the grumpy vaper
Postman
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2014
- Messages
- 352
We should celebrate British industry in vaping a whole lot more than we do. Smaller businesses are the backbone of the British economy forming 99% of all private sector businesses. That statistic alone is incredible and makes you understand how important SMEs are to how we all live every day.
Many of these smaller companies are also at the cutting edge of innovation and are run by people you know from next door on your street. It takes hard work, blood, sweat, tears and love to run these businesses and to keep them afloat.
Lee and Andy are the minds behind Eden Mods, one such company that makes up part of the 99%. Eden Mods was founded by two regular guys who wanted a bit more from their vaping. Having made the journey, that many others have, from cigalikes all the way to high end gear, something was always lacking from their experience. Great vapour, but leaky design. Great design but poor flavour. Leak free device but poor performance – there was always something that wasn’t quite right for them.
They built The Rose rebuidlable tank atomiser to satisfy themselves first. The Rose V2-S has just been released to some acclaim and should be celebrated for what it is; British industry at the cutting edge of vaping. A worthy competitor to the Kayfun V4 and the like.
Those with a slightly sensitive disposition be warned that there is some profanity in the interview below.
Without further ado, I’ll hand over to Lee Adler of Eden Mods to talk about the Rose V2-S and other more important things such as cheese…
TGV: Hey Lee! Many thanks for taking the time out to spend some time with The Grumpy Vaper. How are you? Ready for Christmas?
Lee: As ready as you can ever be I guess, presents have been bought and plans for the family coming to us have been made. To be honest I’m just counting the days until the time off work!
TGV: So, give me an introduction to Eden Mods, what are you all about? What influences you?
Lee: Eden Mods is a UK based company formed of myself and Andy Hobbs. I run the business and manage our supply chain, and Andy is the designer. Though of course our roles to blend into one another as we both have an input on either side of the divide. We’re all about UK made, quality devices. We don’t compromise on materials or techniques to save cost – we believe that if you pay serious money for a product, you expect the best of everything. Our influences I would say are our customers. The Rose V1 was designed to take elements that were already out in the marketplace, but put them together in a way where they all work perfectly together – without compromising on the aesthetic. But, it wasn’t perfect, so we listened to the changes our customers asked for and implemented them thus creating the Rose V2. Our customers continue to influence us now with the development of the stumpy kit, and now the Rose V2-S just released. Our customers will always drive what we do, not only as we want them to continue to buy customers, but they constantly challenge us to do more and better things.
TGV: Can you tell me about your business ethos? Why did you start in the mod game?
Lee: If I had to sum up our ethos in a few words, they would be quality, service and no compromise. We believe that the little things matter, so we try to consider every aspect of our products in detail to ensure that the customer gets the experience we would expect if we purchased one of our products. Service is a key part of what we do – so both Andy and I spend a considerable amount of time answering questions from all over the world, and we pride ourselves on the fact that we don’t offer a warranty – we will just help anyone that needs it no matter if they were the original owner or not.
Why did we start in the mod game? When Andy and I met, he was actually designing a product that formed the basis for the Rose V1 with another chap, but that relationship unfortunately broke down so I stepped into the other guys place. I went to visit Andy at his home, pretty much immediately connected about what we wanted to achieve and the rest is history!
TGV: Could you take us through how you developed and designed the Rose V2-S? What’s the S stand for?
Lee: Well the Rose V2 is pretty well known now, certainly in the UK and Europe, but the biggest shouts we had from our customers is that they wanted a smaller version as the Rose was large by more modern standards. So, we made the stumpy kit which only reduced the juice capacity by 0.2ml – so making a version of the Rose that came with the stumpy kit was the natural progression.
We tweaked the stand as well to make it a bit more elegant, and revised the packaging too. The S, therefore, stands for Stumpy.
TGV: Where are they manufactured and typically how many units would you order at a time?
Lee: 100% in the UK and we are VERY proud of that. We’ve got a bloody brilliant machinist on board who totally understands what we do and why we do it, and their eye for detail and quality is exactly as ours is. Order wise, it fluctuates massively to be honest. We’ve ordered them by the thousand and also down to 250 units. We, so far, have never run out of stock – and we’d like to maintain that where possible.
TGV: I see with a very quick search I can get a V2 clone for £25. On one side of the fence I have people telling me it does businesses like yours a favour and advertises the brand for you for free. On the other, some see it as outright theft of IP and your money wasted on precious R&D. So, tell me what’s your view on clones?
