Every time I walk by a vapor mall stand I stop for a few minutes and let the salesmen go about his rant. When I ask them about their personal vaping experience, it is minimal to almost none. They have no idea what the name of the connection they are using is called. They do not even know the wattage/voltage of the device theyre selling. Recently when stopping by a stand, there was an enraged customer. he was trying to return the product due to lack of performance and battery life. I just so happen to have a few business card from online vendors that I purchase from and was able to make some great recommendations based on what the customer was looking for.. It took me a few minutes to give someone valuable information. Why can’t these stands do the same thing. The point im getting to is that vaping is being taken advantage of and those who are looking into it may be turned off to vaping indefinitely by their initial experience. As a community we need to stand up and help our fellow vapers! What are you doing for your local vaping community?!

first off, alice in vapeland is kind of hard to get, either way you have to be patient, and most people love this company!

This is one of the reasons, you get a VERY nice looking box with a playing card, confetti and it’s decorated!

so i got 11 little bottles, cost about $25 with shipping.

So here is what i think of the flavors.

mind you i dripped all of these at 4.0V and i got these all at 11mg.

first is B&W cookie.

i get a really nice cocoa cookie. lightly sweet.  The more i vape it, the more it tastes like an oreo cookie. i like it, not going to kill anyone over it, but good vape!

next is white rabbit, people have been know to LOVE this flavor. Mind you I am vaping these as I type. WTH is this flavor? It’s like a coconut cookie? smells mapely?  now that i typed maple i taste it…. i turn up the volts and it’s nice and creamy. really reminds me o an almond joy minus the chocolate. Good complex flavor!

next is cupcake city.

to me this is a IMO a pretty generic cupcake flavor, it is not bad at all, but compared to the other 2 flavors, this is not a big WOW. If you have tried TVRs cupcake, these 2 are close enough.

Next is crunkberry, i took this to work with me, it really tastes like crunch berries with milk. My only issue is that the flavor is VERY light, BUT none of these flavors have been steeped, so tht might be the issue.

(more…)

We all already know about the vast influx of e cigarette website, mall stands, and stores. Whether you’re watching the terrible Courtney Love NJoy ad on Youtube or reading on the forums about the new Kanger T3S (which I’m pretty excited about!), you know that the business itself is booming. In fact, a good entrepreneur knows that this is THE perfect time to jump into the business. Brick and Mortar stores are becoming more common. Sites such as JWraps give you customization options that didn’t exist a while back. I’ve heard rumors of a vaping bar opening up in my city.

These successes are thrilling for the vaping community. Our sense of camaraderie is only fortified by the development of the industry. But with booming business comes opposition. As we all already know, the FDA is still working on its regulations. The stigma of “electronic smoke” isn’t quite gone yet. And for goodness’ sake, most of our mods still come from China!

This is a pivotal time for vaping. Every incident that happens will be crucial, every victory substantial, and every blow severe. Stay alert and vape on!

Ninja OUT.

Like some of you who are reading this I have an addiction that has already put a dent in my wallet but my addiction to vaping has brought back an addiction of old. It is my addiction of batteries and it is just as hard for me to fight off as the vaping one. Just like the RC cars that started my affliction mods are only as good as their power source. With that being said there is much confusion over what batteries are good and depending on who you ask you could get completely different answers. I have found in the vaping community majority of the time you will only get one of two answers. They either tell you AW is best or the brand they are using is best. Both answers are right given how they are used but we don’t all require the same from a battery. To make matters worse labels lie, a lot of companies rewrap other companies batteries, and they change characteristics with the load put on them. Hopefully I can help give you some tools to make the choice that fits your needs and you don’t fall victim to the bad recommendation.

A few examples of some of the confusion I seem to come across involves AW and Efest. Aw built up a really good reputation with their 1600mah imr 18650 battery and for a good reason. This battery holds a high voltage under load for the life of the battery and is capable of providing a 20 amp continuous current. A battery like this can fulfill almost any need a vaper might have. The confusion seems to happen with their 2000mah battery. During my search for a perfect battery I have come across many threads with people talking about that being the best battery because Aw’s 1600mah is so good and this has more mah or life. Because of that I have been recommended the AW imr 2000mah battery more times than I could begin to count. What some people seem to overlook is the 2000mah version being a completely different battery. This version only has a 10 amp max continuous current and is actually out performed by a small margin at every load test up to 10 amps by the panasonic 2250 hybrid. If you don’t believe me here is the link. http://www.dampfakkus.de/akkutest.php?id=66 There are vapers that know the truth but If you ever want to hear every good and bad about a battery got to a flashlight forum. They love their batteries more than parents love their kids. Efest has also added to the confusion with their battery lineup. The first had a 1500mah imr 18650 that performed pretty good and was a good alternative to the AW 1600mah especially with the price difference but then they made a 2000mah battery that performs very poorly over 3amps. This is why some of us had a problem running our provari with one. Now they have a 2250mah imr that is nothing more than a panasonic 2250 hybrid in a efest wrapper. Strangely it doesn’t perform as well but is very close. I think it has to do with efest buying the batteries that don’t meet QC for cheap so they can keep their prices down. I’m not getting into that and you can google it and make your own mind up. It’s things like this that make a brand recommendation almost meaningless. If you want to get your moneys worth out of a battery you must do your homework and at the end of this I will post a couple links of places to go for reviews and charts.

