GDub

I am a big fan of the Dulcis and Grape Soda (been a little burned out on the Grape lately though) here at the VT Store. I will also second stillcrazy's vote for Johnson's Creek Tennessee Cured, I also enjoy the JC Espresso and JC French Vanilla (they taste good mixed together too).

If you had been using those attys since October I wouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion that The VP PT was the reason for them burning out. I have been using my VP PT for over a month now and I have not burned out any attys, 801 or 510 style. You may need to be adding more juice to your atty, the VP PT rips through juice and dries out quickly. A dry atomizer on a VP PT is just begging to burn out, you really do need to keep them wet!

Yeah, I also would like to see some money go out to helping pay off student loans. If I didn't have hefty loans to pay every month I would be putting much more money back into our economy.

LOL, I feel like some kind of e-cig redneck when I read this, instead of stockpiling guns for the coming apocalypse I feel the compulsion to stockpile e-cig parts / supplies for the coming FDA ban (fingers crossed this never happens).

I'd also like to say congrats on your first month and don't forget nicotine is just one of many chemicals your body got from smoking cigarettes. You may still experience withdrawal symptoms even though the e-cigs are giving you Nicotine. My wife is having it a little harder than I have, she decided to go to the doctor for some anti-depressants, time will tell if that really helps any. I've known a few people that used Wellbutrin (I may have misspelled that) to quit smoking, so hopefully it works for her as well. Just a thought, I personally prefer to just deal with it (lack of energy mostly) and hope that my body chemistry levels out pretty quick here.

I can't speak for the WordUp or ElectrNicStix passthroughs but it definitely does not power the VP PT. In fact it barely charged an M401 battery for me. Maybe I had a bad unit, but that thing just never worked out for me personally. Let me know how it works out for you, like I said I could have had a bad unit.

Break in time in my experience varies from atty to atty but mine seem to break in after a day or less (2-4 hours) @ 3.7 Volts. But I swear they break right in, like 5-10 drags on my 5V Passthrough. This seems fast compared to other posts I have seen so maybe I just have a loose consideration of "broken in". As to cleaning, whenever I want to get rid of a taste build-up in an atty I just flush it out with boiling hot distilled water, blow it out with compressed air (don't use air in a can, most of them add a bittering agent to discourage inhalation and it will make your addy taste nasty) and let it dry overnight. Distilled water really is key for anyone living somewhere with a hard water supply. Really it's just a good idea to use it no matter how good your water may be, dissolved solids can be much worse for your atty than the stuff you're cleaning off it, so distilled water just takes that out of the equation.

Well said everyone, let's keep a positive outlook for 2010 and hopefully we'll see things take a turn for the better.

I think you'll find most people here will recommend genuine Joye products.

Very clever. Good find Brian.

I'd just like to say I clean my attys out with near boiling distilled water once every 1-2 weeks on average. I'm a big tea drinker so I have one of those electric tea kettles, gets the water to just about boiling and I just rinse it through each atty a few times. I have some really big tweezers I put some electrical tape on for grip (and so they don't mark up my attys) then I just hold them with the open end up and pour the hot distilled water through, about 5-6 flushes seems to do the trick. Blow them dry with compressed air, or leave them sitting upside down on a paper towel for about 24 hours until dry. Be sure to prime them before use and you're good to go. But that's just my method...

LOL, oh my! What will they think of next?

You can buy some Joye 302 (801 LB penstyle) from here as well.... Link Just $0.01 more expensive than the one you linked above. Seems this company is out of Phoenix, AZ.

Yeah, those prices look pretty good. Seems like they're based out of Phoenix, AZ so I say go for it and give them a try. Not like sending your money to another country where you may have no legal recourse should you need to take action against them. Hopefully they have good customer service, because if they do at those prices they could do a lot of business.

Thank you. I'm really not taking sides when I write this stuff, as I said in an earlier post I use both platforms extensively.

