WARNING: LONG RAMBLING DISJOINTED SLEEP DEPRIVED POST ABOUT CLOUD CHASING, BATTERY SAFETY, AND PENDING VAPE LEGISLATION. IT MAY NOT MAKE SENSE, AND MIGHT BE FULL OF MISINFORMATION STUPID STATEMENTS AND OR TYPOS, BECAUSE I AM SEVERELY TIRED. I AM NOT A DOCTOR, A PROFESSIONAL, OR A DINOSAUR SCIENTIST OF ANY SORT.


I chain smoked cigarettes pipes and cigars for years, pretty much half my life, before I switched. If I get cancer later I won't be surprised at all, but it runs in the family even for those that never smoked so I was never too concerned about it.

I quite drinking and I quite smoking, and I quite eating like shit, if I still get cancer oh well, I'm not trying to be 103 anyway. I feel a lot better and that's all that really matters in the end.

That being said I've been vaping for over a year because the "culture" is expanding rapidly here in my state, and a friend swept me up in to it pretty hard while I was quitting tobacco.

We can all debate if vaping will kill us all in 20 years or not later in the thread if we want (and that will be fun), but for now yes my lungs feel WAY better, and I can run up the stairs with a full load of groceries without keeling over and dying.

No more smelling like an ashtray, I can taste and smell things again. So far vaping is bad ass in my very personal opinion, if a tad on the douchey side when you take it to the hobbyist level.



I was initially drawn to the sheer baffling variety of flavors at first. Pipe tobacco always claimed to have cherry or chocolate or whatever flavors, but it always still tasted severely like tobacco.

Vape juice, especially at lower nicotine levels and especially 0mg juice, tastes like whatever it says on the bottle (more or less, depending on how skilled the progenitor of said juice happens to be), be it Vanilla Custard, Lemonade, Fruit Loops Cereal, or Tomato Soup (seen that once, YUCK)

I know the candy flavors concern people about supposed marketing to kids, but all the adult vapers I know LOVE that shit and are really militant about turning in kids trying to be cool. Seriously commited vapers take kids trying to act grown up as a threat to their emerging niche culture and do constant sweeps of FB for pro underage groups to report, same thing for shops that don't card. Never seen that attempt at a level of responsibility before in a community, so that's kind of cool.



In the end kids are gonna be dumb it's part of being a kid, that's what ID's are for and fines for irresponsible or unscrupulous businesses are for. Going all Nazi and banning everything in a knee jerk fear based reaction because Helen Lovejoy opened her mouth bums me out, but I fully suspect it will happen, this is America we're talking about.



Anyway I went full on cloud chaser and never looked back and haven't smoked since, my expensive tobacco pipe collection is sitting collecting dust and has been replaced with a new weird high tech version of itself.

High end mechanical mods and rebuildable dripping atomizers, scads of batteries, and consuming juice at a rate similar to pouring it down a sink, none of which is cheaper than cigarettes and is almost as expensive as imported pipes and pipe tobacco. Vaping is only cheaper than smoking cigarettes (at least in my state) if you stick to the shitty gas station pens, or find a source on cheap hardware and juice, friends in the industry help. Learning to make your own juice and hardware helps too.

The eLeaf Kangertech setup Josh has at bottom of his post is probably the best of both worlds when it comes to quality and cheap VS fancy and expensive. Not too pricey but not too chintzy. (personally Josh I'd rave at you about getting an Aspire Atlantis and slapping it on an Ipv Mini 30 watt, but I do that to everyone lately so don't take it personally. Try it if anyone has one, it's a legit setup, the only tank that can go from regular tank draw all the way to roughly RDA cloud blowing status just not as obnoxiously, just adjust the airflow and wattage. It's turning all the cloud chasing noobs in my area away from RDAs and mech mods because its easier, and that's a good thing due to safety.)

(side note, learn to DIY for juice and mods if you're seriously in to vaping, because the feds will eventually regulate the shit out of it and shut down all the mom and pop shops and ruin all the fun, right here right now is the glory years of vaping and they're not going to last much longer from what I can see. When legislators and big pharma\tobacco get their way you'll have nothing BUT Blu and Vuse cigalikes to vape on, and all the crazy flavors will be banned. Read the legislation they are pushing, it's coming I promise.)



I thoroughly enjoy vaping as a full blown hobby though because I love to tinker and always wanted to know more about electricity and electronics, and I was forced to learn this way lest I blow a finger off or burn my house down. Tanks on variable voltage devices are more convenient for the casual crowd and far safer for the uneducated for sure, but a running a dripper or rebuildable tank on a mechanical mod or a high wattage (or unregulated) box mod is complete and utter control of the experience, it just requires tinkering and a bit of a learning curve.

In regards to what we're all ingesting it's definitively healthier than smoking, as you're cutting out two of the three dangers. Smoke inhalation causes lung damage like COPD and Emphysema, basically a slow version of dying in a fire from smoke inhalation (I know I'm grossly oversimplifying it but you get the idea), additives to tobacco and the chemical reactions from the combustion of tobacco (and those additives) are what causes most cancers associated with smoking.

