitals as bad as I do, and she agrees that for all her discomforts, she's been feeling a little better the last few months. But her doc gave her reason to pay a lot better attention to her diet -- if her blood sugar can't be brought down and kept that way, then pills will have to be exchanged for insulin by needle, and she HATES needles, so maybe she'll start taking a little better care of herself.

Andria

 

[Timothy Moore]

That sounds good Andia. My cat kept crying for turkey. lol She is also thankful
And glad your mom is doing well. Yeah, my dad is on insulin. It isn't fun. But at least it's a subcutaneous shot and not an intravenous. Still, he gets tired of shooting insulin in himself everyday. It's not just about the needle itself. It is the "one more thing I HAVE to do EVERY day" that becomes so monotonous. So yeah, I hope she is able to stay off of it and truly is something to be thankful for.

Ours was ok; the usual feast. Yesterday somehow I avoided the turkey coma, but tonight I just couldn't, so I went into the living room and evicted the cat from the couch, and fell over sideways onto a heap of pillows. Later I woke up, did the dishes, and had some pumpkin pie with a mountain of whipped cream on it. Yummmmmm. Now the cat is back on the couch in my spot, which seems to be the spot she prefers for her catnaps.

I'm thankful not only to be an EX-smoker, but personally; my mom hasn't been in the hospital this year since the 1st of June, and that is so wonderful; last year, the entire autumm was one hospital trip after another, all the way to xmas -- that was one of the factors that got me interested in e-cigs. I called her yesterday and told her how thankful I was that her health was better enough to avoid all those hospital trips, and she agrees, hating hospitals as bad as I do, and she agrees that for all her discomforts, she's been feeling a little better the last few months. But her doc gave her reason to pay a lot better attention to her diet -- if her blood sugar can't be brought down and kept that way, then pills will have to be exchanged for insulin by needle, and she HATES needles, so maybe she'll start taking a little better care of herself.

Andria

 

[Timothy Moore]

I guess I do have a battery question after all.
So I had a dead short in my mod the other day. I felt my mod heat up. Immediately I took the battery out of the mod, and the battery was SUPER hot. Like too hot to touch. Five minutes later, it is still hot. There was no venting or swelling of the battery, but I know it goes without saying this battery must go to the discard pile.

So I THOUGHT I knew what my problem was. I "fixed" what I thought was the problem, grabbed a second battery and took a toot. Well, I still hadn't fixed my problem. Dead short again. Battery starts to heat up. But this time, my reaction time was quicker, because I had just killed a battery and my senses were full on paying attention.

SO the second battery heated up. But not quite as hot as the first one. It was hot, but not quite the "too hot to touch" degree the first battery had gotten to.
(BTW, I was running the green 20Amp sonys)
Still took a minute or two for the second one to cool down.

Question is, should the second battery also be discarded? I mean it did heat up as a result of a dead short. But it didn't get as close to venting as the first one. I don't mean to take shortcuts with safety (which I why I am asking) but I don't want to throw away $15 worth of battery away either if I am being over cautious.

As I type this and going through it with y'all here, I realize the advice I would probably give to someone else asking the question would be "toss it. Why take a chance? Your safety is worth more than $15 or even $30 for two compromised batteries." I realize I should probably just discard them both. But I will pop the question out there anyways. After a year of sub-ohming, this has been my first incident. Never really dealt with this before.

 

[AndriaD]

That sounds good Andia. My cat kept crying for turkey. lol She is also thankful
And glad your mom is doing well. Yeah, my dad is on insulin. It isn't fun. But at least it's a subcutaneous shot and not an intravenous. Still, he gets tired of shooting insulin in himself everyday. It's not just about the needle itself. It is the "one more thing I HAVE to do EVERY day" that becomes so monotonous. So yeah, I hope she is able to stay off of it and truly is something to be thankful for.

Oh, our kitty GOT turkey -- she's a turkey-eating-cat and a half! T'giving night, she went straight to the back of the couch where she likes to perch so she can see us, and had her own turkey coma! But last night she just kept hanging around, I guess hoping for more.

