Tam

Yes, yes it will be different! I will begin by crossing my left ankle over the right one instead of the other way around when I sit at the computer each day.

Amen to that! 2016 can't leave soon enough. I think I like 2017 better just because it's not 2016, lol.

Once filled with juice, you need to let it sit for a few minutes to let the wick soak up the juice. You already burnt the wick. The burnt taste will not go away until you change out the coil. When you fill up the tank, you can't just put a little juice in, you need to fill it at least half way or better so the wick is submerged in the juice. If I were you, I would go back to the store tomorrow to ask them to get you started.

Do you know what brand and model of vape pen it is? Where did you get this? Was it from a store near you? If so, I'm surprised no one set it up for you. If you're getting a burnt smell when you press the power button, chances are good that you fried your coil and wick in your tank. Do you have juice in your tank? If so, is the channel open so that the juice can get to your heating coil? Either way, you'll want to change out your coil (if possible), because the burnt taste will not come out.

Sorry to hear you've been down with the flu, I've had it for the past two weeks accompanied by a nasty sinus infection. When your throat's raw from coughing and the drainage, I like to vape a blueberry eliquid with a splash of peppermint. The blueberry helps to sooth the sore throat much like honey would and the peppermint helps to open up clogged sinus passages.

Welcome to Vapor Talk.

Never heard of it before. Around here, we mostly order from our own Vapor Talk store (links to it are at the top and bottom of the page). Not only because it's the store that supports this forum, but because @Christopher makes sure to give the best possible customer service, authentic hardware, and will nearly always match a low price seen elsewhere. Just an FYI, I don't say this because I'm an admin on the forum, I have nothing to do with the store part at all. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

You're still new to vaping and your body's going through a lot of changes while it begins to heal itself from the years of analog use. Go with whatever keeps you off the analogs for now. The rest will sort itself out once you stabilize -- within the next six months or so. That's what did it for me, anyway. The first six months, I was just focused on getting off and staying off the analogs and keeping up the new routine of vaping. You may never get totally off the shiney-itis, but it does reduce itself to a low roar in time. Don't try to rush things -- enjoy this new hobby and lifestyle.

Merry Christmas!

Welcome to the forum. If it were me, I'd be calling my credit card company and have them decline the transaction and go elsewhere. Any time I get even a somewhat suspicious transaction, especially with a vendor I'm not familiar with, I tend to err on the side of caution. Mind if I asked what you ordered from them? I'd suggest using a more reputable company that you're familiar with. If you're new to vaping, I would highly recommend our own Vapor Talk store. The customer service is excellent, prices are about as low as you'll find anywhere (if you find it lower somewhere else, @Christopher will likely price match it). Just because I'm an admin on the forum doesn't mean I have anything to do with the store itself, that's a whole different side than our forum. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

As soon as you can, get yourself more coils! You never know when you get a bad one, you'll want another to take its place. Also, get more tanks, another battery, another charger... We stress back ups here. Get plenty of back ups. Then, get back ups of back ups and back ups of those. You don't want to get caught without something else to go to should one thing or another go bad.

Technically, you can wash the entire tank. Since you're low on replacement coils, I would suggest to you not to wash the coil as that would take at least overnight to dry the wick (cotton part) sufficiently. Take the coil out and rinse the part that the coil used to be attached to (the bottom part that screws onto the battery).

You can buy more replacement coils and just change out the coils. You don't need to buy new tanks every time.

The coil is the part that's on the very bottom of your tank, it's the heating element that comes out and can be replaced. Take the tank off your battery and turn it upside down. Take the part off that connects between the battery and the tank (the very bottom of the tank). Inside that bottom part you'll find a little thing that sticks out (this is the coil). Unscrew the coil, wipe it with a tissue, rinse the bottom part that the coil screws into and then dry it. You don't want to rinse the coil because your wick will become saturated with water and won't wick the juice well. If you have a replacement coil, put that in instead of the coil you just took out. Once the tank is right side up again, let it sit for two to three minutes so the new dry wick can get thoroughly saturated with juice. Vaping a dry wick is awful and will make everything taste burnt afterwards.

When's the last time you changed your coil? The coil might have gone bad. Try taking out the coil and putting it back in making sure it's not cross threaded.

What is it doing or not doing?

As @Earthling789 said, I was going to ask about it too. Back in the day when VTC4s were all the rage, then along came the VTC5 and we were all "ooooh! Shiny!" but quickly found out that many of the VTC5s were being counterfeited and were actually rewrapped lesser quality batteries. In the batteries section, if you do a search, you should find a whole thread talking about it and how to spot the counterfeits.

Like Earthling said, you'll find you spend less... in time. At first, while you're building up your inventory, getting back ups and back ups of back ups, and finding out what works for you through trial and error, you may very well spend more than you did with analogs, but it does taper off once you find what works for you. Then again, we're all good at helping others spend their money.

My favorites are the ones where I don't have to remove spammy links from the names of the eliquid flavors.

One more thing I would suggest for you is... if you chain vape (like chain smoking), get a 0 nic juice and switch to it an hour or so before bed time. This will help with the usual motions of smoking/vaping, but it will give you 0 nic so you can sleep better. Having multiple tanks with different nic levels for specific things will be helpful so you don't have to dump out your one tank of juice, change out a coil, etc.

If I were you, I would put a small amount... say about 10 ml... into a separate bottle and experiment with that a drop or two or more at a time. This way, if you need more flavoring you can add it. If you added too much and need more of your original base, you have some of that on hand too. If you screw it up, it's not a big loss. If you use the whole 100 ml bottle and screw that up... your whole batch is toast. Keep track of what and how much you put into the small bottle so you can replicate it when you get what you like. @Compenstine is our resident mix master here. He'll come up with some other suggestions, I'm sure!

@Edna can probably tell you more about the Pico and some suggestions on how to make it work for you (if I'm remembering correctly, she has one). Can you turn down the Pico? If you're choking, it sounds like you might need to turn down the watts/volts on the battery. Start low. Vape. If it's not doing anything for you, turn up a bit. Vape. Repeat until you either get a slight burnt taste or it gives you a harsh vape, turn down just a touch and that should be your sweet spot with that tank/coil/juice combination. With your pen-style battery, what tank are you using with it and what resistance in coil?

We've all been there and are very happy to help. Just give us details and information... chances are very good that we'll have alternatives for you to try. Ask questions. Lots of questions. We welcome those who are wanting to learn. You'll probably get more answers than you want, but then that's the nature of vaping, it's a very personal thing. Everyone is different and will experience vaping in a different way so it's up to us to give you choices, up to you to discover what works for you. It's a fun challenge.

Glad you got it working again.

Thanks for including the picture, it gave me something to work with. Since you're using this type of pen battery, you might have inadvertently pushed down the center pin. Try pulling it up a little so your coil can make the connection better and see if that helps.