Remove those, and all you have left is nicotine, which is not the greatest for your cardiovascular system by any stretch (about as harmful on it's own as caffeine, which truth be told is not the greatest for you obviously but unless you're severely old young or frail most doctors shrug, I've had respiratory therapists say vape away all you want your lungs are doing better now that you've quit smoking, just take it easy if you've got the flu or something else that causes liquid on the lungs and watch it if you're asthmatic which I am and I have NEVER had a problem.) The data I can find publicly suggest that nicotine does not cause cancer, but may encourage it if other things that cause cancer are present. They shouldn't be from all available hard data, everything about maybe if might is just that so far, and always seems to be backed by big pharma or tobacco (who missed the gravy train and are playing hardball now)

Other than that the verdict about if inhaling food flavoring suspended in propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin and mixed with liquid nicotine is bad for you or not is still a mixed bag, more clean straight forward research is needed, but all I'm seeing is a lot of skewed data or urban legend crap on BOTH sides. Vape shops and vapers who say it's totally safe are full of it, there are small risks, both from nicotine (and maybe PG/VG but???) and more importantly battery safety issues that are similar to the safety risks of all lithium ion batteries that we cart around nowadays (cell phones laptops oversized sex toys etc)

I tend to lean towards it's no big deal because the medical industry uses PG for all sorts of things (inhalers being a prime example) and the FDA has approved all 4 ingredients in vape juice for humans just not together for some asinine reason, however anti vapers nazis love to point out that propylene glycol is in antifreeze and thus we all must be vaping straight antifreeze (and someone how not keeling over dead).

Or they point to bullshit studies sponsored by tobacco lobbyists (who want their portion of the lost market back) where someone in a lab ran coils at full tilt until the kanthal got red hot melted and set the silica\cotton wicking on fire and they considered the flaming bullshit chemical reaction as part of normal vapor intake, like anyone who has ever had even a HINT of a dry hit sat there and KEPT DOING IT. That shit SUCKS BEFORE ANYTHING GETS HOT, NO ONE IS VAPING MOLTEN METAL AND FLAMING COTTON.

Also if there was formaldehyde and PCP in vape juice like I keep seeing in the latest faux news stories or hearing from idiots walking by on the street (who ask me for cigarettes despite seeing I have some monstrous brass tube that is a cake scented fog machine), all us vapers would either be dropping like flies, or freaking out and ripping people's faces off, like what happened with bath salts.

Remember that? They stomped that shit out fast didn't they? The reason this is so slow, is that they have no hard evidence about how it's bad, just scare tactics camoflauging tax greed.



It's my opinion they publish biased studies like this because they want to control the market, by using the "concerns for standards and safety" and Helen Lovejoyesqe WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN angles to win the uneducated public to their side. They can afford to pay the obscene tax various state governments want to impose so the gov is all to happy to help them win.

Basically big tobacco wants to ban it today so they can own it tomorrow, and that is a LARGE part of all the confusion and controversy you see in the media right now, which ever side of the spin you happen to sit on or believe in. You cannot deny it will hurt a LOT of small mom and pop businesses, every vape shop and company you see (that isn't funky chinese import crap) is always a small independent business. The impending regulations will wipe them out, and that is bad for the economy.



Anyway whatever, I can point to articles that are backed by studies and cite sources showing that the alarmist stories and slander pieces are backed by faulty data, or just zero data, but then I just get called a pro vaping nut. In their defense I did call them anti vaping nazis, so maybe I am a vaping nut. I vape 100% Vegetable Glycerin anyway because I'm one of those cloud chasing goofballs, and VG maximizes cloud production so I'm not worried about inhaling PG, but if VG turns out to be bad for my lungs then um? (I probably screwed them up worse chain smoking pipes cigars and cigarettes for 15 years anyway so MEH)

The real (known at this time at least) dangers with vaping are related to battery safety! I'm not going to bullshit you and say it's 100% safe, it's not. You run a build too low and vent a cheap no name Chinese 18650 or 26650 IMR battery because you drew too many amps and you're gonna have a bad time. You vent a cheap ICR battery it'll be a worse time. You vent an ICR in a cheap clone mech mod that doesn't have proper vent holes and you're basically sucking on a pipe bomb.

A dude blew his teeth and tongue out stacking the wrong type of chemical batteries in a home made mech mod he slapped together from some piping, luckily he was at home and not some shoddily judged cloud competition. There's been mods popping at those before too, people using unsafe crap modified to be even less safe. I'm still waiting for some idiot to do something like this in public like on a bus with a bunch of cell phone camera footage making it on the news. When that happens the jig is up and we'll all be potential terrorists who also may be under the suspicion of being hopped up on goofballs, as stoners are already learning how to modify these things and get amazeballs high, which the cops are figuring out, and it's giving regular vapers a bad rap. I HEAR meth heads are in to modifying vaporizers now too, and they WILL blow something up one day, they already do that crap as it is.