My mom hates needles partly because everytime anything looks at her sideways, she gets a new bruise -- having to stick a needle in herself will just mean new bruises. I might suspect she'd get my stepfather to do it for her, but I don't think he will; if he does it and she gets a bruise, she'll blame him for "doing it wrong." Yeah, I don't think my stepdad is quite that dumb.

To be perfectly honest... I really doubt she'll be able to avoid the needle for long. She's just too stubborn and set in her ways, and since she quit smoking AND drinking, she has turned into a sugar junkie with a vengeance. Just lately she's facing having to have all her teeth pulled, because years of illness have basically destroyed them, and I told her she'd probably have to eat babyfood for a while, which isn't really too bad if you season it with salt and pepper -- she said NO WAY! and said she would just have a "blizzard" for every meal. I told her, that's not a meal, that's dessert, and you've had way too many of those already, which made her very angry, and she said she'll eat whatever the hell she feels like! That's the attitude that has brought her to this point, but she is unwilling and probably unable to change it, and will sugar herself right into the grave. But she managed to quit smoking (when she was literally coughing for ten minutes everytime she tried to speak a word), and drinking (AFTER she had cirrhosis). Maybe she can moderate her sugar intake... though with her track record, she would probably only consider it AFTER some limb(s) have been amputated. Despite having lost 3 of her siblings DIRECTLY from diabetes, she just doesn't get that it's a killer. I really don't know what it takes to get thru to her; maybe the needles will do it.

Andria

 

[darksparkle13]

Tim way to go!!!
Andria my dad never gave up smoking... we lost him in 2010 so at least your Mom gave that up. i know its hard to tell your parents what to do and they are so stubborn (hmmm wonder where we get it from)

I am on the horse just riding it sideways.. I am at three cigs a day and cant kick those... I know that is way better than a pack but still
i have a big order of WTA on the way. that has been a huge help but am only using it a third of the time.

I am also setting up a reward system for myself... it cant be vape gear cuz I like to buy that to much! so gotta set up other stuff.

 

[Timothy Moore]

Oddly enough, the reward system I had set up for myself actually ended up working backwards for me.
My reward system was - if I can go X days w/out smoking, I will get me Y gear and Z juice.
But I got impatient and went ahead and got Y gear and Z juice.
But it turned out for the best, because those were the very things that made just enough difference (new toy/new flavor appeal) to help kick start me back into vaping.
I think reward systems are great, and most of the time we should really discipline ourselves NOT to reward ourselves until the goal is met. But perhaps vape gear and juice aren't good rewards, because it's almost like saying "I will reward myself by purchasing a new saw AFTER I have finished building my house."

Justa thought. Another reason not to make gear a reward.

But good for you on the three a day. You are doing really good and making headway. After all, that is how many analogs a day you DIDNT smoke, right?

I have noticed a lot of flavor change in general this past week. Which was weird because usually I get the flavor/smell supereffect within three days of quitting smoking. This one crept up on me. The other night I was eating sunflower seeds, which I do regularly, and out of nowhere I was tasting them completely different.
Got that food reward going for me right now, even though I have been completely smoke free since the 7th.

So there is a free reward for you to look forward to as well.

Tim way to go!!!
Andria my dad never gave up smoking... we lost him in 2010 so at least your Mom gave that up. i know its hard to tell your parents what to do and they are so stubborn (hmmm wonder where we get it from)

I am on the horse just riding it sideways.. I am at three cigs a day and cant kick those... I know that is way better than a pack but still
i have a big order of WTA on the way. that has been a huge help but am only using it a third of the time.

I am also setting up a reward system for myself... it cant be vape gear cuz I like to buy that to much! so gotta set up other stuff.

 

[sofarsogood]

I just discovered this thread. I read a few of the posts. Some smokers have a lot more complicated challenges than I've had. So much for feeling sorry for myself. I've read accounts of people who say they smoked their last cig the day they started vaping. It wasn't so easy for me but here's the way I approached it.

