Sign In
Create Account
3
although I'm a relative newbie or semi noob when it comes to vaping, I thought I'd do a 'new user' review kind of thingy of my experience with the Lava Tube from Liberty Flights, the CE4 eGo Clearomizers from iVapour and the RY HI5 24mg Intense BM2 e-juice from vapourworld.co.uk ... and maybe a question or three at the end.
First ... a brief history of my foray in to the world of electronic cigarettes, and apologies if I bore you, I also know there's a wall of text, but I promise you, it's worth the read ... well I think it is
.I bought my first kit back in June 11, it's a Riva 510 starter kit from LF, along with a selection of PG juices all at 14mg nic. At first things went well, I was using the Riva everyday but then things started to go wrong, migraines, spots appearing in places I didn't even know I had, vivid dreams, the works ... I put this down to the nic level being too high, so I ordered some lower nic, but the same things kept happening, then I had a couple of family deaths to deal with so back on the rollups.
We now come to the new year, did I make a resolution to stop the fags, no, I did however, make a promise to myself that I would try and ease my toxic intake and to use the Riva at all
times when the craving for a fag hit me.
So off I went interweb surfing, I checked out the forums for advice on why I suffered when using the PG juice and found that others also suffered the same or similar effects, and that maybe the answer was to try VG based juices. I bought myself some VG juices at around 18mg nic and started vaping away, well, roughly three weeks in to Jan 2012 and you guessed it, this again failed big time, not through migraines, spots, dreams etc, but the lack of that all important 'nic hit', and I was still having between 6 - 10 rollies a day, so the promise I'd made to myself had started to fail.
After watching VTTV a couple of times and their review of the Lava Tube and the CE4 Clearomizers (thanks Cat and Dave (hifi)), I knew that I needed something else to spend my money on to try out the 24mg VG juice, and after laying out nearly 200 quid in one night, it had to be good.
Now for the Lava Tube review 'thank gawd for that' I hear you shout lol.
My new kit arrived on Thursday morning 26th Jan, and like a kid on Christmas morning, I eagerly tore open the goodies that were piled on my desk. First was the Lava Tube, I have to say
its very well packaged, nice one LF, then all the gubbings that came with it, batteries (I would have thought one would have been included for the price of the LT, oh well...), charger, juices, 510 - eGo adapters and lastly the CE4 Clearo's.
With slightly trembling hands, I eagerly inserted one of the 18650 batteries in to the LT, screwed in the 510 - eGo adapter then filled a CE4 Clearo with 24mg VG juice then screwed to the LT, I pushed the little red button on the LT to turn it on, set the voltage to 3.7 (thats what the 750 Mah Riva batteries are) and took an 'effing great drag'. Ten minutes later and after coughing up one of my lungs, I finally managed to pop my eyeballs back in, wipe the sweat from my brow and drink some tea. My wife gave me one of her all knowing looks of 'silly old sod' and my eldest daughter was on the floor creased up with laughter. I can honestly say with hand on heart, I haven't coughed like that since I smoked 60 Capstan Full Strength cigarettes a day over 25 years ago.
Now being the 'stubborn' oldgit that I am, I persevered and re-set the voltage to 4.0, any sane person, as you know, would have set the voltage lower, but no, not me ... something in my single brain cell told me that 'higher was better' ... I couldn't have been more WRONG! More coughing, more sweating, a lot of swearing between coughs and severe watery eyes later, I conceeded defeat, I waved the white flag, threw in the towel and put the LT to one side and puffed on my trusty Riva whilst contemplating the meaning of life.
"What could have gone wrong", I asked myself in a rather high pitched raspy voice, "Is it the LT? Is it the Clearo? Is it the juice? What?"
After a little soul searching, a lot of head scratching and the wife giving me big time 'earhole' about how much I'd spent on usless 'junk', it finally dawned on me, it was like I'd discovered how the universe works and how life evolved, a revelation if you like ... the answer, of course, was 'simple' ... my single celled brain told me to 'just lower the voltages' and see what happens.
Now you have to bare in mind that my throat had just been kicked a couple of time by a vary irate mule, and to say it was a little on the tender side would be an understatment, but I wasn't going to let a small thing like a Lava Tube beat me, heck no, even the ladies of this forum use them, manly pride was at stake here, one up for the lads, it was me or it, and there was only ever going to be one winner!
I eyed this minature beast of burden that was sitting comfortably in my hand, this tubular mod made by the devil himself in the deepest pits of hell, this... well, you get the picture, with suspicion and trepidation, and pressed the little minus button till it read 3.0 in the small display screen, then slowly and deliberatly lifted the device to my slightly parted lips (blimey, sounds like something from a porn film innit). My wife sat there with a look of mild amusment on her face combined with her 'all knowing look' (how do you wimmin do that?), while my daughter watched eagerly, eyes wide open, waiting for me to cough up my other lung. Many emotions were running through my single grey cell, 'hope, excitment, dread', and the thought that I could never hold my head up high in any 'vape forum' again if this failed, seemed to loom over me like a dark cloud.