To me vaporizers are like guns or matches, to be respected and treated carefully, for those that know what they are doing. At least the mechanical ones. That is why setups like what Josh is running are a good thing, they let the casual crowd vape safely, hopefully mech mods go out of style with causual vapers and stay in the inner vape niche of purists and cloud chasing competitors.



DO NOT STACK BATTERIES. Also don't build your own coils if you don't understand Ohm's law and basic electricity, even if you're not sub ohming. Just stick to manufacturer's coils and tanks. Don't trust shops to build coils for you if you insist on using RDAs or RTAs, because they never seem to use ohm readers to test their builds, they eyeball it all every time I've seen them do it. If you're gonna build LEARN HOW FIRST.

Just because someone works behind the counter at the vape shop and has stretched ears skinny jeans and a Skrillex haircut atop their lumbersexual beard while they yell BUTTERY SMOOTH and SICK AS TITS at you and can't sell you any of the tasty nerds candy flavored juice because they already bought it all, doesn't mean they know what the fuck they're doing. I've watched these goofballs run crazy shit like 0.06 sleeper builds on top of 18650 mods all the time like it's cool to push a battery that hard. Yeah yeah pulse ratings, I wouldn't trust it, why take the risk?



I never build below a particular battery's continual discharge rating, pulse ratings are for fractions of seconds and really only count when the batteries are used in shielded packs together like they are designed for at least from the specifications I have read (something that people seem to gloss over or ignore, even an electrician I know), and it seems that using them standalone in vaping or for flashlights is kind of against their original design so it's roughly uncharted territory in my opinion.

In all honesty you should probably stay above the continual discharge rating because manufacturers have been known to inflate the ratings in their spec sheets. That's what I do, trying not to knock people who build lower and stress test their batteries because hey it's their hands at the end of the day, but I don't see the point of going past the posted limit since you can build lower safer on bigger batteries.

(also with proper building, wicking, breathing technique, and the rise of high wattage variable voltage devices we don't really need to dump raw power from a battery in to the atomizer now, there are safer regulated alternatives, they are just expensive or hard to solder together yourself.)

Yeah sure you have to be really unlucky or push things really FAR to vent a battery, but it is a real risk. We had a few scare when we were learning.

My significant other was carrying some spare 18650s around without a protective case in her purse and some coins were touching the negative end and some keys the positive end (the sides are wrapped in a plastic) and one started discharging because it became a complete circuit. It kept doing that until it vented from the top.

Now they were IMR so they just kind of leaked battery acid and melted some of the polyester in her purse from the acid and the heat from the discharged current, but if she'd had it in her hands or mouth it could have been worse, it could have started a fire or jacked her face up. If they were ICR batteries it could have really injured her, those can actually kind of explode under the right circumstances. (which is why you should never use them as far as I understand)

She also was sub ohming on shitty Samsung laptop 18650s she bought online, that were only rated for 5 amps. To top it off they were the ICR batteries that explode when they vent, not the (relatively) safer IMR kind. She was running setups between 0.25 and 0.09 ohms. You need a 30amp to run a .25, and a 0.09 requires at least a big honking 26650 50 amp, that's multi cell box mod territory right there really.

She was vaping 70 to 196 watts on batteries that could only take roughly 20 watts, like 0.9 to a 1.0 coil. Tons of vapers push their batteries to the edge or over it all the time, but she was really pushing it.

Basically those cells could have gone thermal any time she fired the atomizer, and either burned the shit out of her hand and face, or turned her mod in to a pipe bomb from the pressure (since her mod was a bad clone with inadequate venting). She vaped on that setup for weeks before I noticed and stopped her.

Those cells got taken away and discarded, she was given the correct gear, and rambled at for hours about how dangerous it was until she swore to pay more attention. It sounds dumb to chew her out but it'd be like if you caught your girlfriend cleaning a loaded gun while looking down the barrel. She knew but didn't care enough to pay attention, was entirely content to fudge everything. After I showed her some pictures of what happens to people that have batteries vent in their mod while they are holding them or using them, she took it a little more seriously.

Sloppy shops will sell you a mech mod and build you a super sub ohm coil and give you a crappy 10amp battery for it, I've seen it many times. The internet is a great place to learn for those that have the discipline, but it's also a terrible playground for idiots who don't do their homework and cut corners in search of PHAT CLOUDS BROHAMSKI.

Also shops will build crap coils that are misrapped or crooked or touching the posts or deck, all which can cause a short. I've been talking to an old Korean guy who sold me an RDA with horrifying pre installed coils like that. I always build my own and wouldn't vape coils that were good, let alone his, but I'm still on him now because I don't want him to hurt anyone, nor do I want him to ruin his fledgling business.


Anyway, obnoxious cloud chasing, hipster vape scenesters and their silly clothing, battery safety, and vape politics aside, the real question is thus: Sure vegetable glycerin propylene glycol and food flavoring (along with nicotine) are all approved by the FDA, and used in countless other products, so we SHOULD be safe, but who knows what the long term effects will be, right?

I stick to juice I trust, local organic stuff, and am looking in to making my own, because once someone showed me how it was shockingly easy, so I'm not worried about weird additives like with the questionable chinese juice you hear about.

