Posted on October 6th, 2009 by Jack Stone
Electronic cigarettes use electricity, as their name implies, to vaporize a nicotine solution into water vapor that is then inhaled just like the smoke from a tobacco cigarette. The only difference is you’re not actually inhaling smoke, but water vapor mixed with nicotine and flavorings.
There are three Main parts to an electronic cigarette, the battery, the atomizer and the cartridge. Most batteries have a small LED at the tip that lights up when you take a drag very similar to the way the embers on a tobacco cigarette glow when you drag. This helps you know that you’re battery is charged and also stimulates a real cigarette in case you’re trying to smoke incognito.
The battery is the largest part of the device and goes where the tobacco is on a regular cigarette and is about the same size as that.
The next piece of the atomizer, which is the workhorse of the electronic cigarette and is responsible for vaporizing the nicotine solution. I’m not a scientist so the inner workings of the atomizer are beyond my knowledge, but I do know it’s powered by the battery and I believe it basically keeps up the nicotine solution until it evaporates into a vapor. Once I the atomizer has a small metal wick that absorbs the nicotine solution from the cartridge. The atomizer has threads like a screw and screws into the battery or vice versa.
The cartridge side of the atomizer is a bare metal sleeve over which the cartridge slides. The cartridge is about the size of the filter on a tobacco cigarette and is located in the same place. You simply slide the open end of the cartridge over the metal sleeve on the atomizer and, when screwed onto the battery, your device is completely assembled.
The small metal Wick on the atomizer sticks out a little bit into the cartridge and makes contact with a small fabric filler that holds the nicotine solution inside the cartridge. The nicotine solution works its way up the little metal Wick in the atomizer and when you take a drag a pressure switch turns on the battery, sending current to the atomizer. At that point the atomizer heats up and vaporizes the small amount of nicotine solution on the wick, which you then inhale.
When you exhale, a small amount of vapor comes out and completely dissipates in a few seconds. The vapor, before and after you inhale it, has very little smell to it at all, which is why you’re able to smoke indoors and, in fact right next to someone, without them even knowing. Also, because the vapor dissipates so quickly you don’t have to worry about living in a cloud of smoke like you do when smoking a tobacco cigarette indoors.
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Posted on September 30th, 2009 by Jack Stone
As with any product, the question of durability totally depends on the brand. Even if you find a brand that a lot of people have trouble with and, for whatever reason, you’re really sold on that brand in every other aspect, if they have a good warranty you might as well try it out. Although, others are a little more cautious buying products that aren’t known to be reliable and/or durable. So, the question is, how long can you expect these things to last?
That’s really a tough question to answer because in order to answer accurately one would literally have to test hundreds and hundreds of the same model in order to get a really accurate idea of how reliable it is. The good news is that we can make a determination based on reviews found on the Internet.
Generally, you can’t go wrong with the top brands and/or models. Included among those are NJOY’s products, BluCigs, the m402 from LiteCig or another retailer, the Joye 510 model from a reputable retailer and a few others. Keep in mind, however, that only the first two I listed there have a decent warranty, so if you’re the cautious type you may just want to stick with those or another brand that offers a full 1-year warranty.
That said, no matter what you do you’re going to have components crap out on you occasionally, there’s really nothing you can do about that. So I’ll give you a little info on how long to expect the components to last in electronic cigarettes so you have an idea what to expect.
Through my own experience and what I’ve heard from others it seems that you’ll probably need to replace an atomizer every 3 to 4 months of regular use, so it’s never a bad idea to buy an extra one to keep around as a spare. Atomizers run somewhere in the range of $5-$10 or more depending on the model.
Most of the batteries used in electronic cigarettes are of the lithium-ion type and so should last several years, however, since these products are so new, being introduced to the United States only a couple years ago, it’s hard to say what the long-term prospect for batteries is. Just like with atomizers though, you should assume your primary battery will crap out at some point in time and so it’s a good idea to keep a spare around. Most starter kits should come with at least two batteries, if not more, so you should be all right for while. However, if one of those batteries dies on you it would behoove you to get a new one to keep around as a spare just in case. New batteries can be had for anywhere from $10 on up to $30 for some of the more expensive brands; the average is probably around $10-$15 for a battery.