Lee: How did I fucking know you’d ask me that! Whichever way you look at it, it is theft of our IP – there is no way that can be contested. We invested a significant amount of money into prototyping and development of the products we make, money that can only be reclaimed slowly through sales. The Chinese use very little skill in reverse engineering a product and take advantage of local government incentives to produce these goods at a fraction of the price that we can NEVER compete with. Sure, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in this case it takes money out of our pocket as it’s very rare for clone users to convert to the original – though it has happened. When I was young and in fact now as an adult, if I want something that is expensive, I save for it. The Chinese have removed the need to save by pumping out cheap shite, and capitalise on modders typical inability to keep up with demand, or keep their costs low. What people need to appreciate is that most of us don’t do this for our main source of income, Andy and I both have very demanding day jobs in fact, so costs will always be higher as you are getting a bespoke, often hand crafted device that’s built after work, weekends and holidays. Clones are just a slap in the face to all the hard work we do making the real deal.
All that said though, I’ve said it before and will say it again – I don’t have a problem with the people that use the clones – that’s their choice as it’s their money, I only have a problem with the Chinese for ripping our products off and the unscrupulous organisations that profit from selling them.
TGV: Ok, safety is a huge and contentious issue at the moment in the world of vaping and e-cigarettes; there’s a 280w device coming out. How many watts is too many watts? Is the vaping arms race necessary?
Lee: 280w frankly is just fucking lunacy. How many watts are too much? Well I vape typically at about 11, so a DNA30 is perfect for me! But in all seriousness, very few people can tolerate vaping at those kinds of power levels, so what’s the point. It’s just getting stupid and frankly, dangerous to the uninitiated – it does our cause no favours at all.
TGV: So, as a consumer how do you feel about Diacetyl, diketones and other nasties in e-liquids?
Lee: Diacetyl and its nasty friends – sure, if we can avoid them we should. But we have to remember that with ciggies we were inhaling more carcinogenic compounds than I’ve had hot dinners, and that’s a lot of hot dinners. So should we be as worried as we are about these compounds? I’d say probably not in the grand scheme of things – but I think it’s a good thing that the industry has moved on to such a degree that people are beginning to consider things like this – it’s healthy for us and the industry.
TGV: What’s the answer to life, the universe and everything?
Final part of the interview and pics, here.
Many of these smaller companies are also at the cutting edge of innovation and are run by people you know from next door on your street. It takes hard work, blood, sweat, tears and love to run these businesses and to keep them afloat.
Lee and Andy are the minds behind Eden Mods, one such company that makes up part of the 99%. Eden Mods was founded by two regular guys who wanted a bit more from their vaping. Having made the journey, that many others have, from cigalikes all the way to high end gear, something was always lacking from their experience. Great vapour, but leaky design. Great design but poor flavour. Leak free device but poor performance – there was always something that wasn’t quite right for them.
They built The Rose rebuidlable tank atomiser to satisfy themselves first. The Rose V2-S has just been released to some acclaim and should be celebrated for what it is; British industry at the cutting edge of vaping. A worthy competitor to the Kayfun V4 and the like.
Those with a slightly sensitive disposition be warned that there is some profanity in the interview below.
Without further ado, I’ll hand over to Lee Adler of Eden Mods to talk about the Rose V2-S and other more important things such as cheese…
TGV: Hey Lee! Many thanks for taking the time out to spend some time with The Grumpy Vaper. How are you? Ready for Christmas?
Lee: As ready as you can ever be I guess, presents have been bought and plans for the family coming to us have been made. To be honest I’m just counting the days until the time off work!
TGV: So, give me an introduction to Eden Mods, what are you all about? What influences you?
Lee: Eden Mods is a UK based company formed of myself and Andy Hobbs. I run the business and manage our supply chain, and Andy is the designer. Though of course our roles to blend into one another as we both have an input on either side of the divide. We’re all about UK made, quality devices. We don’t compromise on materials or techniques to save cost – we believe that if you pay serious money for a product, you expect the best of everything. Our influences I would say are our customers. The Rose V1 was designed to take elements that were already out in the marketplace, but put them together in a way where they all work perfectly together – without compromising on the aesthetic. But, it wasn’t perfect, so we listened to the changes our customers asked for and implemented them thus creating the Rose V2. Our customers continue to influence us now with the development of the stumpy kit, and now the Rose V2-S just released. Our customers will always drive what we do, not only as we want them to continue to buy customers, but they constantly challenge us to do more and better things.
