JonHitThingWithRock

it looks like the apollo uses cartomizers, which generally have their polarity reversed so you can't use blank carto's and fill your own, so you may be stuck boiling them and refilling with a different kind of juice... you may get mixed results with that, and boiling cartos and waiting for 2 days for them to dry is kind of a pain, if you can find out who actually makes the apollo, you might be able to get blank cartomizers for it, but i kinda doubt it. that's the problem with proprietary setups like the apoolo/blu/green and so on, is that you're basically locked into their flavors. consider sending it back and getting something like a 510 or eGo, then you can choose from many thousands of different flavors to find the ones that work for you. Jon

50/50 or 60/40 in either direction should be fine for any method of vaping, 100% vg only really works with direct dripping, it's way too thick for anything else, i've used it on cartomizers before, but it takes forever to get it filled. and then if you want to change flavors, you'll be boiling the carto like 5 times to get it all out. i use 50/50 for the tank system, cartridges, and cartomizers, and drip vg. Jon

glad to hear it

so... i have no idea what a porter is, and yes, i am a mega ultra nerd.... anywho, since beer contains a great deal of "contaminents" (read. things that aren't distilled water), those can cause a circuit to "jump" to and from places that they shouldn't (electrolytes sound electric-ee because they are). I would disassemble your mod as much as possible, get out the rubbing alcohol, and get the softest bristled scrubbing brush you can get (a cheap toothbrush would do fine), dip the brush in the rubbing alcohol, and scrub all the beer residue away, rinse, repeat, and finally rinse with distilled water, then blow out as much water as you can with compressed air as quickly as possible, then let it sit and dry for far longer than you think might be necessary. it just might be salvageable. if the circuit already jumped and something is fried, get ahold of the people who made it, and find out if they have spare parts lying around, chances are you'll just need to solder in a new wire or circuit board and it could be up and running with relative ease. if nothing works, pm me, i might be able to fix it. Jon

there are some juices that kinda give me dry throat, and i could easily see how that could result in coughing. and there's really no way to tell until i vape it. for example, 2 different but similarly themed juices from the same place, one wild cherry, the other boysenberry. the wild cherry vapes great, no problems, the boysenberry gives me dry throat. they're the same pg/vg mixture, just different flavorings. even some of the sweet-vapes juices give me dry throat, like french vanilla, but kona cream doesn't. might be related somehow to your issue. Jon

well, you're "supposed" to fill tanks with a syringy thingy that fits on the tip of the juice bottle, sadly, nobody in the universe actually carries these (probably not true, but I've checked 15 vendors, and none of them have them). i just pop the end off and fill it about 3mm from the top, pop the cap back on. as for cartomizers, i use the condom fill method, do a youtube search for "cartomizer condom fill" and you'll get a million videos that show you how to do it. you can also do the drip-down method, but that takes longer. if you're using 100% vg, it'll take forever. Jon

I occasionally get the cough, and it's almost always when i use cartomizers or a tank system, it's not every drag, but like one out of every 10 or so, it's like a super-dry hit with way too much flavor, and i cough it out. I've never coughed with direct-dripping or cartridges. It could just be a case of your body not being used to it, or maybe you just got some bad cartos. Jon

that likely has more to do with the juice you're using than anything else, different brands of juice and different tastebuds lead to an infinite number of possibilities, for me personally, sweet-vapes juices seem to have gobs of flavor, you may wanna try those. what juices are you using, btw? Jon