I've got a pretty good record so far. Before I started vaping in early October I was clueless about the subject. I picked up on vaping from a buddy at work. The day I started my cigs declined 80% with no apparent effort and stayed there. I was quite impressed with that. I'll call that 80% control and a great success. The question was, could I get 100% control.

I decided that day instead of trying to get rid of the last 4 daily cigs right away I'd leave them alone and take some time to figure out devices and liquids and get some new habits. At first the liquids made me slightly queasy. I figured I'd get over that and I did. That took three weeks. I also couldn't easily tolerate the amount of nic I needed to be mostly distracted from cigs. Getting that right took a month and I'm still working on it. During that time I had a cig if I wanted one. That took the pressure off and eliminated anxiety but it was still just 4 a day so almost no will power involved.

I upgraded devices from a cheapy Puff brand device to a Nautilis mini. The last time I smoked a cig, 10 days ago, I got an Atlantis tank and a box mod that could power it. That was good timing because the money spent sharpened my focus and the Atlantis is so superior for taste and the quality of the vape that my other gear is relegated to backups. I let myself run out of cigs and haven't gotten more.

I think often about having a cigarette but there are none at hand and it seems easy to resist buying a pack. Vaping is not a perfect substitute for smoking but if the equipment and liquids are right it's enough distraction so I feel very little pressure to get more cigarettes.

The way I see it, I'm not "quitting", I'm taking control. At the moment I have 100% control but 80% was pretty impressive too. Sofarsogood.

 

[Timothy Moore]

Welcome to the thread
I would say more, but I just woke up from a nap and still groggy. But figured I could at least get a good "welcome to the thread" out to ya.

I just discovered this thread. I read a few of the posts. Some smokers have a lot more complicated challenges than I've had. So much for feeling sorry for myself. I've read accounts of people who say they smoked their last cig the day they started vaping. It wasn't so easy for me but here's the way I approached it.

I've got a pretty good record so far. Before I started vaping in early October I was clueless about the subject. I picked up on vaping from a buddy at work. The day I started my cigs declined 80% with no apparent effort and stayed there. I was quite impressed with that. I'll call that 80% control and a great success. The question was, could I get 100% control.

I decided that day instead of trying to get rid of the last 4 daily cigs right away I'd leave them alone and take some time to figure out devices and liquids and get some new habits. At first the liquids made me slightly queasy. I figured I'd get over that and I did. That took three weeks. I also couldn't easily tolerate the amount of nic I needed to be mostly distracted from cigs. Getting that right took a month and I'm still working on it. During that time I had a cig if I wanted one. That took the pressure off and eliminated anxiety but it was still just 4 a day so almost no will power involved.

I upgraded devices from a cheapy Puff brand device to a Nautilis mini. The last time I smoked a cig, 10 days ago, I got an Atlantis tank and a box mod that could power it. That was good timing because the money spent sharpened my focus and the Atlantis is so superior for taste and the quality of the vape that my other gear is relegated to backups. I let myself run out of cigs and haven't gotten more.

I think often about having a cigarette but there are none at hand and it seems easy to resist buying a pack. Vaping is not a perfect substitute for smoking but if the equipment and liquids are right it's enough distraction so I feel very little pressure to get more cigarettes.

The way I see it, I'm not "quitting", I'm taking control. At the moment I have 100% control but 80% was pretty impressive too. Sofarsogood.

 

[AndriaD]

I have noticed a lot of flavor change in general this past week. Which was weird because usually I get the flavor/smell supereffect within three days of quitting smoking. This one crept up on me. The other night I was eating sunflower seeds, which I do regularly, and out of nowhere I was tasting them completely different.
Got that food reward going for me right now, even though I have been completely smoke free since the 7th.

