A little Vaping Humor

Anyone who has ever ordered anything on the reliable, but oh so ... slow boat from China can empathize with this hilarious caption.

Rebuilding Replaceable Heads for Attys and Tanks

Want to really save money vaping? Well DIY liquid is one way (an important way for sure), but there's another way too... rebuilding attomizers. There are specially made attomizers that are obviously rebuildable, but there are also many called rebuildables that require you to purchase the new heads each time you want a new wick. While those heads aren't exactly expensive, they can end up getting pricey if you think about them in terms of a weekly purchase and if you use more than one clearo or tank a week. I often have three or four a day that I interchange using. That means using about a box of heads (5 in a package) per week. Still not a huge expense compared to smoking cigarettes, but hey, I'm a proud card carrying member of the $1 a day vaper (and I prefer that to be pennies a day instead of a dollar). So I want to rebuild those heads too. YOU CAN. In fact it's sinfully easy.

MadVapes (madvapes.com) has an AWESOME video that shows exactly how to do it. Now before you shake your head and say that's way above my ability. I am BRAND new to building coils and I did this last night for my Vision Vivi Nova tank with replaceable heads (not the tank in the posts below that is a rebuildable). It took about 5 minutes. It was EASIER than the actual rebuildable tank.

Here is the video from Madvapes (thank you guys, you're wonderful... they are also a fantastic vendor to get DIY supplies, hardware and juices!)

DIY E-cig Wraps

I got the idea for making my own wraps to add a little designer look to my more bland steel e-cigarettes from a blog post on the E-cigarette forums here: MVP DIY WRAP MATERIAL.  That post was geared toward a specific box mod type e-cigarette, but I figured why not try the same thing with my cylindrical ego style e-cigarette? Well, it worked great.

I'm thinking it wouldn't really have to be 3M material. It could probably be any type of contact paper, wall paper style paper in a color/pattern/design of your choice. I selected a flecked gold for this one.

BBC E-Cigarette Safety Test Report (Passing with Flying colors)

Blueberry Cheesecake 100% VG E-Juice Recipe

I made my first actual recipe for e-juice today. I've been making single flavor juices, and of course, they are recipes, but they are very simple recipes. Today, for the first time I delved into a dual flavor mix. Here is my 1st attempt at a double flavor recipe:

BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE E-JUICE
12mg Nic, 10ML bottle

VG based Nic (24mg): 5 ML
Unflavored VG: .5 ML
Distilled Water: 1.5 ML
TFA Bluberry: 2.0 ML
TFA Cheesecake w/grahm cracker crust: 1 ML

(The distilled water helps thin down 100% VG mixes to make it wick better.)

The taste is good, but mild, fresh. I am going to steep this for a few days to see if it gets bolder.

Vivi Rebuildable Tank (not from Smoktech and not Vivi Nova)

I got the Vivi Rebuildable Tank from GotVapes.com. It is an attractive, and fairly easy to use and rebuild tank that I felt would be a good 1st tank for a newbie rebuilder. The coil is a loose wrap around the wick, so there isn't the need for getting a tight wrap or threading the wick as in the more advanced types of rebuildables.

This is also a good tank for people (like me) who are using ego type batteries with them.

First Impressions

Having just started using this, I am giving my initial experiences with the device at this time. As time goes on, I will update with information on actually rebuilding the coil, and any other information I determine along the way.

On first use, the draw was like pulling up a lung, but it did get a little better after it warmed up a bit. However, it never really had a nice easy draw, and the vapor production isn't that great even with the 100% vg juice I use. The air intake is at the base and the holes are extremely small. Perhaps blocked a bit by the ego threading.  I would prefer side air vents, but this is a fairly simple and low-level rebuildable so that's probably a lot to ask for. Becuase the air vents the same as in an ego cart/atomizer, do not get too much liquid in the atomizer area or it will leak horribly. The tank itself didn't leak though.

(Not a great shot of the atomizer base. The tall post on the left is the fill hole post.)

Refill hole

There is a fill port on the top of level of the atomizer. This is an improvement over the reviews I've seen of the Smoktech version of the Vivi rebuildable. There are good and bad parts about this fill hole.

The Good: It is capped by a long rod that screws into the deck instead of a screw. The rod is easily grasped by two fingers to turn it to remove it, so no screw driver needed to fill up the tank.

The Bad: The hole is SMALL. A blunt syringe tip does not fit into the hole. (Edit, after several tries, I finally found a syringe tip that fit into it. The downside to that is it is an old - still sterile and unused - real needle I used to use to give puppy shots to the dogs. Very thin gauge. Not sure if the standard blunts sold by DIY shops come thin enough. None I have from DIY supplies are.) I don't have a syringe tip bottle with the rubber hose type syringe to try and see if that would fit into the hole. Because the hole is so small, filling takes a LONG time drip by drip. TIP: loading the top area of the tank and letting it drip slowly into the holding tank area is a bad idea, a lot of fluid drips down the atomizer post and leaks out the base of the unit.

The Tank Body

The tank body is plastic, but is strudy feeling. It screws on tightly to the base and tightly at the top. There is no rubber gasket at the top or bottom, however there is one at the middle where the atomizer base sits above the holding tank. I would prefer a bottom atomizer instead of the top. However, at least the tank body does come off so the screws are easy to access for rebuilding.

The Drip Tip

The tank has a nicely shaped drip tip with a large enough opening to make direct dripping onto the atomizer possible fairly easily. However... the drip tip is molded directly from the top of the tank, so you can not change it with a different type. I prefer to use my choice of drip tips. If I happen to like the one a tank comes with, great, but if not, I'd like the option to replace it. You can't do that with this. The drip tip is made of the same stainles steel metal as the top and base of the tank. I know a lot of people who use metal drip tips, but I prefer plastic.

Overall

It's a very nice vape. On the standard ego it vapes kind of hot at 3.8 volts. It is good, but I prefer it on my ego-twist where I can adjust the ohms down to 3.5 for a milder heat level. However, that makes the entire piece a very long and somewhat heavy device, especially when used with an inline tester (volt/wattage/ohm, great for using with egos that do not have a readout available). I like the feel, look and weight of the tank on the standard ego by itself better. Both are well within safety ranges.

NOTE: When using any device that includes rebuildable coils, always use an ohms checker to ensure proper levels to avoid overloading batteries that could create performance issues or be dangerous.

First Attempt at Snickerdoodle E-Juice DIY

SUCCESS - Heaven has a new name, it's SNICKERDOODLE.

I used to buy Snickerdoodle E-Juice from MrsT's, but the delivery time on their juices has gone through the roof. So I stopped getting anything from them, but have seriously missed the delicious flavor in my e-juices. So, I found MyFreedomSmokes Premium DIY flavor Snickerdoodle and decided to give it a shot. WOWOWOWOWOW... Delicious and I haven't even steeped it yet. It is a fresh mix, so, even though the flavor is a tad bit light at 15% of the mix, I think I'll let it steep a few days at least before upping the percentage. As the flavor goes though it is SPOT ON. Tastes just like a snickerdoodle cookie. Yum.