Now that we understand the confusion with batteries we need to understand that a battery performs best in certain conditions and a great battery might not be best with the conditions you plan to use it at. This is where vapers that use regulated devices and mechanical devices start butting heads. A battery that might be best for one is more than likely not suited for the other. I personally don’t like to go below 3.5 volts when using a mechanical and that is pushing it. The panasonic hybrid and aw 2000mah will do well but are out lasted and out performed by the AW 1600mah 20 amp, MNKE 1400mah 20 amp, and my new favorite Sony imr 1600mah 30 amp. They all have a very low mah rating but outlast the others by a good margin if you only go to 3.5 volts like most mechanical users do. That is even low for some and makes the difference even more. For those using regulated devices like a provari it is the opposite. A provari and similar VV or VW devices will use the battery all the way to 3.2 volts without a loss in vape quality. A lot of the batteries that have a higher mah rating get most of it after the 3.5 volt range or even lower making it unusable to a lot of vapers. I am not going to get into the safety of batteries since I feel that is important enough for everyone to research on their own and decide for themselves what they are willing to use. Personally I will not put a non imr battery in a mechanical but will use non imr in regulated devices since they have built in protection. Even with a regulated device you still need to know your battery and that is even more important if you choose not to use an imr battery. My personal favorite battery for a regulate device is the Panasonic NCR18650PD 2900mah. This battery has the same performance of the panasonic hybrid which means it is at and above AW 2000mah class and has a 10 amp rating that is uncommon for non imr batteries. Before you start grabbing high mah batteries and throwing them in a regulated device you must know what the battery is capable of. Just like my provari doesn’t like the 2000mah efest imr batteries your vv/vw device might not like a lot of the non imr batteries.

In order to choose a battery that will work best for your needs you need to know how your device uses the battery. If you are a vaper you are probably familiar with ohm’s law and if you are using a mechanical device that is all you really need to know to find a battery that is suitable. All you need to do is figure out the max draw you will put on the battery buy using ohms law and choose a battery that will keep a high voltage and do it above the max amps you plan to draw from it. If you are using a VV/VW device you have more choices but you also have to take more into account. When choosing a battery for a regulated device you have to take into account the extra amps being drawn from a battery over the amps being output by the device. An example of my setup is a voltage of 4.7 on a 1.4ohm genny. Using ohms law I can get my amperage. 4.7 Volts on a 1.4ohm atty will put out 3.357 amps. What makes it complicated is the battery isn’t 4.7 volts. Best case it is 4.2 volts and when choosing a battery you want to use the worst case just to cover yourself. So in the worst case you have a 3.2 volt battery trying to put 4.7 volts through a 1.4 ohm atty using a boost circuit. To make things even harder you have to realize a boost circuit isn’t 100% efficient. Most industrial boost circuits are around 90% and provari claims theirs is 95% but we will go with 90% for this. In order to find out what stress the battery will be under you need to figure out what the wattage of the output is. Using the same setup and ohms law we can find out the wattage by doing ((voltage*voltage)/resistence = wattage). In this case our output wattage is 15.77. Since the boost is only 90% efficient we need to divide the wattage by .9 to get the output wattage of the battery which is 17.52watts. Now to find the worst cause for our battery we must use 3.2 volts to provide 17.52watts. To come up with the amp draw on the battery we need to divide the watts(17.52) by the voltage(3.2) which tells us that in close to worst case scenario we are drawing 5.475 amps from the battery. That is 2.12 amps more than what was calculated for the devices output and that doesn’t even take into account that most boost circuits have peaks causing the stress to be even more. With this formula you can choose a battery that suits you. In my case I would have to go with something that could do 8 amps at minimum to cover any spikes that may incur during the boost process but if you won’t be pushing your battery that hard you can safely choose a lower amperage and still get all the performance you need.

