scrumpox
Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2014
- Messages
- 7,510
I stopped smoking in July 2012 using cigalikes as self-administered NRT. It took some will power but the cigalikes got me off smoking. They cost me much more than cigarettes ever did but money was never the issue, I had to quit for my health and for those around me. After a couple of cigalike years, on 4th July 20I4 to be precise, I googled “e-cigarette” for the first time and was amazed at what I found online. I ordered a couple of eGo batteries, some CE4 clearos and some juice … that’s when I became a vaper.
As I had already successfully quit smoking, my primary goals at this early stage were to improve the vape experience and to save money so I set myself a budget based on my cigalike costs and decided to track everything on a spreadsheet so I knew what I was spending. It was easy enough to spend less and I soon learned what would burn the cash fastest … factory made coils and premade juice.
I moved onto Kanger clearomisers with Naturevape coils that could be dry burned and rewicked, I bought wire so that I could rebuild them for pennies instead of replacing them for pounds. By the end of August I had mixed my first batch of juice and bought my first rebuildable tank, a clone Russian 91%.
I needed to upgrade from the eGo batteries and spent weeks researching the options, mostly by asking around on POTV. The mods on the market at this time were pretty unreliable, I wanted something robust, a mod that would last. I dug deep and spent large on a Vaporshark DNA30. Unfortunately it was anything but reliable, so I soon upgraded to a pair of rDNA30s. With mods sorted I could look in more detail at atomisers. I went through loads of different RTAs until I discovered that I really wanted more airflow than they could offer … so I moved onto RDAs. Over the next six months I tried over 40 different RDA designs, I loved the dripper phase. That was when I learned how to build and wick and how different airflow systems affected the vape.
Meanwhile, I was progressing on the DIY front. It was far from gourmet but it was pleasant enough, most of it, a lot of fun and so much cheaper. The mixing bug took over and my range of flavours extended. Vaping was a full blown hobby by now and I was content spending my budget on new atties and DIY gear. I started mixing juice for friends in 2015 primarily to get them off smoking too and soon realised there’s a useful bit of cash to be clawed back by selling juice. A little bit became a little bit more and by the end of 2015 I decided to reset the budget … I would only spend whatever money I got in, my target for 2016 was to vape for free.
By the end of 2016, I had achieved that objective without any difficulty or self-sacrifice. I had broken even despite buying 4 new mods and 15 new atties, a shedload of DIY stuff (including some nicotine to stash) and the usual consumables of wire, wicking and batteries. There aren’t too many hobbies that cost nothing!
So that’s my brief history of vaping and when I look back over almost three years of data in my spreadsheet, what have I learned that might be useful for new vapers in particular but maybe other vapers too? I think the key is to understand both the cost and value of a learning curve and to avoid the anxiety of feeling like you’ve wasted money. For sure, they’ll be vapers who don’t care what they spend … health comes first, they’re spending less than they did on fags, they feel justified to spend on this hobby what they might on other hobbies. That’s all fair enough. There’s also a perspective that whilst it can be costly to climb a learning curve, that journey is all part of the fun, it’s largely unavoidable and it’s all bankable as experience.
Vaping has changed a lot since 2012 and whilst we face a watershed with the TPD/TRPR on 20th May, vapers today have never had it so good, particularly for those who are now switching. The choice and quality of hardware is astonishing and the prices are very reasonable. The information and resources available online for free is much more extensive than it was … from learning to make coils and wicking to product reviews and DIY mixing. The learning curves aren’t quite as steep if you’re prepared to do your research … the path is now well trodden by millions of vapers and the pitfalls are clearly sign posted. If anything the problem today is that there’s too much choice.
One of the unavoidable learning curves comes with juice … the real magic in the vape. Whilst we all might spend more or less time and money on finding the right hardware set ups, there’s the substantial cost of searching out and finding juices that suit us which can be hugely frustrating. Juice reviews are very unreliable, prone to exaggeration, and taste is completely subjective. Premade juice is expensive, paying £3-£5 per 10mls only to find it doesn’t live up to expectation is what drives many to DIY. But then DIY, whilst easy enough in theory, can also lead to waste and disappointment – it’s very tempting to go overboard when you start out. Today there are more online resources for the new DIY mixer, more tried and tested recipes than there were 2-3 years ago. There are also a lot of flavour one-shots out there which make the first steps into DIY very straightforward.
