The atomizer is the workhorse of the electronic cigarette and is what is responsible for vaporizing the nicotine solution. Without the atomizer the electronic cigarette doesn’t function.

The atomizer is the smallest piece on the device and is usually hidden from view completely when completely assembled. On most brands the atomizer screws into the battery casing and then the nicotine cartridge slides over the top of the atomizer.

It has a small metal Wick that draw the solution out of the cartridge and then uses the battery to keep the liquid into a vapor. As soon as current begins to run to the atomizer, it starts to vaporize the liquid. Most modern electronic cigarettes are activated by a pressure switch that senses when you inhale, causing current to flow to the atomizer, vaporizing the nicotine solution as you take a drag. However, there are some brands out there that still use manual activation with the use of a button. There are some benefits to these, which I won’t get into right now, but for most people automatic activation is usually the way to go.

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In the previous article I talked a little bit about how electronic cigarettes work. For the most part, they all work exactly the same, however there are just a few very minor differences.

Let’s start with the battery. The battery is located where the nicotine would be on a traditional smoke. It’s the largest part of the electronic cigarette and is used to power the atomizer, which vaporizes the nicotine solution into a vapor that you inhale. Almost every brand utilize rechargeable batteries; I think most of them are lithium-ion although I believe a few are nickel cadmium. Whatever type they are there rechargeable I know that.

Most brands have a small LED at the tip of the battery that lights up when you take a drag. Some brands are marketed as this light is used to distinguish the electronic cigarette from a traditional smoke in the event that someone sees you smoking indoors and tried to stop you. With a blue LED at the tip of the battery, it’s pretty you explaining or not smoking a real cigarette at which point the person should probably leave you alone and let you smoke since electronic cigarettes are not covered by smoking bans.

Some brands use a red orange LED at the tip of the battery and the market needs as stimulating the look of a real cigarette for those that may want to not draw attention to themselves while smoking the device in public.

Either way most of the batteries have a small LED at the tip that lights up when you take a drag.

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Since electronic cigarettes are relatively new, some people are even aware of what they are exactly. That’s totally fine, and I wasn’t aware either until I did a good deal of research. One of think you’ll find his you look into electronic cigarettes is that they all function essentially the same way, or rather, they all function exactly the same way for the most part, the only real difference being the brand and the price.

Obviously, the brand makes a difference, especially with relatively new technology such as this. You want to make sure you purchase your electronic cigarette from a reputable manufacturer, someone with a good reputation, good customer service, and reliable product.

The other big factor to consider is the price. I’ve seen prices range anywhere from around $30 all the way up to $200 for a starter kit and for the most part there really isn’t much of a difference between any of them other than the brand name.

Surprisingly, however, some of the most reliable brands from reputable manufacturers actually aren’t the most expensive. What I found in my research is that most of the really expensive brands are from companies who think they can just selling overpriced product because they’re good at marketing or something like that. That may be the case, they may very well be selling a lot of these things, but I don’t know who’s buying them.

Anyway, enough about price and brand, let’s get onto how these things work and what they are exactly.

I’ll get into more detailed explanation of electronic cigarettes in the future, but for now let’s give you a short and sweet of it.

First of all, the goal of electronic cigarettes is to closely simulate the smoking a real cigarette. With that in mind, it makes sense that they produce smoke, or actually vapor, that you inhale just like the smoke from real cigarette, which delivers the nicotine to your lungs. The main difference between what you’re inhaling with electronic cigarette vs. a real cigarette is that an electronic cigarette produces a water vapor/nicotine mixture, which is what you inhale. The real benefit of this over real cigarettes is that you’re not inhaling actual smoke, or what’s known as byproducts of combustion, and for this reason they are considered by most to be dramatically more healthy than real cigarettes.

Now there is no tobacco an electronic cigarette. Instead, there is a nicotine solution in liquid form is held inside the cartridge. If you find you like electronic cigarettes and you continue to smoke them the cartridges are what you replace and you’ll end up reusing the rest of the device.

Now the goal of the electronic cigarette is to vaporize that nicotine solution from liquid form into a vapor, which you then inhale. This is accomplished with the use of something called an atomizer, which is really just a heating element that vaporizes the nicotine solution from the cartridges.

In order to power the atomizer, electronic cigarettes use a rechargeable battery.