When it comes to batteries it is all about gives and takes. The trick is knowing how it is being used and hopefully I have helped with that. I am not going to try to tell you what batteries are best because like I said I may ask my batteries to do more or less than you do of yours. I will say I use AW imr 1600mah, MNKE 1400mah, and sony imr 1600mah for my mechanical devices that give me plenty of power, life, and are capable of pushing ohms as low as .2 ohms. In my regulated devices I use the aw imr 2000mah, panasonic 2250 hybrids, and what is the best for me the panasonic ncr18650pd 2900mah. There are a lot of really good batteries out there that I haven’t even tried yet and some good recommendations to look at would be from samsung, sony, panasonic, and sanyo. Just a reminder you must also look into the safety of these batteries and decide what you are willing to settle for. Some people only use protected batteries and that is something else to take into account when checking battery charts. At the end of this I will post a link to two places that have a lot of reviews and charts on most batteries. I don’t want to make this any longer than it already is so hopefully some light has been shined on the subject and thank all of you for reading.

http://www.dampfakkus.de/liste_akkus.php

http://budgetlightforum.com/taxonomy/term/53/0

So, I’m venturing into the caffeinated e-liquid world and my main question is this:

Could it possibly work?

The main problem is getting enough caffeine into solution to have a noticeable effect. Up until now, I called it impossible.

That is until Mountain Vapor released a caffeine-myrcene solution that is supposedly effective (http://www.smokincrow.com/REV_Pure_Energy_by_Mountain_Vapor_p/rev.htm).

For those of you who don’t know what myrcene is, it’s a common chemical compound (found in abundance in mangoes) used often for fragrances in perfumes. It is present in cannabis as a delivery device for thc to the brain.

Well, that’s all well and good. Why myrcene in caffeine solution?

I haven’t looked into the pharmacology of it yet, but caffeine is definitely quite soluble in myrcene. If myrcene acts similar with caffeine as it does with thc, it would be a critical addition to caffeine juices.

Have any of you tried this juice? What are your thoughts on this solution?

I will be ordering the juice soon to test if it works. If it does, I’ll be tinkering around with a solution this summer. I’m a senior in college studying Biochemistry, so don’t worry about me killing myself.

Ninja OUT

That’s a trick question, of course.  But for those for whom the trick seems elusive, let me fill yez in on some stuff I’ve learned and seen over the years…. Any time government gets involved in “regulating” something (which really means you must now seek government permission to engage in something), prices increase and innovation slows or stalls.

One thing I’ve noticed in my two-plus years of vaping is that innovation and new product introductions happen at an incredible pace. Just take a few minutes and look at all the new stuff that’s come out in the last 3 or 4 months; it’s amazing. Part of the reason for this is competition; manufacturers and vendors must follow the old business chestnut, “innovate or die.”   If you own a vape manufacturing business and you decide that you don’t need to try to come out with new and/or improved products, you’ll soon be relegated to the ash-heap of the vaping world.

But another reason, just as important and perhaps even more so, is that so far the vape industry has been allowed to operate in a true, laissez-faire capitalist environment.  It has been relatively unfettered by the greedy, power-hungry bureaucrats and politicians who taint most other endeavors in this great country.  That means that companies have a greater amount of money available for R&D and retooling.  They aren’t throwing money away trying to adhere to pointless regulatory paperwork and mindless governmental oversight or by hiring high-priced lobbyists to try to get a leg up on their competitors.   This is a good thing, fellow babies, and should be allowed to continue.

There are those, however, who think we need this sort of Nannyism and the associated ridiculous waste of money and resources in the vape industry (and indeed, in all of the business world).  But I’m here to tell you that we are the only regulation this industry (or any other) needs.

If I buy a bunch of batteries that are shoddy, won’t hold a charge or maybe even catch fire or explode, am I going to continue to buy these things? No.  Am I going to tell others about it as well?  Damn straight.  Am I going to go after the manufacturer for damages? You bet your ass.  This is real regulation, dear friends.  The market is the finest, fastest regulation in existence.  This battery manufacturer will either need to shut down and go out of business (thus alleviating the problem altogether) or examine what happened, fix the problem, and attempt to re-earn the trust of their customers.  Again, alleviating the original problem.  No politicians, bureaucrats or federal agencies required, fellow babies.  In fact, governmental regulation is nothing more than a “middle-man” scheme that accomplishes little except driving up costs and hampering innovation.

