Good Reason To Vape #5: Zombies

We all know that the Zombie Apocalypse is coming. It’s inevitable. The dead shall rise and walk the earth looking like so many graphic anti-smoking images. And they shall devour the flesh of the living.

And as the dead rise, civilization shall fall, taking with it all the comforts that civilization brings… like running water, and showers.

As people struggle to survive they will face, not only the walking dead, but also the stench of their own unwashed selves… a stench sure to attract zombies eager to dine on living flesh… But gather a dozen or so survivors, each armed with a mechanical mod and a dripping atomizer, and the scent of unwashed flesh can be masked with the aroma of vanilla custard… or gummy bears… or well, as long as you aren’t vaping meat-liquid it won’t matter what it smells like, because zombies have no interest in baked goods, or candy, or fruit, or, well, anything other than flesh. Faced with the smell of sweet vapory goodness the zombies are sure to turn their attention to.

But what to do if zombies are closing in and you’re in an enclosed space? What if there is no where to run and they are going to get close enough to see you? Quite simply, you blow massive clouds and hide unseen in the resulting fog of vapor.

Please note, the above mentioned strategies do not work so well on the living. Using the smell of vapor to confuse your wife or kids, or hiding from them in a cloud of vapor has proven to be wholly ineffective!

What's In Your Vapor Tool Kit

This past weekend I went out and bought myself an ultrasonic cleaner. I bought one of the less expensive models because I wasn’t really sure how much use I would get out of it. I’m going to take just a moment to say that it’s awesome for cleaning drip tips and atomizer parts! Anyway, I had just spent $40 on a gadget for cleaning vape stuff, and it got me to thinking about all the various supplies and equipment that I use in support of vaping. So, aside from mods, atomizers, and drip tips what other items might you need for vaping? The list can be rather long, but to be fair, it doesn’t have to be that way. When I first started it was with an eGo battery, a charger, tanks, tips, coils, pipettes, and an occasional tissue or Q-tip for cleaning. Switching to mod with removable batteries increases the amount of ‘stuff’ needed… using rebuildable atomizers adds even more.

So here it is, a list of vape supplies not including mod/atomizer parts or e-liquids.

Because I vape:
• Q-tips
• Toothbrush
• Pipettes
• Ultrasonic cleaner
• Safe or other lockable storage to keep e-liquids in so that kids/pets can’t get to any of it.
• Tissue
• Needle top bottles
• Small funnel for filling needle top bottles
• Syringes, various sizes
• Blunt tip needles for syringes… also in various sizes
• Case/box/crate/bin/chest to hold vaping related tools and supplies.

Because I use 18xxx mods:
• 18650 batteries. Lots of them. AW IMRs at first, but now Sony VTC5s
• 18650 case(s), because loose batteries in your pocket are not a good idea.
• Chargers. Two of them. Gotta have one at home… gotta have one at the office.
• 18650 pvc wrap
• Heat gun, to shrink the pvc wrap.
• Telescopic magnet, to hold 18650s while shrinking the pvc wrap.
• Label maker for labeling rewrapped 18650s

Because I use rebuildable atomizers:
• Kanthal… 24g, 26g, 28g, 30g…
• Cotton
• Mini Screwdrivers. For those mini screw posts on RDAs and sometimes for wrapping coils on.
• Small pliers
• Tweezers
• Toothpicks
• Locking forceps
• Drill pits or similar small diameter metal rods for wrapping coils on.
• Ohm Reader (or multimeter)
• Volt Meter (see above)
• Wire clippers
• Nail clippers
• Silica wick

The Perfect Glass of Strawberry Milk... In an E-Liquid.

The e-liquid: Quick Straw by Tasty Vapor
50% VG
6mg nic

The Setups: Tugboat RDA with dual parallel coils @ .64 ohm on V3 Flip

Can you guess what this tastes like?

Sometimes it takes a little while to decide how you feel about a particular e-liquid flavor. You try it, you think about it, you try it again, Maybe you take a sip of water to clear out your taste buds and then try the flavor one more time. Sometimes it’s like that. Not this time.

This time I’m trying Quick Straw, a soon to be release flavor from Tasty Vapor. And this time I immediately found my self asking if the flavor should be just a tiny bit stronger… but then I always had the same problem with the real thing. Mix up a glass of strawberry milk and I would always think that, surely, if it tasted so good, wouldn't it taste even better with more strawberry flavoring added?

