Back in the days of 2009, the internet rumored of a newfangled device called an "Electronic Cigarette." (This is a term that I now hate, I will explain that in a later post). I, being a new father of a baby girl, was very interested in an alternative to cigarettes, not only to keep her safe, but to ensure I would be around for her as long as possible. After justifying the ridiculously high price of $85 to my wife, I made an order for my first device, a Joytech 510 manual starter kit, from some vendor who is probably long out of business.
For those that are unfamiliar with this ancient piece of history, the Joytech 510 manual was a battery, roughly the size of a 100mm cigarette, with the little light on the end to simulate the ember cherry. It had an amazing 150mAh battery and could go almost a whole 3 hours without needing to recharge. Luckily the kit came with 2 batteries, and for people that were really fancy you could get a personal charge case, which was basically a bigger battery to charge your smaller battery. You could be good for almost an entire day on the go! (This is where you see BluCigs technology at today)
After patiently waiting what seemed like forever for my new gadget to arrive, the kindly UPS guy dropped it off and I started playing with it almost immediately. After figuring out how to prime the atomizer and fill the cartridge I gave it a go. I was impressed with the flavor (at the time). It was a sweet tobacco, nutty with a touch of caramel. I also got mango. I thought to myself "I can live with this, I can't see how I wouldn't like it!"
And then...
Dry hit. The worst dry hit EVER. After a whole 20 minutes or so of puffing on the thing, my throat caught on fire and my eyes watered. What the hell happened? Isn't a cartridge supposed to be the same as a pack of cigarettes? I took the cart off and it was bone dry. Oh well. I filled it back up and kept a close eye on it, putting in a drop or two every 10 minutes or so. I can live with this, I say.
The next day I take my new toy to work to show my curious smoker-buddies. Most of them laugh at it, one commends me for trying it out. The guy that chewed though it was sweet, go figure. He rode with me in my rig for the next few days since he was just back from a long disability leave and got a good idea for how well it did (and didn't) work.
At home my 510 was great, not so much on the road. On a long drive from one place to another I could easily need to refill on the run, but luckily I had a passenger to do it for me for a few days. The flavor of a burned filler is pretty damn annoying when you're trying to drive. Eventually I learned when the thing was about to go empty by taste, and it wasn't too bad if I paid attention.
Between the constant refilling and getting juice on my hands all the time I was getting pretty annoyed with my new savior of a gadget. I was doing my best to keep with it, I hadn't had a real cigarette for a week. Then I ran out of my tobacco flavor and switched over to my bottle of mango. Holy crap was it bad. It tasted like ashes and sugar. It was a demoralizing blow to my psyche.
Getting more and more angry with my 510, I decided to see what help I could find online and discovered the Electronic Cigarette Forum. After coming across a lot of things I didn't understand, I found the post that put the nail in my vaporizers coffin (temporarily). The tea-bag mod for cartridges. Long story short, there was a thread that explained how to fold a Liptons tea bag a certain way to hold more juice and feed the atomizer better. Then I found the one for using blue aquarium foam for filler. At that point, between the leaking, constant dripping, bad flavor, and the fact the damn thing didn't work as well as it could out of the box without learning origami, I shelved my brand new toy, picked up my Camels and my Bic, and had a smoke.
To Be Continued...
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