E-cigarette terminology

Turns out e-cigarettes are gaining popularity and with it are massive communities of devoted e-cigarette users out there. Just like all technologies and niche communities there are terms, slang and short hand that get invented to express what’s being talked about. If you’re new to e-cigarettes I’ve decided to make this post so you can learn what these terms mean.

But it’s as much for me as it is for you. I don’t want to have to keep putting simple explanations into parenthesis every time I write a blog entry about e-cigarettes. So instead at the top of each of those blog entries I’ll just link back to this post. I’ll also try to keep this post updated as new terms, technology and slang come about. That said, let us begin.

• Analog = A traditional tobacco cigarette that is burned and inhaled. Get off the analogs they’ll kill ya!
• E-cigarette (e-cig) = Electronic cigarette otherwise called a personal vaporizer
• Personal vaporizer (PV) = A technically more accurate term for an e-cigarette. These aren’t really cigarettes they are personal vaporizers.
• Vaping or vape = The act of inhaling the vapor a personal vaporizer emits.
• Vapers = People who vape.
• E-Liquid or E-juice = Sometimes called smoke juice or rarely e-fluid. Is the liquid that is turned into the vapor you are inhaling.
• Propylene glycol (PG) = The base ingredient in most e-liquid. Same as used in smoke/flog machines.
• Vegetable glycerin (VG) = An alternative base ingredient in e-liquid. Sometimes mixed with PG.
• Milligrams (mg) = The amount of nicotine found in a given e-liquid. (0mg, 4mg, 6mg, 8mg, 11mg, 12mg, 16mg, 18mg, 24mg, 30mg, 36,mg, 48mg) Unless you are a heavy smoker and/or experience with vaping we recommend you stay below 24mg. Good to start with 12-18 and if it’s not strong enough, go up. Just remember that you’ll probably vape more than you smoked. So don’t overdue the nicotine.
• MilliLiters (mL) = The amount of e-liquid in a given container. Be it cartridge, cartomizer or bottle of e-liquid. Typical carts/cartos hold between 0.25-1mL of e-liquid. Bottles can be bought in various sizes.
• Atomizer (atty) = The heating element used to turn the e-liquid into vapor that is inhaled.
• Cartridge (cart) = A plastic cylinder with poly-fill used to absorb and hold the e-liquid that will be vaporized.
• Cartomizer (carto) = A disposable (but often refillable) atomizer and cartridge combined into one piece.
• Auto Battery = A battery that senses either sound or air pressure and turns on the atomizer.
• Manual Battery = A battery that requires you to hold a button to turn on the atomizer.
• Starter Kit = Starter kits are what most people buy when they first begin vaping. They usually include two batteries, a five pack of carts/cartos, one or two atomizers, a usb charger and wall adapter. Cartomizer kits don’t come with atomizers since the cartomizers have atomizers built in. Kits will vary in price and equipment included depending on the model and vendor who sells it.
• Vapor Production = The amount of vapor a particular e-cig model and/or e-liquid produce.
• Throat Hit = How strong of a hit you get at the back of the throat when inhaling vapor. Different combinations of e-cig models and e-liquid can produce stronger or weaker throat hit.
• Dripping or drip = The act of dripping 2-3 drops of e-liquid directly on an atomizer and vaping.
• Driptip = A special open mouth piece that can be put on the end of an atomizer or cartomizer for easy dripping.
• Flooding = When too much e-liquid is added to an atomizer it can flood causing it not to vape properly or at all.
• Ohm = In the e-cig world this term comes up often when talking about atomizers and cartomizers. It refers to the resistance of the atomizer or cartomizer in question. Lower Ohms mean less resistance and higher Ohms mean more resistance.
• Low Resistance (LR) = Referring to Ohms of a atomizer or cartomizer
• High Resistance (HR) = Referring to Ohms of a atomizer or cartomizer
• Voltage = Used in reference to the batteries and what kind of power they push out. (3.2v, 3.7v, 4.7v, 5v, 6v, etc.)
• mAh = How much electricity a battery holds.
• Mods or mod = Modifications made to an e-cigarette. Often used in reference to big batteries.
• Big batts = Big batteries used in place of smaller cigarette sized batteries. Big batts last longer.
• Personal Charging Case (PCC) = They can look like plastic or metal versions of traditional cigarette packs or look completely different. They are used to store your carts/cartos and charge your batteries while on the go.
• Adapter = An adapter is used to convert one e-cig model component to work on another e-cig model.