Let’s learn why…how many of you have ever bought a car?  The automobile industry is one of the most heavily-regulated in the country.  Yet every day, cars are bought that have defects, don’t work properly or are down-right dangerous to operate.  Gee, all that regulation sure did work wonders, innit?  And what happens when you get one of these cars that fail to perform as advertised?  Well gee whizz…you either quit buying from that company or attempt to sue to get the manufacturer to make right on it.  Same things you’d have to do otherwise.

In fact, one can argue that regulations allow defective products to be sold.  After all, if they meet whatever nebulous standards some government agency dictates, then the manufacturer has done their job.  In reality, your ability to gain recompense  will be hampered by the fact that they can drag this through the courts much longer (and expensively) because they can say “We did what the regulators told us we had to do.  Don’t like it?  Tell it to the politicians.”  And you know where that’s going to get you.  Every tried to sue the government lately?

So to answer the question “Will government regulation stifle the vape industry?”, the answer should be plain.  As consumers and vapers, we should be the only regulators the industry requires…and we’re far more fearsome that any politician, because we are free to take or money elsewhere and shut down any business who thinks they can get away with fleecing us…much quicker and more efficiently than if we have to go through a middle-man who doesn’t really care one way or the other.

If you’re as much of a nerd as I am, you spend a LOT of time browsing the internet for good bargains… especially when it comes to vaping. I bought my first PV from a tobacco store several months ago and ended up paying double for a Joyetech Ego C Twist. Since then, I’ve almost exclusively bought online to avoid getting ripped off again.

But when Nashville Vapor opened up in Nashville, I was pleasantly surprised by how often I was at the store. I end up paying a few dollars more with everything I buy, but the community is worth it.

And let’s be honest. Getting started in the vaping world can be intimidating. Nobody wants to spend several hours researching when they can easily light a cigarette and watch Family Guy again.

So let’s support our Brick and Mortar stores. Not just for our vaping friends, but also as a way to bring in new vapers.

If you don’t know of a store near you, you can check PBusardo’s site for locations.

http://tasteyourjuice.com/wordpress/brick-mortar-locations/

If you know of a store that isn’t on the site, contact him and let him know!

Now I have always thought that all of the warning labels on products are stupid, like Warning HOT Coffee!! Come on really? my hot coffee  is hot I guess I shouldn’t spill it on my lap. But some warning labels are needed, for instance Pluid and other such liquids should have a warning on them to warn you that this juice can and will destroy plastic tanks. Adding warning labels should be a mandatory regulation that we as vapers should get behind. The MPAA(Motion Picture Association of America) is a collective group of people in the movie industry that self regulates, why shouldn’t we do the same for vaping. If we don’t regulate our self’s it gives the government more reason to take over.

I ran across this little video and thought i should share. ECIGbans are going around the states, sometimes we forget that they are also going on around the world. this little video is about “A documentary to find the truth about e-cigarettes.”  when one person in the video said, this is the future, i just think he summed up ecigs for me. and we all started different times and reasons,  but i feel for those of us who do vape agree with him.  Here is a link http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smsltd/smoke-without-fire I recommend going there, but feel free to watch the two videos first, but i guess you dont have to.  Here is there Facebook group if you miss it in the video https://www.facebook.com/SWOFcampaign

Honestly when i read “The “Smoke without Fire” documentary project will create a series of short films that explore both sides of this fascinating phenomena called VAPING…” i was hooked, and hope we get to see it in the near future. so here is the link right to the video:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/smsltd/smoke-without-fire/widget/video.html

also check out the youtube video they made, little differnt, but about the project etc. these two are great videos. Enjoy:

Smoke without fire: Our Story Part 1

some of you might notice a familiar face. lets give them our support!

P.S. i tried to put the videos up but apparently im able to due to their size

Vape Strong

~Nerva666

I have mixed opinions on people in general but in the ecig industry with all the forums and communication, I have to say the ecig users are among the coolest people on the planet.
First you have the starters. They are the people that want to learn and of course we have people lined up to help them.
Second is the folks that are happy and laid back. They just want to vape, and of course, they are always willing to help.
Next is the all around vaper. This person has bought just about everything and is also, always willing to help.
The good part here is that everyone is always willing to help and always so nice. Even when the next guy comes along.
This guy has mood swings. Its normal for many of us to have them. Its not like vapers feel the need to stir the pot. Instead they mostly all just want to help.
This is why I am surprised and sometimes overwhelmed. People can be so nice that it seems unreal.
The main point of the blog is to say thank you for what you all do. Even if you where the mad hatter, you always felt the need to help when you got the chance. So pat yourselves on the back. Its good to be here. Healthy and free, and proud to be part of it.