I clamped my lips over the beautifully crafted flat whistle shaped mouth-piece of the CE4, pushed the big, round 'go' button on the LT and took a slow but deliberate drag, "Not too much", I told myself, "take it slow and easy", I inhaled, waited for the kick and coughing to start again, then exhaled a plume of vapour ... SUCCESS! YES! ... I could vape without coughing, this minature beast of burden, this tubular mod made by the devil himself in the deepest pits of hell, this... hang on, we've done that already ... was behaving itself. I took another drag, then another and another and great plumes of vapour started to fill the room, I had tamed the beast ... yes my throat was still tender, yes I nearly coughed again as I felt a bigger drag catch in my throat, so I upped the voltage to 3.4, but it worked and more importantly, it worked well ... to a point.
My first carto lasted roughly half a day, I was getting vapour and flavour but I was also getting something I didn't expect, and that was what I can only describe as a bitterness and slight burning sensation at the back of my pallet. For anyone who has rolled their own or used to smoke filterless ciggies, its like when you get a strand or two of tobacco in your mouth, it gives a bitter, burnt taste on your tongue until you spit it out.
The juice I used was, and still is, RY HI5 24mg intense BM2 with the voltage set to 3.4 on the LT, so I thought I'd try something out. I found a fresh unused 510 cartridge and an unused SR atty from my Riva startup kit then dropped a dozen or so drops of RY HI5 on to the carts wadding, then screwed the atty to the LT, popped the cart on the atty and started to drag, at first there was a little taste, I upped the voltage to 3.7 when I got a throat hit and muted cough, so dropped down to 3.3 and bliss, masses of vapour, masses of flavour, no bitterness, no burning sensation at the back of my mouth or to the side of my tongue, no wanting or thinking of having a real fag and a very happy 'oldgit'. I then filled my clearo with more juice, left the voltage at 3.3 and started to enjoy the LT how it should be enjoyed. I have now gone 5 days without thinking or wanting a real cigarette and for me thats amazing because when I tried the NRT patches in the past, I was still smoking and thinking about when I could have my next one.
Now to the e-juice...
If you are a fan of RY4, then I wholly recommend that you try RY HI5 Intense BM2 mix, for me it's a little sweeter than RY4 and the caramel taste really does come through with subtle hints of vanilla, my all day vape. I'd like to thank Dellboy (from this forum) for sending me a small sample for free, and Paula from vapourworld.co.uk for her patience and courtesy in dealing with my e-mails, I shall be a returning customer for many years to come.
Now for the clearos...
As I've mentioned earlier, I'd watched Cat's review of the CE4 Clearomizers on VTTV (if you've never seen this show, then it's a must for newbies and oldies alike, just google it), I'd also read the review that Mufftrix (another forum member here) had made also in this very sub forum, and without these good folks taking the time to do said reviews, I'd have lost half my juice through bottom spillage, as Cat says, gravity is these clearo's worst enemy. Filling these clearo's is simplicity itself, find an old bottle cap, sit the clearo in it, pull the mouth-piece off, remove the small silicon bung and fill with either a needle, a spikey thing or simply run the juice down the inside of the clearo taking care not to run any down the centre tube, they take about 1.3mil of juice, once filled, simply replace the small silicon bung (it doesn't have to be spot on in the middle) and fit the mouth-piece back on, you then have a filled CE4 clearomizer.
I don't know if it's me, but when I screw one of these clearo's on to the LT, if I do it just finger tight, the draw can also be tight, all I do is just knock it back a tad, then it's a nice easy draw. I also don't seem to suffer the 'condensation build up' that others have mentioned, maybe I'm just lucky so far, but after using 25+mil of juice over 5 days in the same clearo, alls well with mine and I'd certainly buy them again.
Thats it folks, I know it's not a real in depth review like the others have done, it's just my take on what happened to me and how I dealt with it as a newbie ... now for the question or 5 ... so who's counting?
Because of my above experience, this got me thinking, as you already know, this was my first ever experience with a clearomizer, a variable voltage mod and 24mg nic VG juice and I wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience/disasters coming from the simple cart/ SR atty setup, to a clearo/carto/tank thingy, if you did, how did you get round it?
Why is it that the simple cart/SR atty combo gives out great vapour and flavour?
Why does using a clearo/carto give your throat a hit like you've been mugged by a demented mule wearing steel toecapped hooves on higher voltages?
Do all clearo's/carto's give the same hit/kick, if so, why?
Do all tobacco based, flavoured e-liquids have that same bitterness and burnt taste when used at higher voltages?
Am I just being a whimp who should stop asking stupid questions, get on with life and to stop complaining?
I don't know, so its over to you, and thanks for reading.
Back to top