But what if?

I'm taking it in to my lungs, and a lot of it. Sugar absorbs through the blood stream like everything else does and I know the lungs can absorb chemicals and metabolize them (otherwise smoking tobacco OR drugs wouldn't work), so what if 20 years down the road all the cloud chasers have like vape diabetes from vaping gallons of vanilla custard, and all of the flatbilled fitted caps, gold plated mech mods, and free juice we won were for naught?

I love vaping but it has some issues and I wonder where it is headed, the culture needs to focus on safety and education and keeping kids away from it. We need some regulation without Big Tobacco getting a hold of it and ruining it while simultaneously running a ton of independent businesses in to the ground.

It'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm set because at this point I know enough to make my own juice, and if I had access to a machine shop I could bang out a mech mod or even a box mod if I had access to a soldering gun.
Kanthal and batteries are easy the can't regulate those due to other industries, and organic cotton is not that hard to come across either, so even if the president banned vaping tomorrow I'd still do it, just a little more discreetly.

However I would hate to see all this go away because kids are being trendy while adults are being douchy and irresponsible and greedy.

I'm half tempted to post coil porn, but it might just be me that enjoys it. :\

Anyway vape on if you do!

First things first, 6mg juice at the bare minimum. 12 18 and 24 just burn of nicotine and really defeat the purpose of flavors. 6mg will still provide more than enough nicotine, and from 6 on downwards you really taste whatever you're vaping. The more you start enjoying the flavor the less you miss throat hit.

That's the secret behind those big honking devices that put out tons of vapor LOW to NO nicotine. Think of it like a bong rip, straight to the lungs, lungs mouth and nasal pasages packed full of delicious food flavored clouds.

If you were hitting mech mods with drippers on top at 12 or 18mg no wonder youdidnt like it, that shit is brutal even at 6 sometimes!

Anyway, juice!

I'm still learning to make my own but I've got people who do it and it's where the money is at, like 1980s crack cocaine profit margins if you compare how cheap it is to make and how much people are willing to pay.

Honestly flavors are highly subjective some people hate what others love, but overall I've noticed men prefer richer dessert style juices and women prefer fruits candies and sweeter but "lighter" juices. Newbies and older folk generally gravitate towards tobacco styles and menthols, and branch out in to fruit tinged tobaccos or menthols before diving in to weird flavors.

I'm all about Vanilla Custards and Cheesecakes of various varieties right now <blueberry raspberry stawberry etc>. I like some fruits like honeydew and ripe strawberry  <RIPE, just strawberry tends to be candy\fake tasting bit ripe means it'll be good usually> and I stay away from tobacco flavored juices because it's always food flavoring in ejuice and whatever everyone uses for tobacco is WEIRD tasting, does not taste anything like tobacco. Also why limit your healing taste buds with tobacco simulations, vape some weird shit like churro or apple pie or milky way candy bar flavor, or fuck siracha popcorn if you're feeling adventurous.>

Seriously if you can think of a flavor that people generally  enjoy, it's already a juice or someone is working on it right now, juice is like rule 34 and 35. Still haven't found kimchee but just wait.

I'd HIGHLY recommend the following gourmet juices if you see them in a brick and mortar, not cheap but worth it:

C.R.E.A.M. by Blueprint Vapor <vanilla creme cake thing? It's the shit and nigh impossible to find>

Betty by Pinup Vapors <some kind of fruit thing my gf loves and it's pretty damn tasty>

Someone makes Nerds candy flavored stuff but I cannot remember the manufacturer, it's good though.

Same thing with breakfast cereal flavors, there's fruit loops fruity pebbles and lucky charms juices that are all the rage and a few companies are making them, so far they're all really good so sticking to s particular brand is not important, however everyone says cereal killa  is the top of the pile.

Tater by Standard Vape tastes like neopolitan ice cream, don't be phased by the tater tots on the packaging, Standard is know to be intentionally nonsensical about advertising WHAT the juice actually is. <Standard. Vape does good work across the board, just good luck deciphering what you're buying flavor wise, online reviews help>

Gu-Kake by Banzai Vapor is a Banana Creme Vanilla Cake pop juice that is fantastic despite the digusting name. Actually Banzai does good work, I'd recommend anything by them, Milk Plus is a creamy milk/caramel mix that I devoured pretty fast. Also their Fairies and Creme is a good strawberries and creme/shortcake juice, but honestly everyone does strawberries and creme \strawberry shortcake pretty much the same. <vanilla custard is about the same every where, a good baseline juice to test a new juice company, can they do decent custard?>

Kraken by 4 points is a blueberry graham cracker that everyone is calling life ruiner, I have to agree I burned through a 30ml in a day which is insanity.

Mr Miyagi by Alpha <sweet fruit candy something?> and Hendershot by Omega < vanilla graham cracker tobacco, same packaging and art as Alpha so I think it's a different line for different flavor profiles> are both fantatic.

Um that's all I can think of right now, there's tons more new juice companies seem to pop up weekly, and as soon as I think I've heard it all flavors or wise here comes some off the wall shit I never thought of wanting to vape.

