What now? Help me decide!

[LisaL]

Okay 4 weeks ago today a coworker came in my office wth a Blu disposable - "you've got to try this!" - so I did. Later that afternoon I'm at Walgreens - bought a Blu starter kit x 2 - 1 for me and 1 for him.

2 days later gave my leftover cigarettes to my husband. "This is awesome, thank you baby Jesus!"

Well crap - halfway through my sample box of cartridges - back to Walgreens. What? No Java Jolt? But it's my faaaaaavorite. Whining. Buy Vivid Vanilla. 14.99 well spent - tastes like a cupcake.

Saturday night - "we have to order more cartridges - they're cheaper online"

Ordered 2 boxes of Java Jolt (yay!), one cherry, one vanilla, one pina colada, one peach schnapps.

A few days later - "crap, I'm out again!" Back to Walgreens, bought a box of cherry and a box of vanilla. 32 bucks with tax.

Is this cheaper? Yeah probably. But I'm sucking on this thing ALL. THE. TIME.

Package arrives from Blu. Rip it open with my teeth and considering chewing on Java Jolt. Decide against. Try to vape it. Tastes like burnt popcorn. WHAT?? Vanilla - tastes like air freshener. Cherry is more blah than bomb. Vanilla reminds me of Glade.

WTF? Things were going SO good! Bought Blu disposable. Tastes like ashtray.

Okay, I need to get serious here. Tried a regular cigarette. Oh my goodness. Yes. That's what I want. Bought more Blu carts instead. I really don't want to smoke. Off to the internets - there has to be a way!

Found Jet carts - ordered one of each flavor.

Found juice - hmmmmm, more nicotine? All the flavors of the rainbow? Yes please!

Hmmmm, Smokeless Image? Labor Day sale? Ordered 2 Volt batteries, a charger, some empty carts. I got this alllllll figured out. Oh except the juice part. Which is best? Where to buy? I bet there's a forum somewhere ...

Found this forum.

Clearly I know nothing.

So.

What now?

Ideally I think (clueless I know) I'd like to have a Blu/Volt type of thing to carry around at work. And something bigger to honk on at home. An ego type thing maybe? Clearomizer? I don't want anything too fiddly. When I was smoking I'd run out and hammer down a cigarette a couple of times but basically chain smoke all morning and night. Addicts are us I guess. Anyway, I need to figure something out before I have to go have this Blu removed from my trachea.

Do I stop here and wait for the goods? Any chance in hell I'm going to be satisfied? Should I bite the bullet now while there's so many sales? Help please

 

[Amish Ed]

Get a couple of eGo Twists (1000mah), charger, couple Vivi Novas, and some juice and you'll be much more satisfied. Once you get used to those, you can think about stepping in deeper.

 

[TBinAZ]

Howdy, Lisa. I sense some excitement here. Keep it going, you won't be disappointed. Sounds like you may have been wasting a little money so far, but not a big deal.

For popular juices go here first. There are tons of opinions out there, but you'll get a pretty good idea. http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...discussion/304212-top-5-vendors-e-liquid.html

As far as hardware goes, don't go too crazy right off the bat unless you really want to. I would suggest an eGo Twist battery and maybe an additional eGo Passthrough to start. Do a little searching and you will see what they are and who has the best deals right now. It really is hard to keep track. The stuff you put the juice in depends on how much you are willing to fiddle around. There are a lot of things out there that take a bit of 'mastering' as far as if it will work for you. I think you will like tanks, but just a guess. The Mini Vivi Nova will probably work for you if you decide to go the eGo route to begin with. Very easy to use. There is more stuff out there than you would believe. Everyone has their personal favorites.

Edit: Here is a great thread to find who has good deals going on at any given time. http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/pay-forward-pif/85781-deals-steals.html

Good luck with it.

 

[Iusedtoanalog]

Hi Lisa, You certainly have a grip on at minimum the lingo and some of the parts.... Welcome to the ECF.

So you have found the love for vaping, what nicotine level are you currently using with the blu cartos?
When fisrt starting I advise everyone to get the level they think they will need plus one higher and one lower. With that said if you like the blue flavors then you could just get the liquid from here Johnson Creek Original Smoke Juice - The Best E-Liquid in the World - Made Right Here in America . They are the supplier for all the blu flavors, and(i'm pretty sure) they have a selection of liquids that are not available from blu also.

As far as an ego type thingy .... you would do well to look at an eGo twist (Spare eGo-C Twist Battery for Joye eGo 650mah ) and top that with a simple Boge cartomizer ( Boge 510 Cartomizers for 510 or eGo ) or a kanger t2 clearomizer (eGo 2.4ml CC CE4 Clearomizer ), or the x2 from volt would be the same form factor(no adjustments though) as an ego and it has threading to accept the volt cartos. I have found all of these options to be very fiddle free and both very satisfying as well.