You see, I didn't spend any time trying to identify flavors, contemplating subtle nuances, or thinking about how close the flavor was to its description. Instantly my mind went right where it always did with a glass of Strawberry Quick… because this e-liquid is just that good. It is the perfect reproduction of that particular brand of strawberry milk…

but what if you don’t like strawberry milk?

Well, then it’s possible that there is no hope for you… that, and you probably wouldn't like Quick Straw, because this e-liquid is instant nostalgic yum. Instant cool, refreshing, sweet, strawberry and milk goodness.
Geoff and his team over at Tasty Vapor have done something amazing with Quick Straw. It’s not a flavor that’s reminiscent of its namesake, it’s not a close approximation, it’s a dead on taste-alike. So if you have ever enjoyed strawberry milk, you know what you have to do. Just don’t buy too much of the stuff, save some for me. I’m going to need lots of it!

Todd vs. Ameravape? Or is it Ameravape Vs the Vaping Community?

You couldn't be blamed for expecting that all of this nonsense would have died down by now. It hasn't. Why? You may ask, well you probably already know why, but just in case… it hasn't died down because the guys over at Ameravape don’t know when to keep their mouths shut!

Competition Mod? or well marketed pipe-bomb?

They need to stop posting to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
They need to take a step back from the drama and hope that the public forgets.
They need to re-invent themselves, and quietly release a new, high quality, reliable product.
They need to step delicately while slowly rebuilding a positive public image…

Right now, what they are doing bears more resemblance to moshing in a minefield than stepping delicately.

So let’s pretend that you've been hiding under a rock for the last several months, or that you need a refresher coarse because there might be a quiz on the subject tomorrow.

It all started when the Manhattan mod blew up in Ameravapes face. And by that I mean that a respected reviewer, Todd, didn't give them a favorable review. He questioned the venting capabilities of the Manhatten and compared it to a ‘pipe bomb’

But that was just the trigger.

The actual explosive event occurred when Ameravape responded… and not nicely… not nicely at all. Forget, for a moment, who’s right and who’s wrong about the Manhattan, forget about its venting. When someone threatens a well respected reviewer over an unfavorable review, the public sees it as an attempt to silence any criticism. This doesn't go over all that well.

*Boom! Right there Ameravape detonated a big poop filled fragmentation bomb all over themselves, because their little exchange with Todd was in writing… and was made public.

At the same time Ameravape was facing another problems... and preparing to react badly to it. You might say that they had another fuse burning on another public relations pipe bomb.

You see, Ameravape had arranged for a machinist to produce their Manhattan mod at the cost of $100k including materials. They paid $30k upfront, but when it came time to settle up, they only paid an additional $20k… leaving the machinist holding a bunch of unfinished mods and $50k in the hole. Now there are conflicting stories as to what exactly happened. One is that Ameravape just broke their contract and refused to pay for what they had ordered, the other is that half of what the machinist produced was defective and Ameravape declined to take delivery. Either way, what happened next is that the machinist decided to recoup his losses by finishing the Manhattans and selling them.

Ameravape responded by launching a campaign against cloned mods. Mind you, I don’t disagree with taking a stance against clones… in principle. But there are problems,,, One is, Ameravapes very public, petulant, comments. It was like watching a couple of pre-schoolers throw a temper tantrum on social media. And what with public opinion already turning against them over their treatment of Todd’s review… well… much mockery ensued.

And then someone pointed out some older review videos made by the Ameravape guys. Videos with them and their associates gleefully using and reviewing counterfeits of other companies’ mods and atomizers.

The mockery hit new levels of severity and ‘hypocrite’ was added to the list of words commonly used to describe Ameravape.

But like all good disasters, things just kept happening. This time it was the arrival of actual counterfeits/clones from China. Ameravape publicly stepped up their anti-clone dialog and even went so far as to cancel any future production of Manhattan mods and then make statements threatening legal action against Allibaba.com

While all of this was going on, while the vaping community was laughing at nearly every one of their public comments, Ameravape announced that they were in the process of moving to new offices and a new assembly shop and that they were starting work on a new mod… the Apollo. While these announcements did dispel the rumors that Ameravape was closing up shop over the Manhattan debacle they failed to do anything to address the negative public perception of either the company or it’s owners.