Now when it comes to cheaper juice, online is usually where it's at, brick and mortar shops charge INSANE markups.

These are good online juice companies to checkout.

https://www.vapejoose.com <good stuff not transcendent but nice, also damn cheap>

 https://www.zamplebox.com <cheapish grab bag of high end stuff customized to your flavor choices, yoy can cancel the "monthly" plan anytime so it's a good way to sample high end stuff on a budget, they sell hardware too so you can order mods and tanks and shit, they don't carry crap either>

http://www.vaportrailsnw.com <my vape mentors rave about how awesome and decently priced this is but I've never tried it. I trust their judgements though, seems to be really complex flavors catering to the nostalgic nerd crowd>

 http://whitelabeljuiceco.com
Pretty damn cheap, good flavors , but cloud chaser focused so max VG juice means muted flavors, plus needs steep time in a dark place to finish "brewing or maturing, but the price is right. Ammendment, ALL juice needs time to sit and steep a few days to a few weeks, if it tastes lame let it sit an steep and come back to it, just keep it out of sunlight>

http://www.drcrimmy.com/store/pc/home.asp
<these guys are the current fan favorites for cheap online juice and they package up to huge ass shampoo sized bottles. Still trying to decide what flavor to pull the trigger on for such a huge bottle. Not the best in the universe but very good and when you consider the price you can't argue>

Ripptrippers is the current public face of vaping and some people love him others hate him, he's kind of like Billy Mays and Gallagher combined, but crazy about vaping. Good resource for product reviews and tutorials, and I mention him because he has a juice line that is supposedly pretty good, no idea if it's good or decently priced, but give him a peek if you ever want an honest <albeit exhaustingly over the top delivery> opinion on some new device that is out before you pull the trigger.

Um reddit has a highly active vape community that is also good for reviews tips tricks tutorials and industry/community chatter. New juice companies like to show up and announce sales or product launches there too. A good alternative resource if you want to learn but can't stand anymore of Ripp's beard or pants jizzing mania about all things vape.

Oh there's a coilporn subreddit too but do NOT copy builds blindly unless you know what you are doing and have the correct gear, otherwise you may hurt yourself, people post beautiful downright artistic coil builds, that will fuck up a standard mod and battery and possibly your face and hands, in short order.

I've got some rebuilding stuff to post later that may be fun for anyone interested, but for now here's a giant rant in regards to my particular state's upcoming draconian bill (but it's relevant to all states, look what happened to the Aussies!).

My state is proposing a 95% tax, a ban of all flavors beyond menthol and tobacco, and banning internet sales. The local vaping community is fighting it and working with industry lobbyists and local government reps, but we may lose despite the up swell in local grass roots rabble rabble rabble. Here's my two cents... Keep in mind this is all my opinion, feel free to disagree or call me a vape nut.

<RANT>
So about those ads and stories about dangerous chemicals hidden in ecigarette vapor you're seeing in the media lately...

After a series of Q&A sessions with the people who ran the tests, it turns out the "study" everyone in the media is referencing was done by auto firing a stock atomizer coil for one if those little gas station pen vapes FOR 100 CONTINUOUS SECONDS. No stopping to let the juice rewick to the coil from the tank, or to let anything cool down. (way too hot to even hold in your hand)

That length of firing produces enough heat to scorch and eventually burn the silica wicking and melt the insulators, and that burning chemical mixture was considered part of normal vapor production for the "study". The funny part is you can't even DO that on most regulated devices the average consumer uses, they have an automatic 10 second cut off hardwired in to them, so they had to modify the device from it's original purpose in order to produce these results in the first place!

That is complete and utter bullshit, NO ONE vapes that hot that hard and that long, NO ONE, not even advanced cloud chasers who use unregulated mechanical mods that ARE capable of firing that long (IF you were stupid enough to try it). Pulls beyond even 7 seconds are pretty much impossible no matter how herculean your lungs are, and 1 to 5 seconds seems to be the normal range, a range that doesn't produce enough heat to basically set your atomizer on fire until the insulator MELTS and disconnects the current.

So still not buying it, try some actually research please, instead of basically burning rubber silica and kanthal under conditions that NO ONE does because who the fuck inhales molten metal and melting plastic? Even if you were dumb enough, you'd burn the crap out of yourself and probably pass out from toxic fumes. Gee wonder why I haven't seen tons of vapers passing out all over the floor, puking from toxic chemicals!

Seriously studies like this are the same thing as watching a room full of morons clean loaded guns while staring down the barrel, and disassembling bullets with hammers and pliers, and using the invariable accidents as proof about how guns are too dangerous for any of us to own responsibly. It's an insult to rational responsible and educated adults.

It's like me drinking a gallon of drano to prove that the act of swallowing is severely dangerous to human well being and we should all therefore rush down to the emergency room and have our mouths sewn shut and get feeding tubes installed for our own safety!

I guarantee that the harmful chemicals detected were from the scorched wicking and insulator materials and from coils being run up to ridiculous temperatures under conditions that never NEVER happen under normal circumstances.