My first steps in finding good juice were wasteful, mostly because premade juices didn’t live up the hype, also because I was very narrow in my choice and tolerance of flavour profiles. I started to DIY because I simply couldn’t afford to spend that kind of money on premade, particularly those juices which I personally found to be virtually unvapable. My first few months of mixing DIY were the most wasteful as I tested out a lot of concentrates, I tried out recipes without a clear idea of what I was doing. There’s a lot of craft in mixing well and it’s pure trial and error. More than anything you need bucket loads of patience.
Back in 2014 and 2015 I was vaping about 10-12mls a day on average, yet in my first 6 months I ploughed through just over 30mls of premade and DIY per day – that included 238 test mixes. The number of test mixes was half that in the 12 months of 2015. That’s a serious amount of juice going to waste and that was the cost of my early learning curve.
In 2016 and 2017, mostly because my set ups have changed, I’ve vaped on average about 23mls a day and my wastage is much more under control. I know the flavour profiles that I enjoy, I rarely buy premade (£60-worth in 2016, none in 2017) and I keep my testing to a very low percentage of the total amount of juice I make … and even then most of the tests are perfectly vapable.
So today is my 1000th day of vaping and what advice would I offer to new vapers based on my experience?
1. Find the set up(s) that works for you – by set up I mean mod, atty and juice. If you’re still smoking, or dual fuelling, then you probably haven’t found the right set up yet. If you don’t stop smoking you don’t get the full health benefits.
2. Never be without a back up … a spare mod, a spare atty, and spare juice.
3. If saving money is a key objective then get into DIY and rebuildables. Don’t hesitate, it’s nowhere near as difficult as you might think and almost all vapers who try it only wish they’d started sooner. If saving money isn’t your goal then please don’t bitch about the price and quality of coils and juice – paying for them is entirely your choice.
4. With first steps into DIY try one shot flavourings. Get a few successes under your belt before you venture into the potentially costly processes involving individual flavours and recipes. Learn to be patient.
5. If you don’t have a plan for vaping post-TPD, 20th May, think about it RIGHT NOW. The clock is ticking.
Like everything in life, happiness is found in loving what you have, not in yearning for what you don’t have. There is a big difference between want and need. Take control of the situation if anyone threatens to take away what you need. Happy vaping apes!
As I had already successfully quit smoking, my primary goals at this early stage were to improve the vape experience and to save money so I set myself a budget based on my cigalike costs and decided to track everything on a spreadsheet so I knew what I was spending. It was easy enough to spend less and I soon learned what would burn the cash fastest … factory made coils and premade juice.
I moved onto Kanger clearomisers with Naturevape coils that could be dry burned and rewicked, I bought wire so that I could rebuild them for pennies instead of replacing them for pounds. By the end of August I had mixed my first batch of juice and bought my first rebuildable tank, a clone Russian 91%.
I needed to upgrade from the eGo batteries and spent weeks researching the options, mostly by asking around on POTV. The mods on the market at this time were pretty unreliable, I wanted something robust, a mod that would last. I dug deep and spent large on a Vaporshark DNA30. Unfortunately it was anything but reliable, so I soon upgraded to a pair of rDNA30s. With mods sorted I could look in more detail at atomisers. I went through loads of different RTAs until I discovered that I really wanted more airflow than they could offer … so I moved onto RDAs. Over the next six months I tried over 40 different RDA designs, I loved the dripper phase. That was when I learned how to build and wick and how different airflow systems affected the vape.
Meanwhile, I was progressing on the DIY front. It was far from gourmet but it was pleasant enough, most of it, a lot of fun and so much cheaper. The mixing bug took over and my range of flavours extended. Vaping was a full blown hobby by now and I was content spending my budget on new atties and DIY gear. I started mixing juice for friends in 2015 primarily to get them off smoking too and soon realised there’s a useful bit of cash to be clawed back by selling juice. A little bit became a little bit more and by the end of 2015 I decided to reset the budget … I would only spend whatever money I got in, my target for 2016 was to vape for free.
By the end of 2016, I had achieved that objective without any difficulty or self-sacrifice. I had broken even despite buying 4 new mods and 15 new atties, a shedload of DIY stuff (including some nicotine to stash) and the usual consumables of wire, wicking and batteries. There aren’t too many hobbies that cost nothing!
