spydre

Well, okay, as you probably saw in the other thread, I prefer the Sigeli Zmax, but there are a lot of good options out there. I think the MVP is good, and the Vamo, and the Vmax(?) I think. One thing I recommend, go the website - it's tasteyourjuice.com. It's Phil Busardo's website where he reviews just about EVERYTHING. He personally uses a Provari (okay, that might break the bank, it's top of the line, and I think over $200) and a telescoping Sigeli Zmax, at least when he's reviewing tanks. (Hubby has a mini Provari, and that was expensive enough - and it only fits 510 threaded, not eGo threading without an adapter). His reviews were invaluable to me when I was torn between a couple models, that, and doing searches for reviews. I HATE recommending ECF's forums for anything, because I didn't like it there, but certain posters go really in depth with their reviews - and if there are two similar products, (like the Smoketek Zmax and the Sigeli Zmax), inevitably, someone is going to compare them. I went with the Sigeli not only because Busardi said it was nice and sturdy, but on the ECF review, someone mentioned that on their Smoketek, they knocked it over from a standing position on their desk to lying down on their desk - so not much of an impact at all, and something I've done numerous times. Well, it broke his screen on the Smoketek. I'm a bit of a klutz, and I had already dropped my eGos multiple times by the time I even started looking for my APV. I've had my Sigeli completely roll off my desk and hit the floor and be fine. So you also want to look for sturdiness/durability.

I still suggest the Sigeli Zmax. It has all the features you want, and it's really sturdy (trust me, I've dropped it a few times). I went with the Sigeli model over the Smoketech model because from a couple of comments I read over on the ECF forums, the Smoketek model is a bit more fragile - like knocking it over on someone's desk from a standing position to on it's side broke one guy's screen. The reason I recommend v3 is it's telescoping, so you don't have to get a different end cap to use the larger 18650 batteries (what I use). It unscrews so the tube is longer. Edit: Sorry, I just remembered this resource when I was responding to another post. Go to tasteyourjuice.com. It's Phil Busardi's website where he reviews practically everything. AVP's, I think even starter PV's, tanks, etc. He also has recommendations for, I think, starting set ups, but your personal tastes would affect those choices. I found those reviews invaluable, especially when I was torn between a few models. Also, google reviews on the products you are looking at. ECF forums generally have pretty good reviews on their site, although I'm not always fond of their community, and a lot of times in the thread discussing it, they bring out a lot of detail you might not always get other wise. But finally, you want to go with one that's durable/sturdy enough that you won't have to replace it if you drop it (I'm a klutz, so that was one of my biggest concerns).

Iheart, are the mini 2's just as good as the KPT 2's, just in a smaller version? I really really want about five of them. Hubby was going to pick up and RSST at one of the local B&M's, but they wanted an outrageous price for it. Cheaper to buy online, or maybe even get from the new store. Dunno about that yet - they have a fb page, but no website.

Just make sure that as you let it steep, you give it a good shaking up about every day (with the lid on). I've noticed that when my liquids steep, without the mixing every day, things like the 618 seems to darken from the bottom up, so shaking it up helps to keep it blended.

Depends on the juice for me. Some of it is great right after it's made - just about anything I've gotten from better vapes has been that way. Some of it definitely has to steep. Most of the stuff I get at Better Vapes can be vaped fresh, but of course, gets better with a little steeping, and some of it definitely has to steep. At least, that's the way it was with, I think, the sweet tobacco, it may have been a different flavor, I'm not sure. But I know when I've asked them to mix up samples of flavors they have, they just didn't have samples out, they definitely needed to steep a bit. That's why I'm sort of unsure about asking them to mix up a sample of mudslide. I mean, I don't want to buy it untasted (which they would have to mix up fresh anyway, they don't keep bottles pre-made because it's not a big seller), but if they make it up, and I don't want to think, well, it should steep some more and come back in a week, and then still decide I'm not going to get it - well, I wouldn't want to try it right now anyway, because it supposedly has irish cream flavoring in it, and the one irish cream that was actually tasting like Irish Cream, I can't taste right now. But then again, I don't remember vodka and Bailey's in the Mudslides I used to have - okay, well looking it up, I can see all recipes have Bailey's, not all recipes have Vodka....all I remember was the Kahlua and chocolate. But that explains why the mudslides at Applebees were stronger than at at the bar, and different. They used Vodka (the bar didn't), and they also used ice cream (the bar also didn't, but this was also um, 12 years ago, lol).