And that pretty much brings us to the present. At this point just about anything that Ameravape says or does is going to be met with ridicule, it doesn't help that their announcements and comments are rife with spelling and grammatical errors, but the real problem is that they keep saying anything at all.

There really doesn't seem to be much else for us to know, but we do need to decide how we, the vaping
community, will respond.

Even if the Manhattan, and soon the Apollo are the best mods available… a seriously questionable assertion in the first place, but even if they are… do we want to be supporting this company? A company whose owners have displayed childlike behavior and questionable character? A company that then calls into question the character of those that they do business with? A company that publicly states that there were quality issues with their manufacturing and still insists that their product is somehow the pinnacle of reliability? 

Personally, I have a litmus test of sorts for those that I do business with… If I couldn't sit down with someone and enjoy their company over a cup of coffee, and that means being able to tolerate them for the time it takes to actually enjoy a cup of coffee, not just the time it takes to guzzle one, if I couldn't do that, then I don’t want to do business with them.

So ask yourself, could you sit down with the guys from Ameravape for 30 minutes to an hour? Would you enjoy their company? Or would you be wanting to bang your head against something before it was over? Then ask yourself if you want to be supporting these guys or not.

Kamry Robot V: Small Price, Big Value.

So I picked up a Kamry Robot V. I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect much… I didn’t buy it for functionality; I bought it because I like the look. Go ahead, laugh… then hear me out. The Robot V looks a lot like a prop from some cheesy sci-fi movie. Maybe it’s a power cell or bio containment vessel. Maybe it’s an ammo cartridge for a laser blaster. Whatever it is, it would fit equally well in Forbidden Planet(1956), Metropolis(1927), or my mod collection.

When I ordered the Robot V I also ordered a few things to go with it… for aesthetic reasons, or course. I orderned an RDA and a drip tip, both chromed black to match the finish on the Robot V, and both cheap off-brand items that I didn’t expect any real functionality from. Unfortunately I ordered from Fasttech, and they didn’t get it quite right. What they sent me was a chromed black Patriot clone. Well crap, at least the finish matches, it does look nice on the Robot V, and it’s ever so slightly more expensive than the X1 I ordered… I decided to just go with it. For the record, this Patriot clone really is cheap garbage, the top cap sits so loose that it pops off if you so much as look at it sidewise and the airflow is tiny… 1.07mm according to my calipers. But, to hop back on topic, the Robot V works surprisingly well… Lower voltage drop than both my V3 Flip and my copper Vanilla. WTF!? So, of course, I checked it a couple more times… and sure enough… unexpected awesomeness. Since I had the Tugboat on the Robot V for testing voltage drop I went ahead and left it on… and the performance was outstanding!

 To be clear, the Robot V does have some problems. Aside from its aesthetic, which many are not going to like, it’s also wider than your average mod at 32mm. I personally think that the width is actually a nice feature, it creates a lip at the top of the mod that turns out to be an exceedingly comfortable, and very natural feeling, place to rest your thumb, but if what you want is something stealthy or pocket friendly the extra 7mm of diameter is not a good thing.

And then there are the springs… The first is a rather stiff compression spring used to hold the battery against the positive contact. Yes, this removes the need for floating pins or adjustable contacts, but it can make the button cap a bit difficult to screw on. Especially if using an atomizer with a long positive pin. Similarly, the button cap needs to be loosened or removed when attaching an atomizer in the first place… the spring is that stiff. The second spring is in the button itself, this spring is stiff enough to keep the Robot V from firing when set down, but not stiff enough to keep the button from rattling. That rattle goes a long way to making this feel like a poorly made mod. Next up is the locking ring. It takes nearly three full turns to lock or unlock… sure, it works, but three full turns? The reason for all those turns becomes apparent when you look at the bottom of the mod, the firing button extends 3mm below the base, meaning that the locking ring has to travel a fair distance to hold the button in place.

All in all this is a surprisingly good mod, especially given the bargain basement price! I paid a measly $30.21 for one at fasttech… so much for the oft heard argument that counterfeits are the only way to get descent performance at a reasonable price. Think of the Robot V as the Moped of the vaping world, cheap and fun to ride, you just don’t want your friends to see you using it.