All of this adds up to a package, at least nowadays, that looks very much like a real cigarette, it kept in plastic form rather than paper roll around tobacco.

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Welcome to E-Smokes! Thanks for stopping by. This is my own personal blog where I share some of the information I’ve learned over the years being a former cigarette smoker who has now transitioned to using electronic cigarettes completely.

It took me some time to make the switch, mostly because I like to do my research and read the reviews concerning any product I plan on purchasing. Ultimately I found that there are a number of different brands out there and, because the products are relatively new, there are also a lot of companies out there trying to charge way too much for their products.

It took me a while to settle on a model, BluCigs, which I’ve been using ever since and have been very happy with.

I hope this blog will give you the information you need to be able to decide first on whether or not you want to give electronic cigarettes a shot and, second, which brand you should purchase.

The good news is that with increasing competition over the last several years, electronic cigarettes are coming down significantly in price and features are only on the rise, so with a little guidance you should be able to select the brand that’s right for you.

Thanks again for stopping by and leave a comment if you feel like it to let me know if this info was helpful for you.

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The greatest thing about BluCigs, and the main reason I decided to purchase from the company was because of its charge on the go carrying case. Like I said in previous articles, I’ve been using electronic cigarettes for about two years now, and the one thing I can tell you for absolute certain is that you will have trouble with dead batteries. You will get stuck away from your battery chargers, like out in a bar or restaurant, and realize you totally forgot to recharge the batteries and they will die on you. This puts a serious damper in your plans to quit smoking tobacco cigarettes because you don’t really have a choice at this point. Every time this has happened to me I end up bumming a few tobacco cigarettes from somebody.

It became cover religion for me to make sure I was charging my batteries whenever I have a chance. I also ended up buying seven batteries for my favorite electronic cigarette before I found BluCigs. When I finally discovered BluCigs and the carrying case that also charges your batteries for you I thought right away this could change my life. I know it sounds a little crazy, but keeping your batteries charged is a serious concern when you’re trying to quit tobacco cigarettes by switching to electronic cigarettes.

So, BluCigs is now my favorite electronic cigarette, not necessarily because it tastes the best or it produces the most vapor or has the harshest throat hit, but mostly because it’s just so damn convenient having that carrying case that is able to recharge her batteries a full six times (roughly) without ever needing to plug into a wall outlet or USB port. Now don’t get me wrong, BluCigs taste great, I’m especially partial to the menthol flavor, and they produce a decent amount of vapor and have a moderate throat hit, but I have several electronic cigarettes that each do one of these things a little bit better than the Blu.

What my other electronic cigarettes don’t have, however, is the best complete package. I have one that has incredible throat hit, another one tastes phenomenal, yet another one that creates an insane amount of vapor, and finally I have one that’s about the same size as my Blu. That said, none of them have a carrying case that also functions as a battery charger, which I found to be the single most important accessory you could possibly have with an electronic cigarette. And none of them are as well rounded as the blue.

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The BluCigs starter kit comes with one atomizer, which is pretty standard amongst electronic cigarette manufacturers. You can always order extra atomizers, and that’s something I recommend because no matter what brand you decide to go with the average lifespan of an atomizer is 3 to 6 months.

BluCigs offers to atomizers for $9.95, and I recommend purchasing this along with your starter kit, or at least soon after you decide you like the device.

The atomizer is really the heart of the electronic cigarette. Powered by the battery, it heats the nicotine solution until it vaporizes, which you then inhale. Obviously, without the atomizer you don’t have an electronic cigarette.

If and when your atomizer go South replacement is very simple. All you have to do is slide the cartridge off the end of the atomizer and then unscrew the atomizer from the battery. Take your new atomizer, screw it into the battery, and slide the open end of the cartridge over it and you’re ready to start using your electronic cigarette again.

So why do atomizers burnout after six months or so? I’m really not sure; I’m no electronics expert, but it seems to me that they just haven’t perfected the manufacturing process of these devices yet, although I could be completely wrong about that. It seems like they should last a little bit longer than they usually do, but as long as I’m saving $600 a year over tobacco cigarettes and I’m not getting all that nasty tarring chemicals in my lungs I’m happy. Could I use longer-lasting atomizers? Sure, but it’s definitely not a deal breaker.