Cartridges contain the nicotine solution and those will wear out eventually as well. I’m not talking about the nicotine solution itself, of course that will run out and have to be replaced on a regular basis as you use the device, but the cartridge case itself will get damaged over time from biting it, or dropping it and so on. If you use a device that offers prefilled cartridges you don’t have to worry about the state of the cartridge casing since you’ll get a new one with each cartridge. However, if you plan to refill your own cartridges with eLiquid, you won’t be receiving regular replacement cartridge casings and so eventually you’ll need to purchase some. They’re not expensive at all perhaps five for a few dollars or somewhere in that range.
For the most part, that should be all you’ll have to worry about for a while as far as durability goes. Of course, as with any electronic device you run the risk of the battery charger dying or your USB pass-through, if you have one of those, dying on you as well. I’m sure these things crap out eventually, so just in case, make sure the company you buy your starter kit from offers replacements for every component and you should be good to go.
Have fun and happy vaping!
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Posted on September 28th, 2009 by Jack Stone
Different electronic cigarette brands have different warranties ranging from a few days all the way up to a year, which is the most I’ve ever seen.
Since the warranty periods on electronic cigarettes vary so much, it’s important that you understand how a company stands behind their product and whether or not you can get it replaced or repaired if it breaks down or if you can flat-out return it altogether if you just don’t like it.
Now, I’ve never seen a brand that you could return just because you didn’t like it, especially considering you put your lips on the device to smoke it, so that’s really a no-brainer. However, you should consider a device that has a decent warranty for two reasons. First of all, a warranty obviously shows that the manufacturer and retailer stand behind the product. Second, in the event that your electronic cigarette malfunctions or is damaged in some way, you can get it repaired or replaced free of charge during the warranty period.
Being that electronic cigarettes are so new, many retailers are just selling rebranded versions of the same product with little or no warranty. I don’t have any problem with retailers selling rebranded versions of the same product, in fact that’s a good thing with any new product because it allows that retailer to choose a manufacturer that is much larger and firmly established from which to source its products, leaving that retailer able to focus on customer service and the business of marketing his product. The downside of this, however, is that a lot of times you get small retailers with little knowledge of the manufacturing process behind their products, and little control of this process, who are unwilling to warrant the product against defects.
That said, I personally own several models of electronic cigarettes that came without warranties simply because that’s the only way those models can be had and I had heard good things about them from friends. No warranty is not necessarily a bad thing, you just have to make sure you’re buying a reputable model from a reputable source.
For those looking for specific products offering longer warranties, check out NJOY or BluCigs; I believe each of those products offers a one-year warranty.
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Posted on September 12th, 2009 by Jack Stone
In a study conducted for the year 2007-2008, it was found that tobacco smoking actually increased during this period for the first time since 1965. Every other year studied has shown decreases in tobacco smoking since 1965 except for 2007-2008. Of course, this is as a percentage of U.S. adults, not raw numbers. The raw numbers show there are 45.3 million tobacco smokers in the United States.
Worldwide, there are 1.1 billion tobacco smokers and that number is expected to increase to 1.6 billlion by 2025. Those 1.1 billion tobacco users purchase about 10 million cigarettes each and every minute. That’s comes to 15 billion cigarettes every day and 5 trillion cigarettes every year.
Another astonishing fact is that cigarette butts make up approximately 38% of all litter worldwide; they’re considered the biggest litter problem in the United States, where 135,000,000 pounds of butts are discarded each year.
Amongst all countries worldwide, the United States ranks fifth in number of tobacco smokers. In that list, in order from highest number of smokers to lowest is:
- China
- India
- Indonesia
- Russian Federation
- United States
- Japan
- Brazil
- Bangladesh
- Germany
- Turkey
Health Impacts of Smoking Tobacco
In the United States, over 400,000 people die every year from tobacco-related disease; that’s about 45 deaths per hour. That number represents 1 in every 5 total deaths in the United States and is the single largest preventable cause of death; higher than AIDS, drugs, homicides, fires and auto accidents combined.
