The cloud chasing fad

[FStopFive]

I guess this is the main reason that it seems silly to me; I was under the impression that big clouds meant high-VG, so it seems there wouldn't be much flavor. However now that I'm starting the DIY thing, I realize that some VG is necessary if you want any vapor at all; the mixes I've made that come out to 90% PG, there's so little vapor that there really isn't a lot of taste, even though PG is supposed to carry flavor better. So I'm going more toward 75PG/25VG, so there is *some* vapor, and a much better flavor. I can see that those with normal lungs, who can vape 50/50 or even more VG without issues, probably would prefer a thicker vapor, just for flavor. I just don't get exchanging flavor for massive vapor; *that* is really what seems silly.

Andria

Everything I vape is a 30pg/70vg ratio...and it has better taste than pretty much any other juice I've tried. I totally agree with sacrificing taste just for larger clouds. If that were of interest to someone they could just vape straight vg and save a lot of money on flavored juice to begin with.

Like everything, ymmv and it really depends on how the juice is made.

Just wanted to throw this into the mix and say that higher vg juice can still taste dope also.

 

[Chelonian]

I get a kick out of people who didn't smoke, know NOTHING about vaping, and buy a cheap clone setup, and promptly want to sub ohm.

I personally know three people in their low 20's that I work with who have done this.

Since I helped them, now their friends are coming to me as well. I set up 3-5 rigs a week because of this. I just can't let them walk around like that.

So, in response to OP's subject, it certainly IS a fad, and it certainly IS bringing more people into contact with nicotine who hadn't smoked prior to vaping. I have yet to meet one who used 0% nic juices, and they all "wanna blow dem cloudz"

I can spot them a mile off - they come wandering in, a lost look on their face, and without fail they have some of the largest 18650 setups you can buy - straight up lightsabers - clutched in their hands, awkwardly held out before them.

It's fine if an adult decides that they want to sub ohm - but as an adult, they should learn how to correctly do so. So my problem isn't with cloud chasing - I engage in it myself, from time to time. It's the almost willfull ignorance that a certain segment seem to possess, and many of those that I have helped seem to think that I should just keep on building their RDA's for them. It's an odd little group, and in my experience, they are, without fail, cloud chaser.

The proverbial bad apple, unfortunately.

EDIT

Most of them like brass/copper as well...the brighter the better, with bonus points for a logo that looks like a jailhouse tattoo.

And one more time, to be clear - I am not saying that I am anti cloud chasing. Nor am I saying that all cloud chasers are like this. I am saying that cloud chasing seems to attract that sort.

 

[Rocketpunk]

I encounter kids like this on a daily basis. I do my best to inform them about battery safety, using a multimeter or an Ohm checker to check the resistance of their builds, and inform them about Ohms Law, amp limits, etc. I'd say one out of every five "gets it". I can tell when I'm losing them. Their eyes glaze over and they say "uh huh" to everything I'm talking about, but I know it's going in one ear and out the other. And yes, they are all young men in their late teens or early 20's. I fear for the female populace. A good man IS hard to find if these are the boys they have to choose from.

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk

 

[Rocketpunk]

I get a kick out of people who didn't smoke, know NOTHING about vaping, and buy a cheap clone setup, and promptly want to sub ohm.

I personally know three people in their low 20's that I work with who have done this.

Since I helped them, now their friends are coming to me as well. I set up 3-5 rigs a week because of this. I just can't let them walk around like that.

So, in response to OP's subject, it certainly IS a fad, and it certainly IS bringing more people into contact with nicotine who hadn't smoked prior to vaping. I have yet to meet one who used 0% nic juices, and they all "wanna blow dem cloudz"

I can spot them a mile off - they come wandering in, a lost look on their face, and without fail they have some of the largest 18650 setups you can buy - straight up lightsabers - clutched in their hands, awkwardly held out before them.

It's fine if an adult decides that they want to sub ohm - but as an adult, they should learn how to correctly do so. So my problem isn't with cloud chasing - I engage in it myself, from time to time. It's the almost willfull ignorance that a certain segment seem to possess, and many of those that I have helped seem to think that I should just keep on building their RDA's for them. It's an odd little group, and in my experience, they are, without fail, cloud chaser.

The proverbial bad apple, unfortunately.

EDIT

Most of them like brass/copper as well...the brighter the better, with bonus points for a logo that looks like a jailhouse tattoo.

And one more time, to be clear - I am not saying that I am anti cloud chasing. Nor am I saying that all cloud chasers are like this. I am saying that cloud chasing seems to attract that sort.

