Posted on October 5th, 2009 by Jack Stone
There are two different ways to refill your electronic cigarette, depending on whether your brand and cartridges are manual refill or simply cartridge replacement types. My personal favorite brand of electronic cigarette, and I’ve tried quite a few, are BluCigs, and they only offer prefilled cartridges for sale. That said, you can refill those cartridges manually, and I do it all the time just to say a little bit of extra cash. But if you’re not the type that really feels like messing with the liquid and dropping small amounts into a cartridge yourself, buying prefilled cartridges is still significantly cheaper than tobacco cigarettes and is quite easy.
However, if you’re the type that wants to squeeze every last penny out of your savings on electronic cigarettes or wants to try some different types of liquids from different manufacturers you can manually refill your cartridges. All you have to do is find some eLiquid as they call it, and squirt a couple drops into your spent cartridge.
The eLiquid is fairly inexpensive; you can buy about 10 mL or right around $5-$10 from a number of different retailers online. The benefit of buying your own eLiquid to refill your cartridges is that you can sample different flavors and you’re not stuck with the few flavors offered by the company you bought your starter kit from.
Usually, eLiquid comes in a little eyedropper looking thing and all you have to do to refill your cartridge is slide the cartridge off the atomizer, just opposite of what you did when you first assembled it, and squirt just the few drops, maybe three or four, into the open end of the cartridge. If you haven’t seen inside the cartridge yet, most of them have a small fabric filler inside that acts like a sponge to hold the nicotine solution. When you refill your cartridge you have to be careful not to overfill it because this little sponge will become oversaturated and leak into your mouth when you take ahead. It’s not the end of the world if that happens, it just tastes a little nasty, so you want to be careful to only squirt three or four drops in there.
Once you’ve done that just slide the cartridge back on top of the atomizer, make sure your battery’s charged, and take a puff.
It’s really that easy, although sometimes it might take a little bit for the nicotine solution to work its way up into the atomizer after you refill it, so be patient the first few times and it may take you a little bit of practice to get down the process. But once you do, you can enjoy all kinds of different flavors by manually refilling your own electronic cigarette cartridges.
Posted in Articles, Cartridges & eLiquid, How to | Comments (0)
Posted on September 21st, 2009 by Jack Stone
Electronic cigarettes are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to smoke without actually smoking real tobacco cigarettes. Thousands of people have successfully switched from smoking tobacco cigarettes to smoking electronic cigarettes, a much safer alternative. Although the health claims of these devices have not been verified by scientific studies, there is no doubt that they contain only a tiny fraction of the hazardous chemicals found in tobacco cigarettes and, in fact, many prominent tobacco researchers have stated that the devices are probably significantly safer than real cigarettes.
They’re incredibly simple to operate, however, for those having any difficulty, this article will walk you through the process step-by-step so you know you’re doing it properly.
Electronic cigarette components
In order to start using your electronic cigarette, obviously you better buy one first; that goes without saying…even though I just said it. You can get an electronic cigarette from a variety of manufacturers, so go ahead and search Google or check out some electronic cigarette review websites to find out which brand you should try first. Whatever brand you get you’ll need to purchase a starter kit, which usually includes all the components you need to get started.
Once your electronic cigarette starter kit arrives you’ll need to get if you components ready to assemble, as I don’t know of any models that come pre-assembled. Not to say that they are completely disassembled and you have to be some kind of genius to put the thing together, it’s quite the opposite in fact, there are just three key parts you need to basically screwed together to get the thing working right away. Once you read this article this whole process shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes, if not seconds.
The three main components you need to get together first are the battery, the cartridge and the atomizer. The battery is usually the longest piece and in most models has threads on one end like a screw and an LED on the other end that lights up when you take a drag. The atomizer is the smallest of the three components and usually has a small metal braided wick sticking out of one end and matching threads to allow you to screwed onto the battery. The cartridge is about the size of the filter on a regular tobacco cigarette and contains the nicotine solution, so that should be pretty simple find in your package.
Assembling the electronic cigarette components
Once you have those three components ready, simply screw the atomizer onto the threads of the battery. There’s only one way to do this so you really can’t get it wrong. Next, check if your cartridge has a cap of some sort. Most cartridges come with either a plastic cap or a foil cover to prevent the nicotine solution from leaking out. You want to remove this cap at this point. Once you’ve removed the cap you just slide the cartridge over the exposed end of the atomizer.
Taking your first drag
Now that you’ve assembled the electronic cigarette you can try it out. Your battery should have at least some charge at, however sometimes you may get a completely dead battery that needs a full charging before you can try the device. Regardless, let’s give it a try and see how it works.
Depending on what model electronic cigarette you purchase, you may have either a manual or automatic battery. You’ll know you have a manual battery if it has a small button on the side of it. In order to activate a manual battery, and generate the vapor to inhale, you have to press that little button. Automatic batteries, on the other hand, are activated by a pressure switch that senses when you inhale so you don’t have to worry about the button if you have an automatic battery.
So now, go ahead and either press that button if you have one or just take a drag, lightly, through the mouthpiece end of the cartridge. You may want to try doing this in front of a mirror because you can see whether or not the LED on the tip of your battery illuminates when taking a drag (if you have an LED of course). If you take a drag in your LED does not illuminate, you’ve probably got a dead battery and should charge it and then try to repeat this process. If your battery LED illuminates while taking a drag (and pressing the button if you have a manual battery) you should be good to go and your electronic cigarette should be generating vapor.
Obviously at this point you just inhale the vapor like you would the smoke from a tobacco cigarette. You may have to hit the device a little bit harder or a little bit lighter than you’re used to at first, it just depends on which brand you purchased. At this point it’s really just trial and error to get it to work the way you want it to.
What to expect
Keep in mind that smoking an electronic cigarette is slightly different than tobacco cigarette. Depending on the brand you purchased, you may have to hit the device a little harder or maybe a little softer than you’re used to with a tobacco cigarette. You may also find that you have to take a slightly longer drag, but again this depends on the brand you purchase.
In conclusion, I hope this article helps you to get a running start on using your electronic cigarette for the first time. These are really incredible little devices and I think they have an amazing potential to help people get off tobacco cigarettes and I really hope you enjoy your experience as much as I do.
Posted in Articles, How to | Comments (0)