Tobacco is widely known as causing negative affects to nearly every part of the human body. To date, over 4,000 chemical compounds have been identified in tobacco smoke. Out of those, 60 are known or suspected to cause cancer. Those chemicals make up a highly addictive cocktail, leading to a below 3% success rate for smokers looking to quit. It takes the average person 6 tries to quit smoking; every year, 45% of smokers will quit for one day.
In the United States, cigarettes are responsible for fires causing over $6 billion in costs, 2500 injuries and more than 1000 deaths. For every 4 forest fires in the United States, 1 of them was caused by cigarettes.
Economics of Tobacco Smoking
It’s estimated that tobacco smoking costs U.S. companies almost $100 billion annually in lost productivity and nearly that amount in additional health care costs.
The stop-smoking industry is enormous, accounting for $3 billion in consumer spending in 2008, more than double what it was in 2002. These smoking cessation products are thought to have about a 5% success rate (this includes gum, the patch, inhalers, and medication).
The average cost of a pack of tobacco cigarettes has skyrocketed in the past 10 years by 200% to $6 per pack. Forty-four states out of 50 have voted to increase cigarette taxes 90 times during that same period. The tax on a pack of cigarettes is now almost half of the total cost of the pack.
And finally, if a person smokes a pack a day for 50 years, they will spend almost as much money on cigarettes over those 50 years as they will on groceries; about $110,000 on cigarettes and just over $120,000 on groceries.
Sources:
American Cancer Society
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Longwood University
US Department of Labor
WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic 2008
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Posted on September 10th, 2009 by Jack Stone
Electronic cigarettes are growing exponentially in popularity, especially over the past few years. This dramatic increase in sales of electronic cigarettes may have you wondering what the future holds for these incredible devices and whether or not people will be smoking these instead of tobacco cigarettes entirely in the near future. So, will electronic cigarettes help reduce the close to 400,000 smoking-related deaths every year in the United States?
The answer to that question remains to be seen; it’s always difficult to predict the future of a product in its infancy. However, from the conversations I’ve had with smokers who have switched to electronic cigarettes it’s obvious that they represent an incredible shift in the possibilities and options available for people who like to smoke. They contain only a small fraction of the chemicals found in tobacco cigarettes and do not actually burn anything so they don’t produce the harmful byproducts of combustion also found in tobacco cigarettes.
It’s my personal belief that electronic cigarettes will be looked upon as a major technological shift and will become wildly successful due to their apparent health advantages over tobacco cigarettes. Electronic cigarettes contain no byproducts of combustion, and only a fraction of the chemicals found in tobacco cigarettes, meaning that the electronic cigarette smoker can get the normal smoking experience with few of the harmful health effects.
In addition to the quantitative reduction in harmful chemicals contained in electronic cigarettes, there is a qualitative difference that can only be understood by speaking with people who have switched to electronic cigarettes. Nearly all of the electronic cigarette smokers I’ve spoken with tell me they no longer have their smoker’s cough, their lungs don’t feel nearly as compressed in the morning as they used to when smoking tobacco cigarettes, and they get much less winded when doing physical activity. Obviously these are only personal accounts, so they must be taken with a grain of salt, but it certainly shows an incredible possibility to save hundreds of thousands of lives in the US alone every year.
If you compare what’s in electronic cigarettes to that which is found in tobacco cigarettes, you’ll certainly find that they appear to be dramatically better than tobacco cigarettes. The problem that electronic cigarette manufacturers and retailers in the United States are facing today is that so many people are against smoking of any kind that these companies are facing major pressure from special interest groups and even the FDA. Many of these groups would prefer to not introduce a new smoking product to the market, which is understandable, however, at what expense? Should we outlaw electronic cigarettes in order to keep any new smoking products from hitting the market, or should we allow electronic cigarettes to be used as an alternative to tobacco cigarettes, which we know for certain cause almost half a million deaths every year in the United States alone?
What will happen with electronic cigarettes remains to be seen at this point, but they certainly hold the potential to replace tobacco cigarettes entirely and provide people with a smoking alternative that appears to be dramatically safer than tobacco smoking.