Glad I could help

The kit comes with 7 cartridges, not cartomizers, 2 of them don't have any filler and are attatched to the end of your 2 atomizers, 5 of them will be individually wrapped in plastic, and do have filler, the idea of cartridges is that you fill them up with juice and they last a while, not nearly as long as cartomizers or tank cartridges, though, when i first got my eGo kit, i used to cartridges with no filler for direct dripping before i got drip tips. if you're getting the ego-t, it comes with 5 tank cartridges which are totally different, the idea of those is also that you fill them up with liquid, but there's no filler, and they last a lot longer. if you're getting your kit from puresmoker, they send a free bottle of liquid, but yes, do get a couple extra bottles. you may also want to get a couple of cartomizers, the boge 510's will work, i'd recommend getting the LR ones. Jon

or if you're bad with money like me, buy the wrong thing first and do the research afterward just kidding, great advice Jon

ah man, that's the second time today you've gotten your reply in just seconds before mine, lol

to be honest, you're gonna have a hell of a time finding something that tastes exactly like any one particular premade cigarette. i'd say try a bunch of different vendors, and see what she likes best, but don't shy away from other flavors. I bought a couple sampler packs, which contained menthol, and i'm not into menthol, so if you're interested in trying different ones, i've got like 6 bottles you can have. let me know Jon

i got my eGo kit from puresmoker.com, it was only $50, and is the genuine article, they also have menthol and clove flavors of e-juice, most people here will recommend the eGo, and with good reason. apollo, blucigs, greensmoke, smoketip, v2, and all the rest tend to be underpowered, overpriced, bad battery life, limited on flavors, low vapor, and you have to get the prefilled cartomizers/cartridges from the same company. with something like the eGo or 510, you've got all kinds of options, and thousands of flavors to choose from with all the different vendors selling e-juice. Jon

so this is my first review of e-liquids, so please be gentle. I'll start off by saying that i have ridiculously picky taste buds, and absolutely hate menthol, so i didn't try any of them. all juices were tested with clean low-resistance atomizers using the direct drip method "Mellonica" - excellent watermelon taste, so far my favorite juice of any i've tried so far, very sweet, but not so much so as to be overwhelming. "bananaca" - supposed to be a banana cream pie flavor, tastes more to me like banana laffy taffy. don't let that put you off though, this is a very pleasant juice, with absolutely no harshness, super smooth. "nilla-nova" - a vanilla-ish flavor, very strong, very sweet, almost carmelly, i really like this one. "berrodica" - a super fruity juice, very sweet, almost too much for my tastes, there's a fair bit of harshness though, so i didn't end up using the whole bottle. "curtis' coffee" - i didn't like this one at all, it tastes like really expensive high end bitter coffee, i like cheap, store-brand coffee so this just didn't float my boat, very bitter. "pina colada" - i like pina colada's when they're very strong (lots of whatever alcohol they use), this tastes like a weaker pina colada, not my favorite taste, but not terrible. "appelonia" - a mixed apple taste, both red and green, which would be excellent if they were both the "delicious" variety, but there's a hint of granny smith about it that i didn't prefer. "'cino" - i severely dislike cappuccino, so it's no wonder i didn't like this "cherry cola" - it does taste a lot like cherry coke, at least as far as i can remember, haven't had dark soda in about 14 years, didn't care for this one too much "karma scotch" - caramel and butterscotch, ultra sweet, too much for me "nutty ella" - a blend of several flavors, the strongest of which is like unsweetened cocoa "peanut butter cup" - i wanted to like this, i really did, but the greatness of peanut butter cups didn't transfer to e-liquid too well for me, obnoxiously sweet. "carolina" - supposed to be a tobacco flavor, but is more like mixed nuts "silver leaf tobacco" - tastes like bad premade cigarettes, which i suppose is the point, but i made my own for 5 years, so wasn't used to the taste at all. "choco-mint" - realized too late that this was a menthol flavor, nearly threw up the ones i didn't try are as follows. "pb&j" - i would rather eat leaves and tree bark for 10 years than eat one peanut butter and jelly sammich. "silver leaf menthol" - don't like menthol "minthia" - menthol "peach menthol" "fire and ice" - the description on the website was frightening "casey's clove" - i just don't like cloves "firecracker" - just haven't gotten to it yet, will post a review when i try it "tango tea" - just haven't gotten to it yet, will post a review when i try it i will say that all of these juices, whether i liked them or not were very high quality, and well priced, the strength rating they use is a bit strange, they use percentages as opposed to mg ratings, i went with all 0.8%, which is "light". i'm gonna be giving away all the menthol juices to someone who's into that sort of thing, the ones here, plus a "blueberry mint" from good prophets, if you're interested, send me a pm. Jon