Finding a juice you enjoy and nailing down a nic strength that suit you are the two things that are personal preference and will take some experimenting to get just right. You are off to a great start. Good Luck. Happy Vaping.

 

[lotsoffish]

I would WAIT on those Twists.

Get your volt first and use that for a while until the reviews come in on the new Kgo VV batteries.

You outta at least see if the Volt is the ticket for you and give those Kgo VV's a little time to be reviewed before buying more "stuff".

 

[SolemnPenguin]

I think you'll be happy with the volt. And if you want something bigger with the same threading (batter to cart connection) they have the X2 as well. Which is a higher capacity battery that also is a pass through (you can use it while it's charging)

If you want the cigarette form factor the volts are the place to be. They have a voltage regulator, which means they work the same throughout the cycle of the battery rather than steadily loosing power. They also have the CE3's which are really nice.

Their juices aren't bad either.

A step up from there would be the eGo Twist as Amish Ed said. But that will have different threading than the Volts you ordered (but it may be the same as the Blu. I'm not sure what the blu has) The twist allows you to turn up the heat a bit by changing the voltage the battery is putting out. Some juices taste better hotter and others don't. There's also some personal preference in there.

Calm down, take a deep breath and do a lot of reading here. You've got some good stuff coming.

 

[ChiCity]

I did the same thing, started on Blu, liked it enough, but one of the batteries died and the carts were adding up. I was actually able to return the starter kit to Walgreens and they refunded the total cost, which was great. Picked up an eGo-t tank system and love it, about 4 weeks and no problems so far. I tried one of the eGo Vision clearmizers and really liked that as well, easy to use. Now I just got a glass tank from ibtanked that uses cartomizers, so far so good.

I was a pack/day+ smoker and haven't had any problems giving them up for this instead. Welcome.

 

[Vapoor eyes er]

Agree. I have a Kgo VV on order but it is first generation so I realize I'm taking a chance. So far (8 months) been very impressed with my Kgo 1100.

I would WAIT on those Twists.

Get your volt first and use that for a while until the reviews come in on the new Kgo VV batteries.

You outta at least see if the Volt is the ticket for you and give those Kgo VV's a little time to be reviewed before buying more "stuff".

 

[LisaL]

Thank goodness someone replied - thank you for easing my posting anxiety!

@Amish Ed - I am interested in the ego twist but those tanks are ugly. I'm a girl, I need pretty things!

@TBinAZ - thanks for the deals link - love a bargain - I can't find a picture of a vivi mini on a twist but it might be more visually pleasing - I've short listed a few vendors for juice - I'll be ordering a couple of sample packs tonight

@Iusedtobeanalog - the Blu's are 18mg - allegedly - lol I think I will order 24mg to start with. Or maybe 18. I don't know yet. To be clear I am NOT loving or even liking the flavors. The carts included in the starter kit taste completely different than the ones I ordered directly from Blu. And OH! I forgot that I actually ordered one of the bigger volt batteries too - so I am getting a regular and an x2 - does that change things?

@lotsofish The main reason I'm thinking of going ahead with another purchase is because I'm worried I'm going to find it very tedious to refill those tiny carts. But on the other hand I think big tanks are super ugly. So there's that! I saw some pretty pretty colored thingys though somewhere - not sure where though, or even what they fit on!

@SolemnPenguin Okay. Breathing. So I actually have the bigger volt with the pass through coming. Ce3s are confusing me though. Is it essentially a cartomizer without fluff? How do it work? lol

@ChiCity You were lucky! We actually got really tickled when we were buying the Blu starter kits because the lady kept telling us over and over that they were NOT returnable. I guess that should have been a clu. Ha - PUN. No wait, not a pun? What do you call an intentional misspelling anyway ....

@Vapor Eyes - KGO is new to me - something else to look at now

 

[SissySpike]

Very well written Lisa gave me a good chuckle. You are doing what most every one of us did. I would suggest getting a Variable Voltage or Variable wattage Mod Egos are ok but they just end up in the trash. Check out youtube lots of good info there also. Heres a couple links to some other sores of good info The Vape Book http://guidetovaping.com/ Welcome!
Id suggest a Lava tube before a disposable battery. The Joker from Vaperlife is a great little stater mod

 

[dejavoodoo]

@Amish Ed - I am interested in the ego twist but those tanks are ugly. I'm a girl, I need pretty things!

oh, so your looking for the chick factor?!! check this out Batteries Sold Separately


those ugle twist batteries look a bit different here; put a lavender clearomizer on it, top that with a gold or colored drip tip and you are tres' chic for less than $30!!