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Posted on September 3rd, 2009 by Jack Stone
Many people are searching for electronic cigarette forums where they can discuss the devices and get recommendations from other people. There a number of good forms out there, and we’ve had a number of requests to start our own.
The goal of the forum is to allow people to discuss electronic cigarettes, the legal aspects of personal vaporizers, e-cig health issues, tips and tricks for replacing cartridges or manually refilling cartridges, electronic cigarette buying guides and retailer recommendations as well as electronic cigarette reviews and comparisons.
Hopefully the forum will provide much-needed information by connecting people looking for information with “experts” who already have experience with the devices.
One of the especially important things that a forum should have our reviews of the different electronic cigarette brands as well as comparisons of those brands. Also, there is quite a wide selection of e-liquids available online, so reviews and comparisons of the eLiquids would also be a helpful resource for those looking for more information on electronic cigarettes.
You can join the discussion at the electronic cigarette forum as well is read electronic cigarette reviews and check out electronic cigarette comparisons. Enjoy!
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Posted on September 2nd, 2009 by Jack Stone
Electronic cigarettes have been around for several years now, getting smaller and smaller with each passing month. Originally, the devices started out as 6 to 10 inch long tubes used to vaporize the nicotine solution. The reason the devices have to be so large was because the battery technology required a lot of space for the rather large battery used to run the atomizer.
As time passes however, battery technology improves which has given rise to the many electronic cigarette. The mini electronic cigarette is the new wave in technology and is responsible for the dramatic rise in popularity in recent months of electronic cigarettes.
Modern electronic cigarette batteries are of the lithium-ion rechargeable type and are small enough to allow today’s mini e-cigs to be not much larger than a real tobacco cigarette. A number of brands are coming out with smaller and smaller devices, the smallest device out as the time of this writing is BluCigs, which is barely bigger than a Marlboro Light.
Another trend in mini electronic cigarettes is their color. Older electronic cigarette models came in any number of different colors, but were not designed to look like real cigarettes. As the devices get smaller and smaller, however, there is increasing demand that they look like real cigarettes. One of the trends nowadays using coloring the devices so that they appear in every way to be real cigarettes. As a result, some of the most popular brands have white batteries and tan cartridges in order to stimulate the color combination of a traditional tobacco cigarette.
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Posted on August 26th, 2009 by Jack Stone
Electronic cigarettes have been known in the past as personal vaporizers because that’s basically what they are. They consist of a nicotine liquid with added flavorings that is vaporized with the help of a battery and a little component called an atomizer.
Most electronic cigarettes are basically set up the same nowadays; the battery component is located where you find the tobacco on a traditional cigarette and most batteries have a small light at the tip that glows when you take a drag. The battery screws into the atomizer, which is the piece that vaporizes the liquid. The liquid is held in a small container located where the filter is our real cigarette that slides over the tip of the atomizer. When completely assembled they look just like a real cigarette, except plastic.
Some of the brands I’ve tried are white with a tan cartridge, which looks exactly like a regular cigarette from a distance, and some brands are a little behind the trend and maybe solid black, stainless steel, or some other color combination. Like I’ve mentioned before I always felt like a bit of a douche smoking the older models of electronic cigarettes that were long and black so I really like the recent trend toward miniaturization and the attempt to look like a real cigarette.
Electronic cigarettes have been around for several years now, but are only now becoming popular; in my opinion, the main reason for their increasing popularity is that they are finally beginning to look like real cigarettes. Additionally, prices are dropping dramatically; where you use have to shell out $150 or more for the e-cig experience, you can now find the most popular brands for around $50 for a starter kit and a fraction of that for cartridge refills.
That’s something I haven’t mentioned, that most companies sell starter kits for those first-time users. Most starter kits include a couple of batteries, a few cartridges and various flavors to get you started, an atomizer, and a battery charger. Some of the more popular brands, like BluCigs, include a few more accessories like a carrying case designed to look like a pack of cigarettes that also charges the batteries on the go. For the casual e-cig user, battery life may not be super important, but for any real smoker, getting caught out of the house with a dead battery is like running out of a pack of smokes and a world with no gas stations. So, needless to say, my favorite accessory of all the brands is the charge on the go carrying case from BluCigs. With this little carrying case that doubles as a battery charger I have yet to be caught out of the house with a dead battery, which means I never have to resort to smoking real cigarettes because a dead battery.