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The BluCigs starter kit comes with two batteries, which is pretty standard amongst electronic cigarette manufacturers. They do offer you a choice between black and white, and both batteries have a blue LED at the tip.

If you’re unfamiliar with electronic cigarettes, most of them have some sort of LED at the tip of the battery that lights up when you take a drag. Different manufacturers put different color LEDs on their batteries for a variety of reasons which I won’t get into here.

The battery life is pretty standard when compared with other electronic cigarette brands. I’ve found, in my two-year smoking electronic cigarettes, that the average battery life among mini electronic cigarette models is around 4 – 8 hours depending on use. Although there are models out there that last significantly longer than this, they generally require much larger batteries and because of this are about the size of a large cigar. In my experience with BluCigs I found the batteries to last about half a day each, so the two batteries that come with your starter kit should easily get you through a full day.

The good news is that even if you forget to charge a battery overnight, you won’t have to go back to smoking traditional smokes because the BluCigs carrying case will save you. If you wake up in the morning and notice, on your way to work, that you forgot to charge your batteries, just use the remaining juice in one and plug the other into the carrying case and it’ll be ready for use in less than an hour and fully charged in under two.

When it comes to electronic devices you never know what may happen, so it’s always good to know how much replacement parts cost. The BluCigs batteries are about average amongst is different electronic cigarette replacement batteries out there. I found most companies charge about $10 for a battery, so the more expensive companies charging upwards of 25 or $30. BluCigs charges $9.95 for replacement batteries, so you don’t have to worry about breaking the bank when you miss place a battery or drop in a puddle or something like that.

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Like many of the makers of electronic cigarettes, BluCigs started out with exaggerated claims about their cartridge life, equating each cartridge with about 15 cigarettes. It turns out that the actual cartridge life is closer to the equivalent of six cigarettes. BluCigs must’ve got some complaints about this because they’ve recently adjusted those numbers to reflect the more accurate six cigarette per cartridge lifespan.

Still, with each cartridge equating to six cigarettes, the cost savings are dramatic over traditional tobacco cigarettes. I save roughly $600 in the first year as a pack a day smoker and I haven’t cut back at all.

Cartridge flavors

BluCigs offers five different flavors, each in four different strengths. They include Classic Tobacco, Magnificent Menthol, Java Jolt, Vivid Vanilla and Cherry Crush. The four different strengths are: Full Flavored, which contains 16 mg of nicotine; Light, with 12 mg nicotine; Ultra Light, with 8 mg nicotine, and Non-nicotine, with 0 mg nicotine.

Although the classic tobacco flavor was good, it certainly wasn’t the best tobacco flavored substitute solution that I’ve ever tasted. My own personal favorite of all the BluCigs flavors was magnificent menthol, which didn’t really taste at all like a menthol cigarette. Nonetheless, this is actually a good thing because I don’t like menthol cigarettes nor have I ever smoke them, so it really was kind of surprised that I like the menthol the best. I wasn’t too fond of the Java jolt, although I think my experience with the flavors was really quite a personal one because I had my wife try all of them as well in her favor actually was the Java jolt.

Cartridge refills

BluCigs offers refill cartridges at a very reasonable price. Not quite as cheap as manual refills, but then who wants to deal with the hassle anyway, and quite a bit cheaper than most of the other prefilled cartridges available.

If you decide you like electronic cigarettes and want to stick with BluCigs, I’d recommend purchasing your cartridges in bulk once you figure out which flavor you prefer. The reason being that you can save about $.20 per cartridge if you buy 100 cartridges vs. buying 25 cartridges. The 25 cartridge pack will set you back $25 and 100 cartridge back set you back $80, so obviously the more you buy at a time the more you’ll save.

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BluCigs offers one of the best starter kits, in terms of accessories and included cartridges, of any of the electronic cigarette makers out there. Not to mention the fact that the starter kit comes in at only $59.95, compared to many other brands upwards of $100 or more.

First and foremost, the BluCigs starter kit includes a charge on the go carrying case, which functions as a battery charger that holds up to six full charges in the event that your caught away from a wall outlet when your batteries die. The pack has room for two batteries, both of which can charge, as well is five cartridges to take with you wherever you go. The pack is a very sleek design, all black, with the blu logo on the front, and is not much bigger than a standard pack of smokes.