Short Note On What Not To Drip

Patriot with dual parallel micro coils at .62 ohms with rayon wicks on the Robot V… tight draw, warm vapor, subdued flavor. Similar experience to using a tank, so I thought, how perfect for using some of those older flavors that are too harsh in the Tugboat or TOBH! And it is.  Kind of.  Except that I neglected to keep in mind the fact that I've drastically lowered my nicotine levels since switching to RDAs… pro tip: don’t drip 18mg when you’re used to <6mg.

What Do You Get When You Cross a Blue Berry and a Banana?

The e-liquid:
Blue Banana by Mad Town Vapor
Max VG
3mg nic

The Setups:
Tugboat RDA with dual parallel coils @ .26 ohm on V3 Flip
TOBH RDA with dual parallel coils @ .41 ohm on copper Vanilla

Starting with the Tugboat that first puff... that very first puff was... well... it was okay...
To be fair, I had been drinking a Vanilla Latte... and was still finishing it when I got home to find the new e-liquid had arrived in the post. I'm in the midst of a banana vape obsession right now, so I couldn't wait to try this flavor. I love banana vape, I love blueberries, waiting was not an option ...and I didn't exactly have a clean pallet. This is not a flavor for enjoying with a Latte. The banana, especially, is easily overpowered. note, this is not a bad thing. because...

With each subsequent puff the flavor got better and better. a quick sip of water to clear my pallet and...

A very nice, very clear, yet smooth banana with a cooling blueberry flavor emerged. The banana is dominant on the inhale while the blueberry comes out on the exhale, and lingers in the mouth. The flavor is not overly strong. it's not going to tire out your taste, nor is it going to annoy anyone around you that has an aversion to banana vapor... which is to say, my wife isn't insisting that I switch to another e-liquid!

Next i tried with the TOBH. more airflow, higher resistance, and a slightly cooler vape. The blueberry was more subtle, but still added a hint or refreshing... well... blueness to the banana. and the banana was still awesome.

On both builds the vapor production was good.. I did get the max VG after all. It is, unfortunately, not going to block out my view of the TV when my wife decides to watch Devious Maids or some other bad show. But then, it's not like I chase clouds or anything, I don't, but i do like a nice full vapor production, and Blue Banana provides vapor quite nicely.

Now for the kicker. This liquid is 5 days old... that is to say, it hasn't had a chance to steep, and it's already 'the yum'! The next step is to put the rest away and let it steep for a few weeks... that is, if I can muster up enough self control to keep from vaping the whole bottle. If Blue Banana gets any better with steeping... well... It may have to go into permanent rotation in my e-liquid stash.

Final notes; the packaging.
Blue Banana came in a plastic bottle with a dripping tip. I would have preferred to see a glass bottle. but that could just be a bit of snobbishness on my part. because I think glass bottles look classy. The cap isn't childproof. this is a big deal for me, not because I enjoy dealing with child proof caps, but because they are a small thing that go a long way to keeping the media and politicians from painting worst case scenario scare stories about vaping and e-liquid.

The label has all the important stuff on it. vendor, vendor contact (web address) e-liquid name, ingredients, production date, PG/VG ratio, nicotine level, volume, and the requisite warning to keep out of reach of children. no cartoons or bright colors on the label, this is also a big deal... and a good thing!

All in all the packaging is good and the only improvement that it really needs is a childproof cap.

Price and Availability: Another Thought On Clones

Protip: if it comes with a mini screw-
driver like the one above... it's a clone.

Spend any amount of time in a vaping shop or lounge and the topic of ‘clones’ is bound to come up. Likewise, any forum or blog will deliver countless opinions on the issue. Unfortunately much of the expressed opinion, especially online, is in support of counterfeits. Go figure, right?

 If we filter out all the dipshits that think they are entitled to the latest and greatest, super fancy, high performance gear at cig-a-like prices (Dude, if you really don’t want’ to spend more than twenty dollars on a mod or atty, go buy one at Wallmart! What’s that? You say they don’t carry mods and atomizers? Well then, I guess you don’t really need one.). If we filter those people out we find that one of the remaining arguments is the belief that the price and scarcity of authentic gear is due only to the greed of the manufacturers.