You only get paid once a month? My sympathies. I have the same, but we are able to stagger our bill payment cycle, and well, we have a decent enough budget thanks to hubby that it's just near the end of the month that we get tight. But we have SOME extra this month and last month.

I've had juice darken just over a day in my tank, as I've used the tank and not finished it off - part of that is from the heating cycle. It's a natural process, and there wasn't anything wrong with my tank, I just noticed it more with that juice because it was lighter - I would notice it when I would top it off the next morning, and then I'd see the colors sort of mix together. The juice didn't even taste any different.

What kind of tanks are you using with them, first off? Part of it could very well be that the contact post is getting pushed down too far. Pack of lights a day I would have started out at 18 mg, truthfully. And yeah, what Bebop said, you are lucky to get four weeks out of a disposable atomizer (you're talking about the ones that came in the starter kit, right? That you can't change the coil, anything like that?) I actually only used my starter atomizers for two weeks, tops. After that I had already started buying Evods. And if you are chain vaping, you may want to invest in third battery. I ended up having to steal one of my husband's after he got his mini Provari. I had upped my vaping so much that the batteries were lasting maybe 6 - 8 hours a charge, when they initially lasted me about 18 hours per charge. And that was WITH cleaning the contacts of the battery and charger before every charge.

Yeah, every online shop I've purchased from, though they will have a recommended ratio, they do allow you to pick your own ratio. And the brick and mortar stores that mix their own can mix up the ratio you request on site.

Yeah. I've said before, the first shop we went to orders online from the other shop we go to - the other shop's standard is 50/50, but 3D for some reason custom orders the juice 60/40 to sell in their shop. The majority of the time, we go to the Better Vapes, so we can get the flavors 50/50, so we can get 618 with an extra flavor boost, and so I can get 16 mg nicotine. A new shop is opening up on Friday just about five minutes away from our house, so we are going to hit that, but for now, they are just selling other vendors' products - I believe they said premium juices from several vendors, but they will eventually start mixing their own - plus have a little lounge type area where you can sit an vape and watch tv. But unless they have, like a reason to hang out there, I don't know that we'll make use of that. We can vape at home, lol. But it might be nice to make more friends in the local vaping community. I'll have to see how their prices are on hardware. Better Vapes' prices on hardware are better than 3D's, they are priced at the same price as on their website, but it's still more expensive than the online vendors I've purchased from, and Better Vapes has limited hardware. I'll get like a single tank from them, when the price difference is still small enough that ordering a single tank online, the shipping on it would make it more expensive than buying locally, except for some atomizers (at 3D). I'm hoping that this new shop will host some vape meets - there are vape meets in the area, but it's 10 miles away, and it's like 9 am on a Saturday morning....and hubby's in school all day, every day during the week, he likes to sleep in.

Can't take the PT mini apart, not even the drip tip. But the PT mini 2, when it comes out, which should be soon, is exactly like the PT2, only the size of the mini.