The flavor thing has come in fits and starts to me. About 2 wks after I quit (the first time, back in March), I was cooking bacon one morning, and though I have always lovedLovedLOVED bacon, when I got a bit of bacon grease on my fingers and licked them, it was like WHAM! Bacon is GRRRRRRRRREAT! all of a sudden... like I didn't know that already, right? But it just hit me right between the eyes, that delicious ZING! to the tastebuds just from that little taste of grease. And it only took about 3-4 wks of not smoking for the smell of cigarette smoke, when I'd be "out in the world," to gross me right out -- how the HELL did I willingly inhale that for 39 YEARS??? Yet when I went back to smoking in June, the taste wasn't all that bad even for the first couple, and by the time I'd smoked 3-4, it was just the taste of "home" all over again. But I never did re-learn to enjoy the smell, even during that brief relapse; when I came back inside, I'd have to wash my hands immediately to get rid of the stench.

This time around, I can really tell that my tastebuds are changing, because the Virginia that I thought was the be-all and end-all just tastes like crap to me now, most of the time -- most I can stand at all is maybe 2-3 puffs, and that's only a) after eating, or b) if I have an actual desire for a cigarette -- though I mostly don't get those at all, thanks to WTA. Actually I don't think I've even touched my vv3/kayfun with the Virginia in it for over a week, and haven't missed it, so I guess it's time to re-purpose that Kayfun for something else. Problem is, my ADV is now the blueberry muffin/banana nut bread, and there really isn't any other flavor that I really enjoy. The Inawera Cappucino is pretty good, but I don't think I could stand it too often, I'm not much of a coffee fan anymore. Someone PIFed me some FlavorWest Coconut Cream Pie, and I keep meaning to mix up some of that, but haven't yet -- procrastination being my chief art form. Mainly I just have no idea what percentage of flavor to use with that, and nobody seems to know any good sites for FW recipes.

Andria

 

[etherealink]

I guess I do have a battery question after all.
So I had a dead short in my mod the other day. I felt my mod heat up. Immediately I took the battery out of the mod, and the battery was SUPER hot. Like too hot to touch. Five minutes later, it is still hot. There was no venting or swelling of the battery, but I know it goes without saying this battery must go to the discard pile.

So I THOUGHT I knew what my problem was. I "fixed" what I thought was the problem, grabbed a second battery and took a toot. Well, I still hadn't fixed my problem. Dead short again. Battery starts to heat up. But this time, my reaction time was quicker, because I had just killed a battery and my senses were full on paying attention.

SO the second battery heated up. But not quite as hot as the first one. It was hot, but not quite the "too hot to touch" degree the first battery had gotten to.
(BTW, I was running the green 20Amp sonys)
Still took a minute or two for the second one to cool down.

Question is, should the second battery also be discarded? I mean it did heat up as a result of a dead short. But it didn't get as close to venting as the first one. I don't mean to take shortcuts with safety (which I why I am asking) but I don't want to throw away $15 worth of battery away either if I am being over cautious.

As I type this and going through it with y'all here, I realize the advice I would probably give to someone else asking the question would be "toss it. Why take a chance? Your safety is worth more than $15 or even $30 for two compromised batteries." I realize I should probably just discard them both. But I will pop the question out there anyways. After a year of sub-ohming, this has been my first incident. Never really dealt with this before.

Hold up on tossing the batteries Tim.

First the "green Sony's" are 30 amp and not 20 and secondly, I push them well beyond that mark and have had them "dead short" many times due to an error on my part and they still perform like champs.
Was it a loose screw, atty-to-mod connection issue, juice under the 510 connection issue or what?

First rule of thumb for me is this: if you get a dead short, in any electrical circuit, clean and check everything that is not solid (read "unbroken current carrying-not resisting-wire") and try again. If you have a short in a rebuildable anything, it is almost undoubtedly something loose, tighten everything to the point of ALMOST stripping screws and PULSE your build. If you short while you pulse, you will not 99% of the time cause a battery to fail unless your switch does. This is where an unregulated mechanical mod can get people into trouble.

Unregulated mechanical mod's simply dump power from the battery into the rest of the circuit without knowing anything about whether or not it is safe. They simply do one thing: provide power to the coil. Check everything and clean everything and try it again.