Model Specific Terminology

• 510 = The most popular model of e-cigarette used by beginners and experienced vapers. 3.2v batteries. Most people prefer the manual batteries on this model since auto batts can be set off by loud music in bars.
• eGo = Based on the 510 the eGo uses a slighly larger and thicker battery for longer run time. 3.2v batteries.
• KR808D-1 = Another very popular model that started the cartomizer trend. Easy to use on the go. 3.7v batteries. The auto batteries on this model are pressure activated so they work just as well as manual batteries.

If you discover anything that needs to be corrected or added, please leave it in the comments.
Thank you

E-cigarettes and me

The first time I saw an e-cigarette was couple of years ago at a bachlor party. A buddy of mine had one he bought from some store online. I don’t know the model but it was a pen style. Black with tappered tip and blue LED. He explained it to us but I didn’t pay a lot of attention. My first thought was “it’s coming from China and we have no idea what kind of chemicals you’re inhaling there, could be very dangerous, more so than regular cigarettes.”

About a year went by and I didn’t think about them again. Then in October of 2009 one of my bosses at work brought up that she was thinking about getting an e-cigarette and I made some ill informed comment similar to my first thought about them.
However this time I decided it wasn’t fair of me to be so biased without doing any research. So I hit the internet. I learned that e-cigarettes really are a great alternative to smoking. I learned that the ingredients in the e-juice (or e-liquid) are very few, usually 3-10 compared to the over 4600 chemicals found in a burning tobacco cigarette.

Over the next month I convinced myself that I too wanted to try an e-cigarette. Not only did I want to try one but I was in a super hurry to try one. I was amp’d up and didn’t want to wait for some online vendor to ship me one. So I hit a local smoke shop and bought the worst piece of crap e-cig available for an absurd $50. As I learned later on that same model could be bought online for $9 and no one recommended them.

Well I tried it and I hated it. It tasted like burnt dog shit. Not that I’ve ever had the pleasure of setting fire to dog shit and inhaling. But that was my basic interpretation.

Still I didn’t give up. I did some more reading, decided to be a little more patient and settled on a model called a KR808D-1 sold by Vapor4Life and branded by them as a VaporKing. Now this was more like I was expecting it to be. Good vapor, good throat hit and a decent taste.

They ended up screwing up my order because apparently I hit “buy” on a starter kit configuration they were “toying” with late at night and removed the next morning. So they ended up sending me a kit that wasn’t as complete as what I had ordered. As a result I got on their forum to ask about it and everyone pretty much thought I was just complaining and trying to scam them. Until that is, some other member decided to run a google search and check google cache pages to discover that indeed that kit configuration did exist for a few hours and I must have ordered during that time. Big apologies all around and a phone call from the head honcho at V4L who wanted to personally apologize and send me a whole bunch of freebies. A few days later in the mail I received about $100 worth of free stuff. Including a whole bunch of stuff I probably wouldn’t have bought myself at the time, but once I had it and tried it out, I got a really good idea of what stuff was my favorite.

Well I spend the next two months going through all of those freebies and only made one order for some juice. Deciding I would refill the empty cartomizers. Things were going great and I had completely kicked traditional (analog) cigarettes by that point. Then for whatever reason I stopped using the e-cig and quit everything. I don’t remember why exactly. I think I read something on an e-cig forum that spooked me a little and made me go back to those thoughts that maybe these things could be worse than analog cigarettes.

After a month or so of being completely free of everything, I got stressed out at work one day and bummed an analog cigarette off a co-worker. Suddenly I was right back on the pain train that is tobacco cigarettes.

I spend the next 6-7 months smoking again. Like the last time I had smoke I started having breathing problems at night where I would wake up and have to hit an inhaler because my throat would get constricted. That year of smoking machine rolled pipe tobacco before my first e-cig experience really took my health for a spin.

So I decided enough was enough. I’m getting off the analogs for good. Last time I used the e-cig it successfully helped me quit smoking and made my breathing problems go away. So it was the perfect device to do it again.

Here I am now. Ten days on the e-cig again and I haven’t touched a real cigarette. I feel better, I’m not as tired and worn out, I’m more active and my breathing problems have begun to shrink on me. These things really are a gift to smokers.

I’m going to spend a little more time talking about this subject in depth on this blog. This is my first post about it. So I’ve created a category called “E-Cigarettes” where all those posts will go. Check back often as I update this topic and other topics that might interest you.