 

[SolemnPenguin]

@SolemnPenguin Okay. Breathing. So I actually have the bigger volt with the pass through coming. Ce3s are confusing me though. Is it essentially a cartomizer without fluff? How do it work? lol

Yep. They are cartomizers without the fluff. The only trick to them is filling them with a syringe and keeping them upside down while you do it. But they come with the syringe. There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to do it. They are sometimes called Phoenix Clearomizers because that what GotVapes calls them. People really like them as they have a pretty clean flavor after you clean them or break them in or dry burn them (YouTube again) and a lot of vapor.

I would provide links but I'm on my cell phone and not sure how to do it.

 

[JENerationX]

Get your volts, use them... that's where I started after the crappy smoke shop thing I had. Now I use my 78mm volts, my Volt X2s. I use 650mah X2s, about the size of a cigar with clearos (they're phasing out the clearos with something new for the X2s and the Ce3s are great). I also have a mechanical rebuildable that I use exclusively at home, but I'm a year into this, I'm not smoking at all anymore, and the Volts are what got me here.

For liquid, if you liked the vanilla and java, I love Kick Bass Vapor for their coffee and bakery flavors.

 

[damthisisfun]

KGO 1100mah........sweet.........and in pretty colors for the ladies..........me like it so far - but only 2 weeks........

 

[Perpetualsharon]

I feel like Lisa, too. There are too may options, too many choices to be made, girly things to be considered, etc. I think I am averaging buying something every 3 days, mostly juices. Today, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought Lorann apple flavoring to mix a little with my cinnamon, just to get my 'purchase' fix.

 

[Pappy]

Ladies, I know that girls want pretty things. But when you're starting off, you should value function over form. If you can find something pretty that works well, that's great. But I think you'd be well served to get something that works to keep you away from the stinkies, regardless of whether it's pretty or not. (After all, how "pretty" is a cigarette?!?!?) There's plenty of time later to dress it up or find pretty doo-dads.

Of course, I'm a guy and I clearly don't understand the female mind.

 

[RickPBush]

Hi, not that I'm an expert at all but for what it's worth this is my experience :

I loved smoking and so if I was going to quit in favor of vaping then this stuff had better work flawlessly. So I went out and bought what I thought at the time was the biggest mod I could find which happened to be the lavatube. Looked chunky no nonsense kinda device so I bought it, didn't mind it looked like some kind of weapon as long as it worked. On the same basis I got a Vivi Nova Tank.

I then bought some 24mg juice, labeled xtra high strength I thought yep, this will do it and smash the cravings.

Well, I was impressed, all worked fine, when I pressed the button it blew my head off, nice

I'm 3 months in now, still using the LT but I very quickly decided that buying pre mixed juice was expensive and wanted to lower the cost as far as possible, so I now mix my own. This is great because I buy 72mg nic liquid and some very cheap dilutants and also 5ml bottles of flavour. The flavorings are £1.55 a bottle meaning I can afford a vast array of them and try loads of flavors. My initial needs were to simply find a flavour I could cope with and once found, stick to forever. Well, having found that flavor, I also found others, and more and more and more that to be fair I really like.

This was very encouraging and since I started I have gotten quite into it all, I'm now awaiting delivery of my first stainless steel mesh wick in the form of the Genesis Line V2 as apparently these make the flavor stronger.

After babbling all that to you, my best advice would be watch lots of youtube videos, there are hundreds of reviews out there, makes for some interesting watching and there are some pretty good presenters out there, my personal favorite has to be grimgreen.

Hope this is helpful, stay with it because the alternative will kill you

 

[Perpetualsharon]

Pappy, I did make my second/initial decision based on function. I have the 'male version' (standard silver manly hulk of a machine, at least to me) of the eGo. I chose pretty the first time and my quit didn't stick. For now, I'm going with "Silver matches everything".

 

[damthisisfun]

I prefer black - but then I saw this youtube - and Silver/stainless with gold - may be next purchase.....

KGO 1100mAh with Cartomizer + Metal drip tip - YouTube

 

[Kremppie]

I quit the first time in late 2010 before major surgery. I was using some ecigs from Volcano, and I think they are close to what the blu is. They were great, and got me over the hump of not smoking. I quit because I didn't want to die during surgery. Ten months or so down the road, I picked up a pack of cigs, and I got back on the merry-go-round. I quit again in June of this year. I have spent a lot, and tried a lot of different things. I have some expensive, and some not so expensive. I find I like almost all of it. I like having the variety, even if I don't use all of it often. I am on here almost everyday, and it helps since I am doing this on my own.