IMO, my most trusted mod gets a warm spot near my thumb on every hit with every battery I have and there is never an issue. BTW, that's at 0.09 ohms dual-coiled on a Doge atty and a nearly year old Stingray clone set up as a hybrid (no positive pin, direct battery connection). And yes, I use "green Sony" vtc4 and vtc5 batteries as well as the purple EFEST batteries in it daily. The Sony batteries are rated at 30 amps continuous and EFEST at 35 amps continuous draw (meaning they can "safely" push that amperage through the charge with minimal chance of failure).

While I cannot overstate the importance of safety, before you toss out $30 of batteries, spend $20 and get a multimeter (you should have one if you are rebuilding anyway). Test the battery, when it cools off, and see what it reads. Even a battery that autofired on me was still safely above 3 volts.

In any event, getting hot is a bad sign, when you sub-ohm hot happens. I can go into more detail, but its better left to outside this thread so as not to make it more confusing to beginning vapers.

Best of luck Tim.

 

[etherealink]

The flavor thing has come in fits and starts to me. About 2 wks after I quit (the first time, back in March), I was cooking bacon one morning, and though I have always lovedLovedLOVED bacon, when I got a bit of bacon grease on my fingers and licked them, it was like WHAM! Bacon is GRRRRRRRRREAT! all of a sudden... like I didn't know that already, right? But it just hit me right between the eyes, that delicious ZING! to the tastebuds just from that little taste of grease. And it only took about 3-4 wks of not smoking for the smell of cigarette smoke, when I'd be "out in the world," to gross me right out -- how the HELL did I willingly inhale that for 39 YEARS??? Yet when I went back to smoking in June, the taste wasn't all that bad even for the first couple, and by the time I'd smoked 3-4, it was just the taste of "home" all over again. But I never did re-learn to enjoy the smell, even during that brief relapse; when I came back inside, I'd have to wash my hands immediately to get rid of the stench.

This time around, I can really tell that my tastebuds are changing, because the Virginia that I thought was the be-all and end-all just tastes like crap to me now, most of the time -- most I can stand at all is maybe 2-3 puffs, and that's only a) after eating, or b) if I have an actual desire for a cigarette -- though I mostly don't get those at all, thanks to WTA. Actually I don't think I've even touched my vv3/kayfun with the Virginia in it for over a week, and haven't missed it, so I guess it's time to re-purpose that Kayfun for something else. Problem is, my ADV is now the blueberry muffin/banana nut bread, and there really isn't any other flavor that I really enjoy. The Inawera Cappucino is pretty good, but I don't think I could stand it too often, I'm not much of a coffee fan anymore. Someone PIFed me some FlavorWest Coconut Cream Pie, and I keep meaning to mix up some of that, but haven't yet -- procrastination being my chief art form. Mainly I just have no idea what percentage of flavor to use with that, and nobody seems to know any good sites for FW recipes.

Andria

Andria,

With any flavor, I start around 15%.

Try that at a 1ml batch with a "baby dripper/rda" and no nic to test the flavor percentage. If you don't have one and do diy juice I'll send you one already set up. Its a life saver when testing. My standby testers have the same coils for many months and only need wicking when the flavors are garbage.

Also, keep some pg/vg base (no nic/no flavor) handy to "prep" your wicks with when you rebuild. Even a few drags without a flavor is better to calm the nerves and know something works right then loading a full tank only to empty it and start over.

Just a thought and uhm.... bacon... lol!

 

[etherealink]

BTW if you're diabetic and have syringes lying about... toss some clear nail polish on them and pull out the needle, they are great for diy.

I use them all the time for flavorings since they are easy to read and almost fool proof.

0.85ml of your base (pg/vg at any percentage) and 0.15ml of flavoring gives you a fairly accurate mark to start at.

Take notes and enjoy!

 

[AndriaD]

Andria,

With any flavor, I start around 15%.

Try that at a 1ml batch with a "baby dripper/rda" and no nic to test the flavor percentage. If you don't have one and do diy juice I'll send you one already set up. Its a life saver when testing. My standby testers have the same coils for many months and only need wicking when the flavors are garbage.

Also, keep some pg/vg base (no nic/no flavor) handy to "prep" your wicks with when you rebuild. Even a few drags without a flavor is better to calm the nerves and know something works right then loading a full tank only to empty it and start over.