LOL... ok, but seriously please don't go all Mac vs PC on this thread guys. There are only a few things I can't help but involve myself in and that's one of them. Just please believe me when I say that both have their place. I am more than happy to really lay it out, but here is the condensed version... Macs are great, they use top end hardware (for the most part) paired with an optimized OS (or multiple OS's). PCs are great, they allow you to use whatever hardware (for the most part) you want paired with a versatile OS (or multiple OS's). OSX basically takes care of itself, but it's a little less configurable for advanced users. Windows requires some maintenance from time to time, but is very configurable for advanced users. The Windows registry system is a downside, not sure how they'll get rid of it without a full code rewrite, but the legacy software support on a Windows machine is great. I can upgrade my OS without having to get a bunch of paid updates for my software. But with great power comes great responsibility, now I have drivers to deal with, possible compatibility modes, etc. OSX is a lean and stable OS. They use a limited set of hardware, meaning they don't have to build support into their OS for a never ending number of new components. When they add a new piece of hardware they just update the OS to utilize it. This means as a general rule you're not out there looking for drivers. But on the downside when you update your OS you chance breaking compatibility with your older software, then you have to pay to upgrade those apps as well. Most people that use their Macs for professional work don't take a major OS upgrade lightly because they are aware it can be pricey updating their software. As to Viruses... Macs only amounted to about 5%-10% of the total computer using population for years. Writing a virus that only effects 5%-10% of the population is not ideal if you want to cause damage. Because of this we really didn't see many viruses on Macs for years. There are viruses for Macs, yes I said it, and there will be more now that they are gaining popularity and basically taunting people to make them with their ad campaign. Surf safely, anti script extensions for your browser will do wonders.

Macs are great, well built machines, the Mac Pro series is basically server class parts. The OS is fantastic, because they control the hardware it runs on they can keep the code lean and stable. The operating system maintains itself extremely well, meaning you don't have to give it a "tune up" every few months like a Windows machine (clean out the registry, etc.). That being said, you will pay a premium for things like upgraded graphics cards and the choices are extremely limited (not really an issue with a notebook). This means the usual Mac upgrade path is buy a new Mac... also they can do things like drop support for a 5 year old product that you paid upwards of $3000 for (PPC systems are not supported with the latest OS, Intel only) but like any product you weigh the pros and cons and choose what's right for you. Don't believe all the Mac vs PC hype, they're both tools, you find the one that works for you. Macs are an elegant closed system, PCs are open and sometimes scary and confusing. Just for the record I own and use both PCs and Macs daily, both have advantages and disadvantages in my opinion, I'm sure you'll love your Macbook, congratulations.

Yeah, I'm thinkin' spare car battery and some kind of contraption to allow me to plug my USB car adapter into it. That should run my VP PT for a few days during hurricane season if the need should arise.

I'm interested in checking these out, you should bust out the digital camera get it under some good light and snap some nice pics from a few angles. The website doesn't exactly do a great job of showcasing the product. Cool find, I've never seen these before but they seem like they could be pretty cool.

Yeah they limit the power of Laser pointers here in the US, but as Jmhester said you can build your own laser that gets around these limitations if you are so inclined. In theory I see no reason why it wouldn't work, my thought is however controlling temperature may become an issue. Not sure how you would achieve a consistent temperature without a fixed time limit the laser is on when heating the juice. Ultimately I think it would take a lot more power to make this work than the system we have now, we'd have to carry batteries on a belt clip to make this a mobile option.

nice link Brian... I may have to pick one of those up.

Which is true, but the adapter itself is the device drawing the power from the outlet, and if it's maximum output is below what your device needs to function it's a no go.

I'm glad to hear that you are making some progress to resolve this. Again best of luck.

Ok, you peaked my interest in this and here is a battery pack I found that actually outputs 5V @ 2A (same as AC adapter for VP PT), it's 2800mAh, but the downside is it's on the pricey side... http://www.voltaicsystems.com/batterypack.shtml

Maximum output for the voltage regulator is 5V @ 1A, I have no idea if the 9V Transistor battery will drive it to a full 1Amp, but I doubt it. So personally I would say save your money and time. I could be wrong and it may work... one good way to find out