I encounter kids like this on a daily basis. I do my best to inform them about battery safety, using a multimeter or an Ohm checker to check the resistance of their builds, and inform them about Ohms Law, amp limits, etc. I'd say one out of every five "gets it". I can tell when I'm losing them. Their eyes glaze over and they say "uh huh" to everything I'm talking about, but I know it's going in one ear and out the other. And yes, they are all young men in their late teens or early 20's. I fear for the female populace. A good man IS hard to find if these are the boys they have to choose from.

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk

 

[Rocketpunk]

Double post, stupid Kindle.

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk

 

[Chelonian]

Nooooo, awesome Kindle

I love my collection. I have an original, and Fire HD, and a Paperwhite.

The Paperwhite is my fav.

 

[ukeman]

I guess this is the main reason that it seems silly to me; I was under the impression that big clouds meant high-VG, so it seems there wouldn't be much flavor. However now that I'm starting the DIY thing, I realize that some VG is necessary if you want any vapor at all; the mixes I've made that come out to 90% PG, there's so little vapor that there really isn't a lot of taste, even though PG is supposed to carry flavor better. So I'm going more toward 75PG/25VG, so there is *some* vapor, and a much better flavor. I can see that those with normal lungs, who can vape 50/50 or even more VG without issues, probably would prefer a thicker vapor, just for flavor. I just don't get exchanging flavor for massive vapor; *that* is really what seems silly.

Andria

That is a changing perspective Andria... I've spent a lot of time on the DIY threads here and we have one of the best sub forums for DIY.
Lately there's been a movement away from PG, and its not all about the vapor production.
In fact the bad rap that VG got in the flavor dept. is merely because of the thickness. We are finding that in itself, VG has a cleaner taste than PG.
The reason PG is said to carry flavor better is because it wicks faster, and it takes more time for VG to integrate the flavorings.
More and more experienced DIY'ers are going with more VG today (50/50 and up) some use all VG (except for the bit of PG in your nic or flavor concetrates) with better results.
What many do now is thin the VG with some distilled water or combo of dw and saline up to 20% of the mix.

 

[iz2sick]

If your high VG juice is not flavor, time to reconsider your juice brand of choice.

VapeOholic, VaperGate, Steam Juice, NicoTicket... countless others all make very good high VG juices.

Your build and airflow also matter... even the force of your inhale matters. See, many of you think we just build as low of a resistance we can and go on our merry ways. That's far from the truth.

 

[AndriaD]

many of those that I have helped seem to think that I should just keep on building their RDA's for them.

Charge them! I ran into this kind of stuff when I *first* got online back in 1989... in the early 90s I was playing with Fidonet, which required you run a separate program from your BBS software, called Frontdoor, and it was a real pain to setup, with batchfiles and errorlevels and all kinds of fun DOS stuff... so when they started asking me if I would set it up for them, I started saying, sure, for $50... and quite a few of them paid! It was a nice cottage industry for a while.

Andria

 

[AndriaD]

That is a changing perspective Andria... I've spent a lot of time on the DIY threads here and we have one of the best sub forums for DIY.
Lately there's been a movement away from PG, and its not all about the vapor production.
In fact the bad rap that VG got in the flavor dept. is merely because of the thickness. We are finding that in itself, VG has a cleaner taste than PG.
The reason PG is said to carry flavor better is because it wicks faster, and it takes more time for VG to integrate the flavorings.
More and more experienced DIY'ers are going with more VG today (50/50 and up) some use all VG (except for the bit of PG in your nic or flavor concetrates) with better results.
What many do now is thin the VG with some distilled water or combo of dw and saline up to 20% of the mix.

I've tried the thinning with water, but that seems to negatively affect taste more than high-PG. I have to stick with high PG because with my asthma, VG just seems to shut my lungs down; really thick vapor just chokes me, brings on an asthma attack, and if there's more than 30% VG, I walk around feeling and sounding like I've got a hairball I can't cough up. I've discovered that staying hydrated helps some -- when I start feeling that crud in my throat, I start guzzling water like nobody's business and it does help -- but for me the only real way of addressing it is staying at about 75% PG. I've tried going even higher, but as I said, once you get over 80% PG, there's so little vapor that it's just not very satisfying.

Andria

 

[Ryedan]

What many do now is thin the VG with some distilled water or combo of dw and saline up to 20% of the mix.

What is the advantage of salt ukeman?