In this blog I’ll detail a little bit more about electronic cigarettes and explain all the ins and outs so you understand what they’re like and what to expect and hopefully I can give a little buying advice that will help you spend your money in the right place if you are someone who is looking to try out electronic cigarettes for the first time.
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Posted on August 26th, 2009 by Jack Stone
This website is my own personal site to talk little about electronic cigarettes, the newest stop smoking, or continue smoking if you really want to, device on the market. Of course, the electronic cigarette is not designed to help you stop smoking like all the manufacturers said, however, I know a number of people who have used it to get off regular cigarettes and they have nothing but good things to say about how effective it is.
The great thing about electronic cigarettes is that they give you almost everything a real cigarette gives you except for all the harmful chemicals. The newest models of electronic cigarettes coming out now are almost the same size as a regular cigarette, which makes the experience even that much more like smoking traditional smokes.
In the past, electronic cigarettes, also known as personal vaporizers, were pretty big, which is the main reason I never bought one up until recently. I couldn’t help feeling like a douche holding a 7 inch cigarette like those movie starlets in the 1920s with their cigarette holders. Plus, they were always some weird color like solid black or all black with gold leaf accents… bottom line, they were just really damn ugly.
Today, more companies are realizing that in order to sell electronic cigarettes you’ve got to help the user do not feel like an idiot smoking some kind of peace pipe, so now they all seem to be striving to deliver a product that is as close to real cigarette in appearance as possible.
One of the biggest barriers in the past was how to crunch down the battery so that it would fit in a tiny package yet still be fully functional. As time goes on, of course, technology gets more advanced and product manufacturers figure out how to put the same technology into a smaller package, which is exactly what they’ve done with electronic cigarettes and shrinking the battery enough that the entire device sits in a package not much bigger than a traditional cigarette.
So here we are, in the midst of the height of the electronic cigarette boom, if you want to call it that, and as I write this the FDA is on the offensive trying to ban the products because they may not be perfectly safe… even so, no one objects to the fact that they are infinitely safer than a real cigarette with all its poisonous chemicals and combustion byproducts. In response to the FDA’s criticism, a number of prominent health experts and tobacco researchers have come out against the FDA’s actions in fear that they are trying to ban a product that could very well save millions of lives. Unfortunately, the FDA in all its brilliant bureaucracy couldn’t care less about the health aspects of switching real cigarettes to electronic cigarettes; instead, there are campaign to destroy a product that could literally save lives.
So what’s a smoker to do, continue smoking real cigarettes and risk lung cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, loss of taste and smell, and a complete inability to walk up a flight of stairs without passing out? Or should we switch to electronic cigarettes while they’re still around, before the FDA gets its slimy bureaucratic hands into the cookie jar and ruins it for us?
That’s exactly the question I asked myself a few months ago when I decided to take the plunge and give electronic cigarette to try; I haven’t smoked a real cigarette since in my lungs thank me every single day.
So this blog is a documentation of my own experiences with electronic cigarettes and my own thoughts on the current state of the industry as it happening. I don’t know what the future holds for these incredible devices, but I can say beyond any doubt whatsoever, that they are, hands down, the most effective stop smoking device I’ve ever used.
In fact, I don’t even feel like I ever quit smoking because they are so similar to a real cigarette. From the moment I open the packaging on my first electronic cigarette I was in love; I took my first hit and realized it meant the death of my love affair with cigarette smoking.
From the way the smoke bites your throat to the satisfaction of your craving for nicotine, electronic cigarettes are so real I sometimes forget I’m not smoking the real thing.
I’ve been a full-time smoker since I was 18 years old, about 10 years now, and I’ve tried to quit countless times, only to long for that feeling of inhaling a big puff of smoke when I take that drag and feel the relaxation come over me. I’ve tried gum, patches, pills, and just about every stop smoking device there is, but none of them gave me the satisfaction of smoking a cigarette.
So now I think it’s time to share my experience and hopefully convince a few others to take the road I took and give these incredible little battery operated devices a try.
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