Under normal operation and even extreme builds, you're inhaling..

1: food flavoring <FDA approved, I assume I don't have to explain food flavoring?> suspended in mixture of..

2: propolyne glycol <FDA approved, in asthma inhalers which have been used daily by asthmatics for YEARS on top of a bunch of other medical applications, but because they use it in environmentally safe versions of antifreeze (in place of Ethylene glycol) idiots and the media love to insinuate we are vaping antifreeze. If we were we'd be dropping like flies.> and...

3: vegetable glycerin <FDA approved, in countless medicines as a lubricant humectant and stabilizing agent, cough syrup is a great example, and severely health conscious vapers or those with PG allergies vape 100% VG and cut PG entirely out of the mix> mixed with...

4: nicotine <FDA approved, as bad as caffeine, and you don't HAVE to vape it there is 0mg juice I know plenty of people who vape zero juice, most competitive clouds chasers vape really low nic to zero nic, hell I know folk who vape B vitamin and a bunch of other off the wall stuff in place of nicotine>.

So... if no one supposedly knows what is in ejuice and it's supposedly so fucking dangerous, why can I whip it up at home easily with the 4 commercially available FDA approved ingredients if I really felt like it? Why do people I know do it all the time? How do you think all these homegrown mom and pop juice companies got their start? Why do you think the Tobacco industry is pushing these bills in the first place, and the state is more than happy to help them? Big tobacco can pay the state's proposed highway robbery tax prices, they're teaming up to make money and don't care if they crush independent business and harm the economy in the process.

If you swallow and regurgitate these studies without questioning them, you're doing yourself a disservice, and I've got some prime real estate on the moon I can cut you a great deal on.

I'll post some links that cite real studies and actually links to them for your further perusal so you can educate yourself and form your own opinion, instead of listening to alarmist fear mongering claptrap that is really only obfuscating TAX AND CORPORATE GREED.

If you want my opinion, Big Tobacco and the Nanny State are pushing your fear buttons with bullshit biased faux science in order to get you to vote for the Governor's upcoming 90% taxation bill, so RJ Reynolds and Lorilard can corner the vape market, and the state can rake in more dough.



If you actually want to read an article that isn't vague misleading bullshit that links to fair studies so you can make your own informed decisions like an adult, read this.

http://gizmodo.com/5-facts-that-everyone-gets-wrong-about-vaping-1659938937

and this.

http://vaping.info/news/2015/new-e-cig-study-hypes-formaldehyde-fears-based-faulty-experiments

For those that don't like to be doing all the reads, here's the TL;DR image macro version, spam it all you want.

No worries man.

Sorry to go all cloud crazy, I do that sometimes. I'm super passionate about the cutting edge of vaping which is about as different from regular smoking as it can get, and I often forget that all the differences, minutiae, and of course enthusiasm can turn casual vapers and the curious off alike.

I am also highly aware of the douchey cloud chasing hipster stereotype out there and YES it is a real thing unfortunately, but I just kind of accept it as part of the territory I am currently exploring. Not all of them are annoying, most are regular well adjusted people, and I like to at least pretend I am as well.

There's always a few oddballs in each crowd or niche but they don't always represent the entire group, like Josh so aptly pointed out while referencing the neckbeard basement dwelling stereotype in regards to video games.

Honestly cloud chasing is a lot like masturbation, I prefer to do it in the privacy of my own home, and am severely selective about when and where I do it elsewhere, so I guess I must feel comfortable here, sorry to whip it out on y'all.

Next time I'll have some kind of warning like PRO VAPING CLOUD CHASING NUT RAMBLINGS AHEAD, NOT IN ANYWAY INDICATIVE OF REGULAR EVERY DAY VAPING, PLEASE DISREGARD IF YOU JUST DON'T CARE.


Anywho, back on topic, and I'll try to keep this semi short.

If you guys tried vaping and didn't like it, it was probably a combination of a few factors. More than likely cheap gas station "cigalike" devices that are designed to mimic a regular cigarette, the (MANY) flaws of those devices, and the nicotine level of the juice in the aforementioned devices.

Basically they suck for a multitude of reasons and tend to turn people new to vaping entirely off and away from it. Stick to something that has a refillable tank and an actual button on it at the very least, and try 18mg or 24mg tobacco or menthol flavored juices if the lighter nic wacky food and candy flavors aren't cutting it for you.

Vaping is totally a viable alternative to smoking, but it does have a learning curve for even the easiest of devices. Smoking has a similar learning curve, it's just that people who smoked for years have forgotten that process and it's all second nature to them. When you start vaping you're at that same level you were when you awkwardly started smoking stolen cigarettes, it took a while before you looked like you knew what you were doing, and even longer until you actually did right?

Same thing here really.

I will say that in my very honest opinion I feel that vaping is a FAR healthier alternative to traditional smoking, and that's coming from a 15 year former chain smoker who lit up pretty much anything that contained nicotine during all hours of the day unless asleep. Pipes, cigars, cigarettes, roll your owns, I absolutely loved tobacco.