(Wall of text, but broken up into paragraphs, lol) I'm not tired of waiting - I'm worried about what they are going to do. Online sales - well, if they ban online sales, that kind of screws people out in BFE who don't have any B&M stores within a reasonable distance - I know some parts of Missouri and Illinois you have to go an hour or more to get to a B&M, plus the mark ups are horrible. Flavors - it's the flavors that actually got me to put the analogs down. If they ban flavors, I'll either convince hubby that we need to DIY, or hopefully Medic will still DIY for us. For a week or 10 days, I both vaped and smoked analogs - though at much slower rate than before. By the end, it got to the point where I was hitting my e-cig WHILE I was smoking the analog, because the e-cig tasted better, it's just the analog dealt with the hand habit, and the stress (there was a death in the family). If I had to go back to strictly tobacco flavored, no flavors except menthol? It wouldn't do me any good - well, I might be able to manage with menthol, because my brain recognizes it as flavor now, but even in the tobacco flavors I still vape, if the tobacco flavor is too strong, if it outweighs the flavor, the I can't hack it - it's why I didn't like RY4. For the last two days, I haven't been able to vape 618 because the tobacco taste is just too strong for me, I think, for these couple days, but yet, I can vape my sweet tobacco in limited amounts - but I think that's my seizures messing with my brain. After reading one of the many articles I've read, I read something about a certain big tobacco firm being in the e-cig business now. All of the other big tobacco firms that have bought into the business were selling the cigalikes, so I wanted to see what that firm was selling. So I went to their website. Granted, it's a pain in butt, but to keep from selling to kids, the FDA may want to require all online sites do this - one of the cigalike brands, one of them run by big tobacco, I believe, before you can even enter their site, not only do you have to confirm your birthdate, you have to completely register for the site, and that includes other information, I think (it's been a couple weeks, and I didn't complete registration, because it was too much of an effort just to see if they were selling cigalikes or true vaping stuff) that would allow them to independently verify age - like maybe a DL or ID number, or something? I can't remember. But maybe if the FDA required a more in-depth registration process....you can't assume that a kid wouldn't have a credit card anymore, because parents buy their kids those pre-paid cards. I know when our son went on his band trip to one of the bowl games, I think his junior year, we did, rather than sending him down with $200 cash for the week, and then until he got his own checking account after he graduated, I think(?), when he earned money, he would either have his dad deposit that much on his card. I know his best friend got his allowance, and monetary birthday/Christmas gifts that way. Quote from the article: Big tobacco companies are intentionally marketing to teens with catchy names, flavors and advertising, those pushing for restrictions said. I haven't seen evidence of that. At least not in the commercials I've seen, no more than alcohol ads target kids. I know that other cigalike companies owned by big tobacco have been advertising on TV, but I don't watch a lot of live TV, I usually watch on the DVR, and skip commercials, but some nights, if there are multiple shows that I watch - or if it's a new episode of say Doctor Who or Walking Dead, then yeah, I'm watching live, and of course, during dinner, and at bed time, and the only commercials I've seen is for Blu (BTW, have you seen the Jenny McCarthy commercials? She asked them to be a spokesperson because she uses them, but, well, I can't stand Ms. Anti-vax anyway, but seeing her as a spokeperson for anything makes my blood boil. The phrase sexy was originally in the commercial, but they took it out). But I've never seen a commercial for what I consider "actual vaping" - not the cigalikes, but the eGo's and beyond.

Okay, as I've never used those tanks, I can't comment on WHICH coils to get for those particular tanks - I don't know if the Pro Tank coils (which work for the pro tanks and the evods and the davides) will work on what you have. Yes, you can clean coils, although sometimes a vodka or everclear soak may be required to get some flavors out of the wicks, and some flavors you won't be able to get out the wicks. The coils DO wear out, though. And it's a crap shoot on how long it takes. Sometimes, the first coil that comes in a tank is a dud (I had one that lasted oh, about through the first 1/2 tank, and then died on an evod - the original coil. And I had a coil on a Davide that lasted a week - with some tanks you can just automatically pitch the first coil that comes with it, with experience with buying that type of tank new.) I always keep between 1 and 2 5 packs of coils on hand, because I have 10 tanks. Plus, lately, I've been switching flavors a lot (or accidentally topping off one tank with the wrong flavor), so I go through cleaning out tanks frequently. So what I do, rather than having to do a burn to dry the wick out, is pop a new coil in, and let the rinsed out wick dry on it's own. As for tanks, I TRY to keep a tank for every flavor I regularly vape, and had a couple for going through sample bottles that you get with online orders. Except, if you've seen my posts, I had seizures a couple weeks ago, and it scrambled some sort of processors in my brain, and some things don't taste right, or what have you, another member on the board has the issue, too. So I've bought new flavors to use, and rotated some out of sample status that I liked, but wasn't going to purchase, to regular rotation vapes. But so right now, I have 10 tanks....and 14 or 15 flavors or so. I think I'm going to give it about a month and see if anything more starts coming back.

Funny thing. Better Vapes, the online shop that opened a storefront in Jerseyville, stocks their juices normally at 50/50, unless you request a different ratio, and then they will mix it up for you. But 3D, which orders MOST of their juice from Better Vapes, custom orders it for 60/40. I believe you can pick up LorAnn's in the WalMart craft section, but like Aqua said, the OP is still REALLY new to this to start thinking about DIY.

I use mainly pro-tank 2 as well. I had intended to upgrade my evods to the pro-tanks, keep the evods for samples.....but then, well, I hadn't gotten through the samples yet, and then the seizure happened, and nothing was tasting right and then I got even more flavors, and well, I'm all out of tanks. But, I'm hoping that I can replace the Evods with mini pro tank 2's by or for Christmas, and then the Evods will truly be for just samples. Truthfully, I have no control over myself when it comes to buying stuff I want....that's one reason, other than my slipping mind, I put my husband in charge of paying bills/keeping track of the bank account years ago - I used to deal with money. And we got better at handling money since we've been dirt poor than we ever were when we were middle class.