TGV: Can you tell me about your business ethos? Why did you start in the mod game?
Lee: If I had to sum up our ethos in a few words, they would be quality, service and no compromise. We believe that the little things matter, so we try to consider every aspect of our products in detail to ensure that the customer gets the experience we would expect if we purchased one of our products. Service is a key part of what we do – so both Andy and I spend a considerable amount of time answering questions from all over the world, and we pride ourselves on the fact that we don’t offer a warranty – we will just help anyone that needs it no matter if they were the original owner or not.
Why did we start in the mod game? When Andy and I met, he was actually designing a product that formed the basis for the Rose V1 with another chap, but that relationship unfortunately broke down so I stepped into the other guys place. I went to visit Andy at his home, pretty much immediately connected about what we wanted to achieve and the rest is history!
TGV: Could you take us through how you developed and designed the Rose V2-S? What’s the S stand for?
Lee: Well the Rose V2 is pretty well known now, certainly in the UK and Europe, but the biggest shouts we had from our customers is that they wanted a smaller version as the Rose was large by more modern standards. So, we made the stumpy kit which only reduced the juice capacity by 0.2ml – so making a version of the Rose that came with the stumpy kit was the natural progression.
We tweaked the stand as well to make it a bit more elegant, and revised the packaging too. The S, therefore, stands for Stumpy.
TGV: Where are they manufactured and typically how many units would you order at a time?
Lee: 100% in the UK and we are VERY proud of that. We’ve got a bloody brilliant machinist on board who totally understands what we do and why we do it, and their eye for detail and quality is exactly as ours is. Order wise, it fluctuates massively to be honest. We’ve ordered them by the thousand and also down to 250 units. We, so far, have never run out of stock – and we’d like to maintain that where possible.
TGV: I see with a very quick search I can get a V2 clone for £25. On one side of the fence I have people telling me it does businesses like yours a favour and advertises the brand for you for free. On the other, some see it as outright theft of IP and your money wasted on precious R&D. So, tell me what’s your view on clones?
Lee: How did I fucking know you’d ask me that! Whichever way you look at it, it is theft of our IP – there is no way that can be contested. We invested a significant amount of money into prototyping and development of the products we make, money that can only be reclaimed slowly through sales. The Chinese use very little skill in reverse engineering a product and take advantage of local government incentives to produce these goods at a fraction of the price that we can NEVER compete with. Sure, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but in this case it takes money out of our pocket as it’s very rare for clone users to convert to the original – though it has happened. When I was young and in fact now as an adult, if I want something that is expensive, I save for it. The Chinese have removed the need to save by pumping out cheap shite, and capitalise on modders typical inability to keep up with demand, or keep their costs low. What people need to appreciate is that most of us don’t do this for our main source of income, Andy and I both have very demanding day jobs in fact, so costs will always be higher as you are getting a bespoke, often hand crafted device that’s built after work, weekends and holidays. Clones are just a slap in the face to all the hard work we do making the real deal.
All that said though, I’ve said it before and will say it again – I don’t have a problem with the people that use the clones – that’s their choice as it’s their money, I only have a problem with the Chinese for ripping our products off and the unscrupulous organisations that profit from selling them.
TGV: Ok, safety is a huge and contentious issue at the moment in the world of vaping and e-cigarettes; there’s a 280w device coming out. How many watts is too many watts? Is the vaping arms race necessary?
Lee: 280w frankly is just fucking lunacy. How many watts are too much? Well I vape typically at about 11, so a DNA30 is perfect for me! But in all seriousness, very few people can tolerate vaping at those kinds of power levels, so what’s the point. It’s just getting stupid and frankly, dangerous to the uninitiated – it does our cause no favours at all.
TGV: So, as a consumer how do you feel about Diacetyl, diketones and other nasties in e-liquids?
Lee: Diacetyl and its nasty friends – sure, if we can avoid them we should. But we have to remember that with ciggies we were inhaling more carcinogenic compounds than I’ve had hot dinners, and that’s a lot of hot dinners. So should we be as worried as we are about these compounds? I’d say probably not in the grand scheme of things – but I think it’s a good thing that the industry has moved on to such a degree that people are beginning to consider things like this – it’s healthy for us and the industry.
TGV: What’s the answer to life, the universe and everything?
Final part of the interview and pics, here.
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