I love vaping more because it satisfies my need for obnoxious thick clouds with varying flavors other than tobacco, while also stimulating my collecting mania, both reasons why I originally got so far in to pipe tobacco and cigar culture in the first place. Vaping FEELS healthier, and satisfies the same interests. Win win for me.

If you stick with vaping, you WILL start feeling better. You WILL regain your sense of smell and taste. If you will save money or not is highly subjective in relation to HOW you vape and what kind of setup you have, but if you avoid the hobbyist competitive cloud chasing culture and just use it as an alternative to tobacco, you should come out on top money wise.

On the downside, smoker buddies will absolutely start to reek more and more the longer you are off tobacco, and all the asinine complaining and ribbing you once took from non smokers will start to make sense. Try not to be a dick about it though.

I feel better than I have in over a decade, but who knows like I said we may all get something weird like vape diabetes or elbow cancer in the future, but given how strong big pharma and big tobacco are fighting to gut the industry in order to co opt it, how much various state and federal governments want to tax the bejesus out of it, and how all of the studies they are both using to scare everyone are always invariably full of skewed faulty experiments that lack actual doctors or anyone that actually knows how to properly use the devices, I highly doubt it.

Anyway, if you're interested get a tank on top of some kind of device, much like the second image Josh posted at the very least, but if you want a decent experience the last image he posted is a damn fine setup. I highly urge you would skip right over the ones that look and feel like plastic toy cigarettes, those are crap.

If anyone is interested in the minutiae of WHY the gas station cigarette clones are inferior, HOW and WHY they turn new vapers off and back to big tobacco, and a brief taste of the history of the evolution of all things vape, I can totally weigh in on that.

I originally had a giant ass dissertation about it crafted, until my session timed out, probably for the best. I also am eager to share some of my more obnoxious high end gear and competition builds, but if no one cares about that I can fuck right off back to reddit with all of that.

I haven't used that particular tank and battery from Kanger, but generally their product line ranges from acceptable to great, with a few clunkers along the way. (the aerotank mega comes to mind, just bad design)

I'd say out of my entire experience with Kanger (and we've had at least 6 different clearomizers by them before we moved on) I'd give them as a company maybe an 8 or 7 out of 10. There's definately far worse manufacturers to choose when starting out.

That tank should have a bit of airflow adjustment which is a step up from stock locked down tanks, and the variable voltage on those style of batteries is pretty barebones but too much power when starting is counterproductive, so all in all that's not a bad starter setup at all.

I had a very similar setup as my first in fact one that was even more barebones, when it comes to the "starter" kits out there they're functional but it's common to outgrow them, or not like them right out the gate. Did it feel like it wasn't just enough, not oomphy, just kind of weak?

I wouldn't call it amatuer shit or anything like that, um look at it this way:

A gas station cigarette clone device is like a wet half smoked roll your own you found on the bottom of your shoe. The setup you have is like a mid range pack of smokes, Winstons?. There are slightly nicer setups that aren't as chintzy or locked down in their capabilities that are like a good pack of Camels? Stuff like what Josh has at the bottom is kind of like a Pack of Newports or Marb Reds? Performance wise, if that makes any sense. It's a horrible analogy but it's the best I can come up with on the fly.

If you don't mind me asking what were the various things that irked you about the whole experience? Any hot cotton flavored pulls? I read the part about not digging the froo froo flavors out there and I can dig it because I know really good tobacco simulations can be kind of tricky to locate due to the insane variety on the market right now. What strength nicotine was in the liquid you were trying?

I remember when I had a setup like that I kept getting disgusting dry hits, and always wanting bigger lungfuls when I did get it to hit properly. By the time I had learned the technique required for filling priming and hitting, I had already moved on to beefier more easily customizeable setups.

What you have is totally possible to enjoy, if you find the right juice (I can ask around and see if anyone knows of a juice that simulates marb red flavor properly) and can find the device's sweet spot regarding the voltage in conjunction with the ohm of the coils you are using. (oh yeah what ohm coil were you using?)

Any leaking or dribbling or flooding, annoying stuff like that going on when you did attempt to use it? There's a cause and a fix for that too, if that was the case.

Lol no that guy is a semi famous reviewer demonstrating a cloud chasing setup and technique, although I wouldn't mind people mistaking me for him as every manufacturer mails him truckloads of shit to review for free. He's arguably the public face of vaping on youtube but a lot of vapers can't stand him because he's basically a cross between Billy Mays and Ghallager. I'm just using it as a sig because I find it amusing.

I should probably try whipping together my own one of these days.

Anyway, I asked around, and the consensus in my group was to try the following juices if you're looking for something close to a marb red. If 18 was too weak try 24, if 24 was too burny then bump down to 18?

http://banzaivapors.com/collections/true-collection/products/red-tobacco
http://banzaivapors.com/products/ronins-reserve

generally with the setup you have there's a few strengths of pre packaged coils, with the most common being 1.0 ohms 1.2 ohms 1.5 ohms 1.8 ohms and 2.0 ohms. Without getting in to the math, basically the lower the ohms the faster the coil heats up and that means more vapor faster, the higher the coil the slower it heats up. That process is further modified by the battery you have.

