How to use an electronic cigarette

Posted on September 12th, 2009 by Jack Stone

Electronic cigarettes are really quite simple to use; although they certainly function a bit differently than traditional tobacco cigarettes, there’s no question that anyone can get up and running with a brand new e-cig in minutes. This article details how to get started right away.

Open the e-cig packaging

Obviously, you’ll need to open the box and unwrap all the pieces to get started. Most electronic cigarette brands ship with some battery charge so you should be able to get rolling right away. If you find your battery is completely drained, plug it in for a couple hours to charge and then come back to this walk-through.

The 3 main pieces you should get together are one battery, one atomizer, and one cartridge. These should be easy to find. The battery is the long one with the LED at the tip. The atomizer is probably the smallest item in the box with a small braided metallic thing sticking out of one end of it. Finally, the cartridge is about the size of the filter on a traditional tobacco smoke and contains the nicotine solution. Some cartridges have a foil covering, others may have a plastic cap or nothing at all covering the end. The cover has to be removed before assembly, so go ahead and do that.

Assembling the electronic cigarette

Once you’ve got all the pieces together, assembly is very simple. The atomizer usually screws into one end of the battery, so go ahead and do that. Next, on most brands, the open end of the cartridge simply slides right over the top of the metal braided end of the atomizer.

Taking a drag

What you do next depends on whether you have an automatic or manual battery. If you’re not sure, look at the outside of your batter…do you see a small button? If so, it’s a manual battery, if not, it’s automatic.

If you have an automatic battery, put the cartridge end of the assembled electronic cigarette to your lips and inhale lightly. If you have a manual battery you’ll need to do the same thing only press the button on the battery at the same time you inhale. It may help to do this in front of a mirror to see if the LED at the tip of the battery is lighting up. If not, you’re battery is probably drained and you need to charge it.

If the LED is lighting up but you’re not getting any vapor, hit it for a few seconds, then wait a few seconds and hit it again. Repeat this process 5 – 10 times as sometimes it takes a bit for the nicotine solution to work its way up into the atomizer.

If you’ve done this for a bit and still aren’t getting any vapor, try hitting a little bit harder, although you shouldn’t have to hit any harder than a traditional smoke at any point.

You should be getting decent vapor production at this point. New atomizers tend to take a day or so to really get working as they should, and some of them have a strange taste at first. That’s normal and should wear off in about a day.

If you’re still not getting any vapor production, slide the cartridge off the atomizer. Is the atomizer wick (that braided metal thing) a little damp? It should have some nicotine solution on it. If it is damp and you’re not getting any vapor, you may have a dead atomizer. However, if it’s not damp, your nicotine solution may not be getting up to the atomizer like it should.

You can check inside the cartridge at this point with tweezers or something and you should find a small fabric ball about the size of the head of a q-tip. That fabric should be moist with nicotine solution. If not, you’ve got an empty cartridge.

If everything looks good and you’re still not getting vapor, you’ll have to call the company you purchased from as you may have to get it replaced.

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