 

[imsoenthused]

I'm curious myself about the saline, I've always used distilled water or PGA for diluting VG.

 

[stevegmu]

Salt brings out sweetness...

 

[freeall]

On my way to work this morning, I'm sitting at a red light and there's this guy next to me, not that young either, probably like 30 or so, and he's blowing massive vapor out his window and sunroof haha. I looked over at him and he was blowing his clouds, then he would look around at other cars to see if anyone was watching lol. He knew I was looking, so you could tell he was quickly trying to drip more juice on his unit, then blow more and more. It was hilarious.

He put on a good show for 30 seconds. I got a good laugh out of it.

 

[rondasherrill]

On my way to work this morning, I'm sitting at a red light and there's this guy next to me, not that young either, probably like 30 or so, and he's blowing massive vapor out his window and sunroof haha. I looked over at him and he was blowing his clouds, then he would look around at other cars to see if anyone was watching lol. He knew I was looking, so you could tell he was quickly trying to drip more juice on his unit, then blow more and more. It was hilarious.

He put on a good show for 30 seconds. I got a good laugh out of it.

LOL I always kinda feel sorry for people like that... Their self esteem is SOOO wrapped up in other people. Don't people grow out of that in their 20's?

 

[ukeman]

I've tried the thinning with water, but that seems to negatively affect taste more than high-PG. I have to stick with high PG because with my asthma, VG just seems to shut my lungs down; really thick vapor just chokes me, brings on an asthma attack, and if there's more than 30% VG, I walk around feeling and sounding like I've got a hairball I can't cough up. I've discovered that staying hydrated helps some -- when I start feeling that crud in my throat, I start guzzling water like nobody's business and it does help -- but for me the only real way of addressing it is staying at about 75% PG. I've tried going even higher, but as I said, once you get over 80% PG, there's so little vapor that it's just not very satisfying.

Andria

oh.. now that you mention it, I might have to try that. I do get some wheezing from all the vaping (since going sub ohms I've had to lower my nic % but I vape a lot more overall)
And whenever I get a seasonal flu maybe once or twice a year, it turns into an asthma thing and I have to stop vaping or at least cut back drastically.
I'll try the PG route and see if it helps!

 

[rondasherrill]

oh.. now that you mention it, I might have to try that. I do get some wheezing from all the vaping (since going sub ohms I've had to lower my nic % but I vape a lot more overall)
And whenever I get a seasonal flu maybe once or twice a year, it turns into an asthma thing and I have to stop vaping or at least cut back drastically.
I'll try the PG route and see if it helps!

I've never even thought about the idea of using DW in my e-liquid. Maybe that is something I should look into. High levels of PG for me feels like someone slowly tightening a sharp clamp around my wind pipe, with each drag. I use 80%VG right now, so that I still get a decent throat hit and the e-liquid is thin enough to wick well in whatever topper I use.

 

[ukeman]

What is the advantage of salt ukeman?

Well quite a few of the DIY folks that I respect use it and say it helps moisten the vape reducing that dryness in the thoat, smooths out the flavors a bit as far as I recall.
You should use a 0.9% sodium chloride solution with no additives, and up to 10% of overall mix.
I finally got some without going the DIY route: a sterile wash USP NaCi from GaugeGearAftercare.com on ebay.
Its a lot cheaper to make it yourself though.

 

[ukeman]

I've never even thought about the idea of using DW in my e-liquid. Maybe that is something I should look into. High levels of PG for me feels like someone slowly tightening a sharp clamp around my wind pipe, with each drag. I use 80%VG right now, so that I still get a decent throat hit and the e-liquid is thin enough to wick well in whatever topper I use.

Yeah DW is great for thinning VG.

There's a thread in DIY sub forum called something like "Master techniques for DIY additives"... and it goes through all the additives from sweeteners, smoothers, sour on and on... if you read through to the last 25 or 30% of the long thread it turns out that after extensive tests all those additives end up diminishing the flavors except for DW and Saline.

 

[rondasherrill]

Yeah DW is great for thinning VG.

There's a thread in DIY sub forum called something like "Master techniques for DIY additives"... and it goes through all the additives from sweeteners, smoothers, sour on and on... if you read through to the last 25 or 30% of the long thread it turns out that after extensive tests all those additives end up diminishing the flavors except for DW and Saline.

Good to know! I haven't looked around much since I came back to the forum. I was away for over a year. I knew about DW and vinegar and all the other stuff, but just figured VG and PG were good enough since I vape unflavored.