Most batteries like that have a variable voltage between 3.7 and 4.8 volts that you can adjust with a knob on the bottom, and there's a sweet spot to set them to to maximize production without overheating the atomizer and potentially scorching the wicking, however you can't ruin anything too bad because those kinds of batteries always have a 10 second cut off switch to avoid over heating, at the worst you'll scorch a coil and have to swap out a new one (unless you're cool with tasting scorched silica), they're like 3 bucks each but you can buy big packs of them online for cheap.

A common issue is that a lot of the replaceable coil heads for the kanger tanks (and really all the competitor tanks from the entire generation of vape gear that your tank belongs to) look REALLY similar, and it is possible to cram the wrong head in and have it work horribly, or not at all. They're getting smarter about it, and newer stuff tends to have distinctive coils that you or vendors cannot mistake with something else. (Vape tech evolves way too fast sometimes, it hasn't really solidified yet, but it's starting to get there)

From the look of it you have either this
http://www.kangeronline.com/products/kanger-evod-mega-starter-kit

or this
http://www.kangeronline.com/products/emow-starter-kit-with-us-plug?variant=812330109

The only difference is the battery, one is a bit stronger so you can crank it up higher so to speak. Good news, either way we have narrowed down what tank you have, it's a Kanger emow clearomizer, and it takes this coil

http://www.kangeronline.com/products/new-dual-coil?variant=792695729

With this family of Kanger tanks, I would recommend that when you fill the tank with a fresh coil, let it sit and saturate in to the wicking of the coil for a few minutes, then puff on it once or twice without actually firing the device, to suck more juice in to the wicking.

If you let the tank sit for days on end without vaping it, the juice will start to degrade the silica wicking and then the tank will start leaking, so if you're not going to use it take the tank off the device and stand it on the mouthpiece so the juice is not perpetually suspended around the coil head for no good raisin.

When swapping out old coils for fresh ones, or refilling in general, be careful to not lose any tiny rubber O rings that also help seal everything in, I've done it before. Clean the tank each time you've emptied it down and need to refill it, or it will get nasty, think of it like a cup or a plate, you're gonna wanna wash it out every now and again.

If you know what strength coils you have, this chart helps explain what setting to run your battery at to get the best performance out of the coil. The resistance is your coil, and the voltage is your battery, aim for blue.

JoshWoodzy wrote:

Yeah, vapers (clearly not all of them) have this weird need to vape WAY much more than they did when they were smoking. Grocery shopping? GOD I NEED A VAPE. Eating dinner? GOD I NEED TO VAPE IN BETWEEN BITES.

Yeah, I think 24/7 chain vapers are operating under a mixture of the mindset "WAAA I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE", mixed with the (often) lower nicotine levels making it possible for them to continually vape like that in the fist place. I think they are forgetting not to be total slaves to a substance/habit.

I tend to treat vaping like smoking unless in my own home, or hanging out with other vapers like in a shop or hanging out at someone's house building coils polishing our mods and swapping juice (giggity).

For example I vape in the smoking section, I avoid exhaling in to people's faces (unless they ask, sometimes chicks want a face full of vanilla custard when they catch a whiff), I don't vape around people eating even if signage in a restaurant says I can (which is almost nonexistent up here), if I'm vaping somewhere public that has no signage prohibiting it or any laws against it that I am aware of (like you can smoke in state parks but not city parks up here, weird stuff like that) I keep my output similar to actual cigarette smoking.

I'm not walking around exhaling obnoxious cheesecake scented clouds 24/7 just waiting to pick a fight about how it's just water vapor bro, and most other vapers are not either. That crowd is the annoying hipster minority, but they tend to be the loudest so they get the most exposure, and thus color the public perception.

Not all vape enthusiasts\nerds are obnoxious about it, most of then you would never even guess they vape until you saw them do it, but there are those that make the rest of us look bad, (sarcastic? but apt) relevance:



VAPE RAMBLINGS, SKIP IF YA DON'T CARE

That being said, there are a lot of fun creative people in the scene, I've experienced a fuckton of positive vibes and genuine helpfulness, which generally balances out the elitist FUCK YOUR CLONE DEVICES AND PEDESTRIAN JUICE YOU SCRUB, WE ONLY VAPE PURE INFANT BLOOD OUT OF SOLID GOLD DILDOS crowd.

The fun creative types are not just the cloud chasers who are trying to look like dragons, there's a whole subset of vapers who practice vape tricks, making tornadoes and shit:


Or blowing as many vape rings they can in succession, or blowing smaller rings through larger rings, (I can't find a good image of this right now, but I've got some videos somewhere):



The competitive cloud chasers who kept advancing coil building to maximize performance eventually split off in to it's own seperate thing, with people doing crazy artistic builds for the sheer aesthetic:


Once simply slapping more coils in to an atomizer like this wasn't cutting it


Stuff like this started happening. It's now it's own separate hobby pretty much.






Vaping can be an alternative to smoking, but yeah it can be a fun hobby/lifestyle/obsession too.