Pretty standard among electronic cigarette makers is to include two batteries with a starter kit; BluCigs is no exception to this, what you do have a choice between black or white colors.

Also standard amongst electronic cigarette makers is to include one atomizer with the starter kit. Again, this is the case with BluCigs.

In addition to be carrying case, BluCigs includes two types of battery chargers. The first is a USB charger that plugs directly into a USB port so you can charge your electronic cigarette using your laptop or desktop PC. The other is the standard wall wart plug-in charger that allows you to charge your batteries in any standard wall outlet. The BluCigs pack is charged by plugging it directly into the wall wart charger or the USB charger.

In addition to the carrying case, BluCigs stands out from its competitors by offering a 25 cartridge sampler pack in the nicotine strength of your choice. BluCigs cartridges come in four different strengths: full flavored, which contains 16 mg of nicotine; white, which contains 12 mg of nicotine; ultralight, which contains 8 mg of nicotine; and nicotine free or non-nicotine, which, as the name suggests, contains no nicotine.

In addition to the accessories included in the BluCigs starter kit the company also offers a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee as well is a one-year warranty.

BluCigs claims their cartridges last for about the equivalent of six cigarettes. They’ve actually adjusted that number as they started out saying it was somewhere around 15 cigarettes per cartridge, which was grossly over exaggerated. The new number of one cartridge equaling six cigarettes I found to be pretty accurate. They must’ve gotten a lot of flak for advertising the cartridges in this way, which is probably why they adjusted them to a more accurate number.

The battery life I found to be about average among the different brands of electronic cigarettes I tried in the past two years. Sure, some of the larger models can run all day on a single battery, but who wants to carry around a big fat cigar looking thing everywhere you go? When it comes to the cigarette-sized models, BluCigs is about right in the middle of the pack with battery life being around half the day for the standard smoker.

The good news about BluCigs battery life is that, in contrast to other brands, even if you’re battery runs out, you just switch it with a fully charged battery from your carrying case and you’re ready to go. In a few hours, your carrying case will fully charger dead battery and you’ll be ready to swap them again if need be.

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Electronic cigarettes use electricity, as their name implies, to vaporize a nicotine solution into water vapor that is then inhaled just like the smoke from a tobacco cigarette. The only difference is you’re not actually inhaling smoke, but water vapor mixed with nicotine and flavorings.

There are three Main parts to an electronic cigarette, the battery, the atomizer and the cartridge. Most batteries have a small LED at the tip that lights up when you take a drag very similar to the way the embers on a tobacco cigarette glow when you drag. This helps you know that you’re battery is charged and also stimulates a real cigarette in case you’re trying to smoke incognito.

The battery is the largest part of the device and goes where the tobacco is on a regular cigarette and is about the same size as that.

The next piece of the atomizer, which is the workhorse of the electronic cigarette and is responsible for vaporizing the nicotine solution. I’m not a scientist so the inner workings of the atomizer are beyond my knowledge, but I do know it’s powered by the battery and I believe it basically keeps up the nicotine solution until it evaporates into a vapor. Once I the atomizer has a small metal wick that absorbs the nicotine solution from the cartridge. The atomizer has threads like a screw and screws into the battery or vice versa.

The cartridge side of the atomizer is a bare metal sleeve over which the cartridge slides. The cartridge is about the size of the filter on a tobacco cigarette and is located in the same place. You simply slide the open end of the cartridge over the metal sleeve on the atomizer and, when screwed onto the battery, your device is completely assembled.

The small metal Wick on the atomizer sticks out a little bit into the cartridge and makes contact with a small fabric filler that holds the nicotine solution inside the cartridge. The nicotine solution works its way up the little metal Wick in the atomizer and when you take a drag a pressure switch turns on the battery, sending current to the atomizer. At that point the atomizer heats up and vaporizes the small amount of nicotine solution on the wick, which you then inhale.

When you exhale, a small amount of vapor comes out and completely dissipates in a few seconds. The vapor, before and after you inhale it, has very little smell to it at all, which is why you’re able to smoke indoors and, in fact right next to someone, without them even knowing. Also, because the vapor dissipates so quickly you don’t have to worry about living in a cloud of smoke like you do when smoking a tobacco cigarette indoors.

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