Just a thought and uhm.... bacon... lol!

Yeah, I've got an Igo-S, and it's perfect for the use I bought it for: testing! The airflow is very similar to the kayfun's, so it gives me a pretty good idea what a flavor will be like, in one of my tanks.

Not to worry about calming nerves, though; I always keep my vamo/cartotank handy with the blueberry/banana, no matter what else I'm doing.

I'll try that coconut cream pie at 15% and see how it does. I'm very curious if adding a drop or two of "graham cracker (v2)" would help the "pie" taste. Also curious if the coconut cream pie would be good with some added chocolate; I've got a few different chocolate flavors; FW double dutch, TFA double choc-dark, and TFA milk choc. I may need to test out that idea; I love chocolate and coconut!

It's so weird how the different brands of flavors have such different requirements; the Inawera Cappucino works well at 4%!

Andria

EDIT: not diabetic, but have a buttload of syringes, they're my favorite means of doing anything with ejuice, and I FINALLY! got some 1ml syringes from WizLabs, so I can measure .01 amounts!

 

[Timothy Moore]

eth - thank you
You are right, 30A.

I did fix the problem, but I had heard that once you get a battery that hot, the internal chemistry is compromised resulting in higher chance of failure in the future. But if I am safe, I will keep them.

W/out giving all the innumerable details of the story -
>rewick (kept same coil)
>battery overheats
>wet 510 scenario
>assume wet 510 is source of issue, dry, new battery, refire
>also heats up
>discover loose screw situation
(the center screw also holds that half of the mounting base in place. It had become loose, leaving half of the mount loose. The springiness of the coil had pulled the loose mount up into itself, making direct connection between coil and mount across the whole surface of the coil.)

I do have a tester, which I SHOULD have used after the first short. But seeing the wet 510, I assumed that was the problem. And you know what they say, assumption is the mother of all fu......mistakes.

I did not know you could diagnose a battery with a tester. I mean I knew you could see how much charge is left, but didn't know such info could tell you if an overheated battery was still viable.
I just had heard overheated batteries are compromised batteries.
The second battery is fine
The first battery is only showing .5v. So does that one get tossed or recharged?

Hold up on tossing the batteries Tim.

First the "green Sony's" are 30 amp and not 20 and secondly, I push them well beyond that mark and have had them "dead short" many times due to an error on my part and they still perform like champs.
Was it a loose screw, atty-to-mod connection issue, juice under the 510 connection issue or what?

First rule of thumb for me is this: if you get a dead short, in any electrical circuit, clean and check everything that is not solid (read "unbroken current carrying-not resisting-wire") and try again. If you have a short in a rebuildable anything, it is almost undoubtedly something loose, tighten everything to the point of ALMOST stripping screws and PULSE your build. If you short while you pulse, you will not 99% of the time cause a battery to fail unless your switch does. This is where an unregulated mechanical mod can get people into trouble.

Unregulated mechanical mod's simply dump power from the battery into the rest of the circuit without knowing anything about whether or not it is safe. They simply do one thing: provide power to the coil. Check everything and clean everything and try it again.

IMO, my most trusted mod gets a warm spot near my thumb on every hit with every battery I have and there is never an issue. BTW, that's at 0.09 ohms dual-coiled on a Doge atty and a nearly year old Stingray clone set up as a hybrid (no positive pin, direct battery connection). And yes, I use "green Sony" vtc4 and vtc5 batteries as well as the purple EFEST batteries in it daily. The Sony batteries are rated at 30 amps continuous and EFEST at 35 amps continuous draw (meaning they can "safely" push that amperage through the charge with minimal chance of failure).

While I cannot overstate the importance of safety, before you toss out $30 of batteries, spend $20 and get a multimeter (you should have one if you are rebuilding anyway). Test the battery, when it cools off, and see what it reads. Even a battery that autofired on me was still safely above 3 volts.

In any event, getting hot is a bad sign, when you sub-ohm hot happens. I can go into more detail, but its better left to outside this thread so as not to make it more confusing to beginning vapers.

Best of luck Tim.