So that’s my brief history of vaping and when I look back over almost three years of data in my spreadsheet, what have I learned that might be useful for new vapers in particular but maybe other vapers too? I think the key is to understand both the cost and value of a learning curve and to avoid the anxiety of feeling like you’ve wasted money. For sure, they’ll be vapers who don’t care what they spend … health comes first, they’re spending less than they did on fags, they feel justified to spend on this hobby what they might on other hobbies. That’s all fair enough. There’s also a perspective that whilst it can be costly to climb a learning curve, that journey is all part of the fun, it’s largely unavoidable and it’s all bankable as experience.
Vaping has changed a lot since 2012 and whilst we face a watershed with the TPD/TRPR on 20th May, vapers today have never had it so good, particularly for those who are now switching. The choice and quality of hardware is astonishing and the prices are very reasonable. The information and resources available online for free is much more extensive than it was … from learning to make coils and wicking to product reviews and DIY mixing. The learning curves aren’t quite as steep if you’re prepared to do your research … the path is now well trodden by millions of vapers and the pitfalls are clearly sign posted. If anything the problem today is that there’s too much choice.
One of the unavoidable learning curves comes with juice … the real magic in the vape. Whilst we all might spend more or less time and money on finding the right hardware set ups, there’s the substantial cost of searching out and finding juices that suit us which can be hugely frustrating. Juice reviews are very unreliable, prone to exaggeration, and taste is completely subjective. Premade juice is expensive, paying £3-£5 per 10mls only to find it doesn’t live up to expectation is what drives many to DIY. But then DIY, whilst easy enough in theory, can also lead to waste and disappointment – it’s very tempting to go overboard when you start out. Today there are more online resources for the new DIY mixer, more tried and tested recipes than there were 2-3 years ago. There are also a lot of flavour one-shots out there which make the first steps into DIY very straightforward.
My first steps in finding good juice were wasteful, mostly because premade juices didn’t live up the hype, also because I was very narrow in my choice and tolerance of flavour profiles. I started to DIY because I simply couldn’t afford to spend that kind of money on premade, particularly those juices which I personally found to be virtually unvapable. My first few months of mixing DIY were the most wasteful as I tested out a lot of concentrates, I tried out recipes without a clear idea of what I was doing. There’s a lot of craft in mixing well and it’s pure trial and error. More than anything you need bucket loads of patience.
Back in 2014 and 2015 I was vaping about 10-12mls a day on average, yet in my first 6 months I ploughed through just over 30mls of premade and DIY per day – that included 238 test mixes. The number of test mixes was half that in the 12 months of 2015. That’s a serious amount of juice going to waste and that was the cost of my early learning curve.
In 2016 and 2017, mostly because my set ups have changed, I’ve vaped on average about 23mls a day and my wastage is much more under control. I know the flavour profiles that I enjoy, I rarely buy premade (£60-worth in 2016, none in 2017) and I keep my testing to a very low percentage of the total amount of juice I make … and even then most of the tests are perfectly vapable.
So today is my 1000th day of vaping and what advice would I offer to new vapers based on my experience?
1. Find the set up(s) that works for you – by set up I mean mod, atty and juice. If you’re still smoking, or dual fuelling, then you probably haven’t found the right set up yet. If you don’t stop smoking you don’t get the full health benefits.
2. Never be without a back up … a spare mod, a spare atty, and spare juice.
3. If saving money is a key objective then get into DIY and rebuildables. Don’t hesitate, it’s nowhere near as difficult as you might think and almost all vapers who try it only wish they’d started sooner. If saving money isn’t your goal then please don’t bitch about the price and quality of coils and juice – paying for them is entirely your choice.
4. With first steps into DIY try one shot flavourings. Get a few successes under your belt before you venture into the potentially costly processes involving individual flavours and recipes. Learn to be patient.
5. If you don’t have a plan for vaping post-TPD, 20th May, think about it RIGHT NOW. The clock is ticking.
Like everything in life, happiness is found in loving what you have, not in yearning for what you don’t have. There is a big difference between want and need. Take control of the situation if anyone threatens to take away what you need. Happy vaping apes!