Woo-hoo! I saw that last night! Since they were going by your name, they said "first name only" and Patricia, I knew it was you! Congrats, girl! I'm soooo jealous, of both of you winners! One of these days, I'm going to win a device I can keep as a back up, so that I can hand off my eGo double starter kit to either my almost aunt, or my sister (should she want to try to switch over - she's considered it, but her income fixed income (disability) is now even lower than mine, because her youngest son graduated high school, and he's 19, she no longer get SSI on him....yet both of her LARGE boys are living in her home, the oldest (oh my, he's 24 now?) I think to help her out financially, and well, the 19 year old because he's only 19, and he's only working part time and doesn't have an offer to move in with three of his friends like her oldest does. Her oldest is in school full time, and working most of the rest of the time, pays for his own car insurance, and since he's currently going to community college, it's all state grant covered, no student loans required. But if she's interested, I want to help her out.

For the Anyvape Davide/Mini Davide Glassomizers as well. Why re-invent the wheel?

Don't know if I'm putting this in the right section, but here goes. With the government shutdown - well, there may be a silver lining for us vapers. The FDA is shut down as well already. Soooooo - a delay in regulations, maybe?

The one I settled on was a Sigeli Zmax, V3 (telescoping) (just under $80 at Discount Vapers). Both VV and VW options on there, the bells and whistles I want, and it's easy enough to use - except, well, I don't know about other vendors, when I got mine from Discount Vapers (and I've heard this about people getting it from other places too), there is no instruction manual - just the box. The instructions are pretty much on the item description on how to go through the different functions. Hubby has the Provari mini, but that is above your $100 limit. And it doesn't have VW. I've discovered I like VW a bit better, since when you change coils, or change tanks, you don't have go adjusting for the resistance of the new coil, it's just automatically figured. If you do variable voltage, you'll want to (at least I did) adjust your voltage in a certain range depending on the resistance so you don't burn your juice, or worse, and make sure you aren't too cool. Setting the power eliminates the need for that, generally.

My first mix was adding french vanilla tobacco to the local 618 blend. Then I started adding my honey wood to the Turkish honey tobacco that I got and then found too harsh. They meshed together perfectly. I hadn't been doing that for about the last month, but the honey wood lately has been a bit too, um almost acidic for me, so I'm blending them again and it's just about perfect. But now, the last day and half, the only other thing that's tasted right has been French Vanilla Tobacco.

Heck, even lawyers (like, big lawsuit lawyers) refer to accountants as bean counters. And basically, the bean counters at companies are the ones that determine if a "safety issue" would incite enough money in lawsuits to make it worth a recall. As in, would it be more expensive to fix every single one of this model car, or would it only happen a few times, we'd get sued this many times, and we'd have to pay out say, about this much?

Well, hubby picked me up some Apple Fritter....I'm just not sure I like it. He said 3D got some new stuff in, but the mark-up is insane. Like what he ordered online for less than $20 yesterday being over $30 or so at 3D. Can't remember the price he said on the RSST, but I think it was over $40. But we have a NEW vape shop opening Friday - he ran into a guy that is working there, and was given a 10% off coupon for opening day. And it's not just a shop, it's a lounge, too.

Debating on whether to get something or not. Hubby's stopping by one of the vape shops on his way home, before he picks up kid #2 from school, so he doesn't have time to pick me up so I can go with him, I need to figure out what I want and text him.....unfortunately, 3D's webpage, while it's operational, is no where near finished, and the "shop" tab, well, has no items on it. But dangit, he's getting RBA's, I want something, too.

You don't have to look far for glass tanks. Many of us here have both the Davide and the Pro Tanks. I myself prefer the pro tanks, but others prefer the davide.

Um, I have,let's see, currently, 4 KPT 2's, and 4 Evods, that are filled, but the milk chocolate, if I still can't taste it after today, is going to get emptied out, some of the flavors, I think still because of my seizures, I still can't taste, or I can't taste every day, or some days taste right, and some days taste very wrong. So right now, I actually have 2 tanks, 1 a KPT2, and one an Evod, sitting empty, because I just haven't bothered to put anything else in them after they had their necessary vodka soak the other day.