peanut butter cups and pb&j from puresmoker.com both made me kinda wanna die. Jon

you might like "curtis' coffee" from puresmoker.com, it's like a high grade coffee, a bit nutty. i didn't like it as i'm the kind of guy who buys coffee with the same name as the store i'm buying it from. "kona cream" from sweet-vapes is an excellent coffee juice imo, it's 100% vg but doesn't taste like tree bark, might be worth a look. "carolina", also from puresmoker.com, has a very nutty taste, it's supposed to be tobacco flavored but i only taste the nuttiness. Jon

that's more puffs than i ever got out of a cartridge, but it sounds like whatever you're doing is working for you. as for the 555, i tried that flavor and thought it was pretty gross, so that may be the problem with that. for filling cartomizers, i use the condom fill method, just do a youtube search for "cartomizer condom fill" and you'll get some good vieos. Jon

i think in the case of eGo batteries, i'll probably just use them as i do until the battery life is too low, then get new ones, heck, they're only 20 bucks

i guess i'm a bit of a hippie, always like using things until they're completely spent

i have the hardest time with that

in the laptop and power tool world, it's generally recommended to fully discharge and then fully charge batteries, and with long term testing, i find that batteries last longer and perform better this way. keep in mind that a laptop or power drill battery fully charges from completely dead in about an hour, and is providing far more power for far longer than ecig batteries, which are essentially trickle-charged off usb for a long time, and produce a small amount of power for a short time, whether this affects it long term or not i'm not sure, but i'll stick to the same method i use for my power tools, and charge it once it's completely done. Jon

the cartridges are indeed the mouthpiece too, so all you need is the atomizer and cartridge, and you're set. as for refilling them, i suppose you could use a syringe, but i wouldn't bother, just one more thing to clean. i just pop off the bottom with a pick tool (a small screwdriver would probably work too) and drip until the tank is full, put the end back on, put in the atomizer. do a youtube search for ego tank refill and you'll find some good video guides. Jon

one of the biggest drawbacks to the blucig (and one {of the many} reasons i sent mine back) is the severe lack of flavors, there are exactly 4 (3 if you don't like menthol). plus the battery life is completely aweful. the joye 510 would be a better unit, and there are thousands of flavors for it, as you can use any juice from any vendor. keep in mind that small battery = low battery life, unless you know an engineer that can make a nuclear one for you. bigger batteries like the eGo last longer but are bigger, and look and feel nothing like a cigarette, which seems like it'd be annoying, but it took me 5 seconds to get over the size once i experienced the strong flavor, lots of vapor, and great throat hit. since you haven't smoked in 2 years, the vapor and throat hit of a 510 is probably gonna be fine for you. if not, you can always go to low-resistance and stick with the no-nicotine juices. Jon

i've heard of people cleaning and re-using cartos hundreds of times (dr vapor in one of his videos mentioned this). Here's my method, probably similar to what you do. first i get a container of hot water, force water through it with a nose bulb about 10 times, then use the bulb to force all the water out, boil them for 15 minutes, force all the water out with a nose bulb, boil them again, and before letting them dry completely, i use the nose bulb and force air through it like a good 20 or 30 times, and give them 3 or 4 days to dry out. when you go to refill it, it'll take a lot more juice than when you're just topping it off. I use a combination of the condom fill method, and the slanted drip-down method to make sure it's really saturated, then clean the treaded end really well before screwing it onto the battery. The easiest way to clean and re-use cartomizers, however, is to not..... and just order the tank system, which is really easy to clean, and atomizers dry out WAY faster than cartomizers. Jon