Purchasing Your First Mod

Purchasing your first mod

Another great article from Mile High Vapor (http://www.mhvapors.com/pages/purchasing-your-first-vaporizer-e-cigarette).

The Bare Basics: Vape

When you are ready to begin your venture into the vaping community for the first time it is important to start off with the right hardware, and to know what you are looking for. 

Although my first vaporizer was a disposable e-hookah pen I bought from a local gas station back in 2009, I believe it is important to start off with a quality re-fillable vape. To someone who has no experience this may look complicated to you, but I promise it is very easy to figure out and you should be confident in your ability to use one within the next  five minutes of reading. 

To get you started we have outlined a basic re-fillable vaporizer kit in the picture below. It is called the eGo-T kit, and is available at almost every vape shop for around $25-$35.

 

As shown, this kit commonly comes with:

• A Battery
• A Battery Charger
• An Atomizer (with an un-screwable tip, aka a drip tip)
• Usually a Carrying Case

I believe this kit is perfect for your introduction to vaping for a few reasons. One, it is a very reliable vape with not much at all that can go wrong. Two, it is very simple to use. Like I said earlier, this kit is refillable, so you can add and change your e-Liquid when needed (which is also very easy). This kit can be purchased with e-Liquid for around $20 from the right vendor. I used this kit for over a year before deciding to move into more advanced vaping. 

There are very few things you need to know too use this vape. I have created an image below with instructions on how to power on/power off, charge, and fill or refill the device. Notice that the Atomizer is screwed onto the battery in the same place that the battery screws into the charger... so when charging it you will have to unscrew the atomizer.

One note about the atomizers is that they do not last forever. The average atomizer shown above (Which is called a CE4 Atomizer) will last around 1-3 months. When they go bad you will tell by a burnt like flavor, or it will become very leaky. I recommend buying an extra one with your kit. We usually have these in stock for around $5. 

Now that you have an idea of what to look for, and know how to operate a vape, the last step before making a purchase is knowing what e-Liquid or E-juice you want. 

E-juice/e-Liquid 

Picking the right Liquid is a VERY important step in your first purchase, because if you do it wrong it could completely turn you away from vaping! As I described in my previous article (Vaping 101), e-Liquids come in many different nicotine contents ranging from none at all (0 mg/ml nicotine) to very high (24+ mg/ml nicotine). I will describe some good starting points again.

0    mg/ml  =  Non-Smokers or someone who wants ZERO nicotine, and only flavor

12  mg/ml  =  the average smoker or someone who smokes lights

18  mg/ml  =  A heavier smoker 

24  mg/ml  =  A smoker who previously smoked more than a pack a day

These guidelines are very vague and are based on other people’s opinions than my own. In my experience, I went from smoking occasionally and smoking a LOT of hookah, to trying 12 mg/ml in a vape and I found it was way too high for me. My advice would be to follow that guideline, and also buy a 0 mg/ml bottle so that if you find the nicotine is too high, you can mix the two and bring it down if you find the throat hit unpleasant. 

There may also be an option for PG/VG mix. I have covered the slight differences between the two and choices that you have in my next article. For now I would recommend getting a 50/50 mix, which is what many vapers start at. 

Lastly you must choose your flavor. This choice is very opinionated. Some flavors are good to vape every once in a while... and some you will find to be something you can sit and vape all day. We have a decent variety of flavors with prices that are hard to find elsewhere and I encourage you to take a look for some you may like, especially if you think you might be into fruity, desert, or cool (menthol, Icy) flavors. If you’re looking for tobacco like flavors, I recommend trying out some Halo cigs tobacco e-Liquids. It will really be trial and error until you find out what you’re into.

For those of you who really want to jump into vaping and purchase something you will be able to stick with for years to come, I would recommend buying what is called a Variable Voltage device (more information about these in our next article). If in stock, a great vape to buy is the Vision Spinner battery kit, which from us only costs you $15-$20 more than your simple eGo kit. 

I hope I was able to give you enough information to get started on your switch to vaping.