Hello again steemians!
Having been a 20-30 a day cigarette smoker I always found it hard to quit until 3 years ago I was introduced to vaping by a friend. After that I managed to kick the lung destroying $10 a day habit pretty much instantly.
These days there's 100s of different vape setups to chose from with Chinese manufacturers pumping out dozens of new designs every month which makes choosing your first setup a challenge.
Despite the countless different designs, E-cigs can be defined in 3 different categories:
- cigalikes: These are the small ones that often look like cigarettes
- ego style e cigs: These are slightly bigger than the cigalikes with a bigger battery and small tank or 'clearomizer'.
- Vape mods: These are the setups you see people using to puff out the huge clouds. The mods go all the way up to 3-400 watts and need to be paired with a sub ohm tank.
I'd recommend completely ignoring the cigalikes, the battery isn't powerful enough which means that even when using a high strength nicotine liquid you won't inhale enough nicotine to keep you satisfied. These are normally the ones sold by the big tobacco companies aswell, who wants to give them more money, right?
What to start with?
I'd advise new vapers to start with a eGo style setup. With these types of device you'll need to chose a high PG e liquid and a high nicotine level of around 18-24mg(1.8%-2.4%)(more on E liquid below).
What's Good with Ego Style?
- Despite not being anywhere near as powerful as vape mods the good thing about the ego style devices is that they mimic cigarette smoking with a mouth to lung hit. With mouth to lung vaping, you inhale the vapor into your mouth and then inhale into your lungs.
- Another advantage of the ego style design is due to it not being as powerful as mods you won't use anywhere near as much e liquid making it much easier on the bank balance.
Most of the ego style designs are very similar anyway but I'd recommend something like the Kangertech evod starter kit which you should be able to find for around $25 (don't want to put links in case people think I'm selling something), just watch out for fakes, Kangertech products should come with a authenticity code.
This evod starter kit comes complete with a 2.5ml tank, a 1100 mAh battery and 1.5 ohm coil. The 1100 mAh battery should last you long enough to go all day without needing to recharge and the 2.5ml tank will hold enough juice for a good few hours vaping.
Not satisfied with mouth to lung?
If you didn't find the eGo style pens strong enough for you or you just want to get into cloud chasing then you can move on to mods and sub ohm tanks or sub ohm vape pens.
These are much more powerful and you'll be inhaling the vapor directly into your lungs. Because of the increased power, you'll be using a lot more e liquid. So, you'll need to use a liquid with a much lower nicotine content, either 3mg or 6mg(0.3%-0.6%). You'll also need E liquid with a high VG content (more on that below).
These days, there are many sub ohm set ups that come with pre-made coils, so, you don't have to worry about playing around with ohm meters and pieces of wire when you're getting started.
Again, there's little difference between the 100s of different choices, so, it doesn't matter too much. But a good mid level sub ohm set up is the Innokin cool fire 4 plus.
The cool fire 4 plus has already been out for around 18 months and I've been using it on and off for the entire time without any issues. You should be able to find it for around $50.
Its the same design as the original cool fire 4 but comes with a larger inbuilt 3300 mAh battery so you don't need to worry about buying seperate 18650 batteries to power it.
The cool fire 4 plus comes complete with a 70 watt box mod, a 4.5ml isub g tank which should keep you going for most of the day and two 0.5 ohm coil heads.
It has a curved design which sits nicely in your hand and has a light effect around the button which will flash red at 3.6 volts meaning your nearly out of battery, when your voltage hits 3.3 volts the mod will power off and require recharging.
The mod has variable wattage and can be altered in 0.5 watt increments all the way up to 70 watts. I recommend starting on around 25 watts, at this power you should get nice hits and the battery should last around 2 days. If you want to try higher wattage vaping you'll need to buy a 0.2 ohm coil separately, with this installed you can go up to around 50-55 watts.
Which E liquid to Choose?
Thought there were a lot of options for hardware? Now you're faced with the choice of 1000s of different flavors to chose from, all with different strengths and PG/VG rations.
What are the Differences?
- E liquid is manufactured with Propylene Glycol and Vegetable Glycerin, these are then mixed with nicotine and flavor concentrates.
- PG is the component that causes the throat hit in vaping and carries the flavor concentrate better than VG, making the flavor stronger.
- VG is much thicker, this is why you don't want to use high VG with the eGo style vape pens as it will clog your tank. Because of its thickness it produces a much denser vapor which makes the big clouds that cloud chasers love.
Most e liquid uses a combination of the 2 but there are now some 100% VG liquids available.
I recommend using 70/30 PG/VG if you're using a eGo style pen and the opposite if you're using a mod which allows for big clouds whilst still maintaining a nice taste.
Obviously the flavor is a personal choice but a lot of vapers start off with a tobacco type liquid, so, it's as close to smoking as possible.
Cheers for reading, would love to hear from any vapers. Comment below and I'll follow you. Think we need a Vaping category on the trending topics ;)