Because... you know... manufacturers would totally give up market share in favor of pissing off consumers by jacking up prices and creating artificial scarcity by limiting their production. Yeah... businesses total succeed that way.

 It’s certainly true that high price and scarcity are reasonable complaints when most of the legitimate products available are on the more expensive side and are very limited in their availability. As I see it, those are the two big ‘problems’ with authentics, but we should recognize that part of that problem is that vaping has grown faster than anyone expected. Give the industry a chance to mature and it will start to catch up with the demand. Until then, scarcity and price are not artificial or unreasonable. Someone had to invest their life savings or take out a huge loan to start a business…. They had to lease space, buy manufacturing equipment, hire workers, purchase materials. They can’t afford to make hundreds of thousands of units, the materials cost alone is a limiting factor. So they make what they can afford to and hope that their mod or atomizer sells, and sells well enough to not only pay the bills, but for them to someday scale up so that future production runs can be larger. If we support them they can afford to scale up, their per unit costs go down, and we can expect less expensive authentics in the future. If we refuse to support them by buying counterfeits, then they will never be able to expand beyond the small businesses making limited, and expensive gear.

Nicotine Levels and Bottle Size

There have been many discussions about the need for packaging and labeling standards for e-liquids. Anyone that knows me, knows that once the topic comes up i'll go on extensively about childproof caps,
glass vs. plastic bottles, handwritten vs. printed labels, label graphics, and the information that should be presented on e-liquid labels... I'm like a never ending fount of opinion on the subject, and I'm ready to share my views at the slightest of provocations. But not today. today I want to suggest something else.

 My all time favorite e-liquid comes in 18ml bottles at 0, 6, 12, or 18mg/ml nicotine levels. But what I really want is 3mg/ml. So what am I to do? I have to buy two bottles at a time. One at 0mg and one at 6mg, then mix them in a larger bottle to end up with 36ml of liquid with a nicotine level of 3mg/ml. And I'm far from the only person to do this. Wouldn't it be better if we had larger bottles available at lower nicotine levels?

 And that's today's topic: nicotine levels and bottle size

 First nicotine levels. The most common nicotine strengths are 0mg, 6mg, 12mg, and 18mg per ml. The upper end of this range works well. Yes, there are some consumers that want higher nicotine levels, but as a community we need to be mindful of the tenancy for the media and politicians to portray even 18mg/ml, a mere 1.8% nicotine by volume, as "concentrated nicotine". E-liquid manufacturers should consider two limits on higher nicotine levels. A relatively low maximum level made available at physical stores, maybe 12mg. And the second higher maximum level available for direct order.

10-15ml bottles. Cute, but small.

 But that's not really what I wanted to talk about, what I'm really interested in today is the lower end of nicotine levels. Consumer preferences and habits are changing. Not only are we seeing increased adoption of vaping, but as time goes on, more of us are long term users... and we're lowering our preferred nicotine levels. We're working our way down from our initial high nicotine levels towards very low, or even, no nicotine. Not only due to a lowered need for nicotine, but also due to increased availability and popularity of mods and atomizers that can produce vapor more efficiently and at higher power levels. What we need than, as consumers, is for e-liquid suppliers to adopt 3mg/ml nicotine levels as a standard option. There is already a demand for low nicotine level e-liquids, now we just need the supply...

 But wait, didn't I mention bottle sizes? Well yes, I did!

*Or maybe sell e-liquid in six-packs!

 10 and 15ml bottles are everywhere. They seem to be the de facto standard, with some liquids available in 30ml bottles, and a rare few landing at volumes somewhere between. Those smaller bottles are fine... that is, if you don't want your e-liquid to last very long, but who really wants to buy 3 or 4 bottles of the same thing just to enjoy a flavor for one or two weeks? We need to encourage our e-liquid vendors to give us 30 and 60 ml bottles!* Maybe even as high as 120 ml for those "must have" flavors. By all means, smaller bottles should continue to be made available, they are great for trying out new flavors, or for carrying
an assortment of flavors for vaping on the go. but larger bottles have many benefits. A larger bottle has a lower packaging cost per ml of e-liquid and, because we would not need to purchase as often, they also have lower purchasing costs. Fewer trips to the store means less spent on gas, or less spent on shipping if you order your e-liquid online.