Crash Course for New Vapers

Note as at Jan 2014 , Please note this guide is an older one , many of the points and links are still very valid , but may have been superceded by newer technologies ... please reference other stickies as well to round out your vaping education
Be.comse of how the forum is laid out the newest Stickies appear at the bottom of the list .
I would suggest that for more recent and valid information a New Vaper starts at the bottom and works their way up
FM (Moderator)


I wrote this for a friend of mine who is starting on his vaping adventure...thought it might be of some use here.

This guide is designed to give you a quick kickstart to vaping. This covers most, if not all, of the most important topics in the least amount of time. It should take you just over an hour to get through all of this.

Each paragraph/point has one or more links that contain what I believe to be the best summary on the topic. Read/watch and understand. It'll make life a lot easier.

It's always best for somebody to show you first hand how to do all of these things...but just like Uni, you've gotta do the readings before you attend the lectures (not many people do though!)

So I'm going to start you off with some beginners guides. Read these, and you should be set. The rest will fall into place when you set up your first kit.

Let's start off by learning what an e-cig is and the basics of operation.

The next step is a bit longer - you'll want to learn the basics of the first two popular setups - atomizers and cartomizers. Once you've understood that, it will be easy to pick up the basics of how a clearomizer works - this is probably the device that you will be using initially.

On that note, I highly recommend watching this video - pbusardo is one of the, if not the most helpful person in the world of vaping. He does an extremely good job summarizing what you read above, as well as explaining clearomizers. He also explains more advanced topics, such as rebuildables and power (Resistance, Variable Voltage, Variable Wattage/Power, Amp limitations, Mean vs. RMS settings and measurements). For the most part you will only need to know about variable voltage and resistance - this will be helpful for when you start to use your gear.

Next - e-Juice. This article does a very good job of summarizing e-liquid ingredients and composition. Additionally, you will want to read more on what PG actually is - there has been a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about this ingredient due to some uninformed articles about it in the early days. This does a good job of straightening that out.

To get the best flavour out of you e-juice you're going to want to steep it - which is, allowing freshly made e-liquid to sit and age for anywhere from overnight to several weeks. Steeping often improves the liquid's flavor by allowing the ingredients to fully combine and reach their full potential. This girl explains it nicely. As I don't have anywhere to steep mine (you can smell it, and I don't want to do it where anybody may smell it) I only steep when I can - but it is recommended to do so for a week before vaping, despite what the video says about 24 hours.

I don't think it matters whether or not you do this before or after, but you'll need to mix your e-liquid with the nicotine. Be.comse of the base mixtures of both the flavourings and the nic, you'll need to figure out the ratios of your flavouring, nic, PG and VG (which has been explained earlier). This is a good guide on how to do so, and here is a calculator that you'll want to use to figure these ratios out.

As for the nicotine level...starting off with 18mg seems to be the go (out of all of my vaping friends I seem to be the only one that can handle 24mg). I've based this on the general consensus on online communities, as well as these two posts; No, one carto is NOT the equivalent to a pack of cigarettes and Tobacco cigarette vs e-cigarette nicotine dependancy. At the end of the day this is something for you to figure out by yourself though.

As for how to vape; behold the inhalation technique with an e-cigarette. Self explanatory.

After a while you may also notice that you will get vapers tongue; that is, you cannot taste your e-liquid. I've kind of got this at the start when I vaped the same flavor for a week or two straight. Chopping and changing is recommended.

Last but not least - battery safety. The one thing that may go drastically wrong (if at all) is the battery. The three common .comses of failure is overcharging/overdepleting and .comlty cells. However, bad batteries are not the rule; they are the exception. The batteries you should use need to be genuine, good quality cells so as to reduce the chance of anything like this happening. Buying from canadan vendors, or vendors approved by canukVapers will generally get you a genuine JoyeTech, Innokin, Vision etc battery.

With that in mind here is some battery safety tips in relation to your particular type of battery. The user is asking questions but all of the things they have listed are good battery care guidelines. Lipo charging bags are available from Juicewhore for you to charge them in - but it's up to you how much, if at all, you want to manage this risk.

Should probably put a small disclaimer here in spite of all this considering everybody else does: vaping is a low-risk alternative to smoking and is not universally considered as medically safe (although most unbiased medical journals point to yes). It's your own choice to give this stuff a go, and I, along with plenty of other vapers, know you're headed in the right direction.

So that's it - a quick crash course to vaping. Read and understand the above and starting to vape should be a easy and fun.

 

Didn't want to copy and paste properly from GMail either. Grrrr.

Also reserved for future use.

 

nice work .. stickied..

 

Mate,

Added this info into the Guide, under the beginners section!

Very good info

 

Great info. I found this site and this thread last night. I stayed up until 4am smoking heaps of rollies and reading a lot.
I kind of get it all now, but with one minor thing, the flavouring.
I know you can buy nic overseas, make your own strength mix with PG or VG, or buy premixed stuff at the right strength.

What I'm still trying to work out is if I was using that nic-mix or just using VG or PG plain and mixing with locally sold flavouring, how long is it (edit: a 10ml bottle of flavouring), going to last?
I know some things are sold as a doubler (eg 10ml of flavour to mix with 10ml of nic/pg/vg of whatever composition I choose), I know some things are sold as a concentrate but I haven't found any in.com, and some are sold weak to use straight up - already diluted.
So how long does a 10ml bottle of double up/shot last? Should I be buying a $5 double up for each day of the week, so place an order for heaps? Is there better value buying concentrate?
Some site I was looking at with a calculator was talking about concentrates and using 1ml for a mix, mentioning 1%-10% depending on brand.
but here I've only seen weaker mixes or double ups talked about?
How many mls of VG, PG and flavouring will I use a day? (15 rollie smokes a day for me now, more if depressed/not working, can't sleep, stay up longer - I pretty much only have one per hour)

 

It varies depending on how much you vape but normally you can expect to go through only 2-3ml per day, if you chain vape then that figure will be higher

Good luck with making the change!

 

Hi from a newbie! (55 year smoker) - 4 days and 2hrs no ciggies!!!

Needed to say how good this Thread is. I copied the link and sent it to my friend who is waiting for her ecig to arrive.

Many thanks for all the dedicated work.

Cheers
Lyn

 

Great read. Than you!

 

Thanks mate. New to vaping and your info was very helpful

Cheers

 

Cheers for the info. Started vaping only about a month ago so still feeling like a complete noob -_-
Been getting all of my stuff from mates but just ordered my first set from the US bout a week ago and should be getting it in a week or so. Should be good
I've also started a blog with my mate on reviews. It's got nothing much yet but feel free to follow
SecretCigReviews | E-Cig Reviews!

 

Thanks heaps for this bunny. As a newbie contemplating moving into vaping i am finding this article extremely beneficial to explain the science etc behind it all.

Again thanks heaps