How Long Does A Cart Really Last?

[JMC]

Hi I have been vaping for like 5 days now and I'm finding that theres nowhere near two packs per cart as is claimed on the box. I put a new one on last night and it was out after like 5puffs today. I'm only a 1/2 pack a day smoker so I don't understand. I estimate I maybe took 30-40 drags last night. Does anyone else find this too? Maybe I am doing something wrong?

[mcquinn]

That is lesson #1 grasshopper.A lot of vendors lie .Get you some liquid and refill.I use 20 to 30 ml a week.

[MistaWondaBread]

Direct drip and refill! VT liquid is cheap and there flavors are amazing. Midnight is my favorite right now.

[Brian]

You're not doing anything wrong. Carts don't last very long. 30-40 hits sounds about right.

Edited January 22, 2011 by Brian

[juliery]

2 packs??? ahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha. I go through 5-7 cartos a day. They are NOWHERE near any pack, unless the cigs were like an inch long. I use like 60ish of them, refill them every week. Every 3-5 refills when they start tasting yucky I boil them all. Then they are good for another 3-5 fills. After that I boil them, soak in everclear, boil again to get all alcohol out, and they are like brand new never used cartos and I start the process all over. In a year I have had maybe 10 die...or I should say we because my husband uses about 100 of them too...because he vapes like 8 different flavors...I use only one flavor. Thank God they are refillable because I go through them like crazy. They claimed to be the equivalent of a pack to 1.5 packs depending where I bought them from. Yeah, right, that would mean I am vaping 5-9 packs a day, which God knows I was a heavy 2-3ppd smoker for 30 years, but even I didn't smoke any 5, let alone 9 packs a day!!!! When I refill them I get about 20 drops per carto, some a little more, some a little less, depending on the filler. Anyway, I think you will find EVERYONE will tell you the same thing....normal sized carts/cartos are NOT the equivalent of any 2 packs of smokes, I don't even think they are the equivalent of a pack. MAYBE half a pack.

[Christopher]

Yup it's unfortunate but some suppliers either A. Have no idea what they're talking about B. Are lying worse than Richard Nixon

A cart will get you at most 3-4 cigarettes wroth. A cigarette will give you about 10 puffs or so. 40 puffs sounds about right.

Purchase some bottled e liquid, refill and you'll be a happy camper

[Beans]

Yes, vendors lie. I was having the same problem. 4-5 carts a day. Mine only seem to work well for a few smokes then were totally useless to me.

Just find the right vaporizer for you. There are so many new toys us noobies to try. Stick with it and have some fun!

If you find something great let us know.

[juliery]

another issue with the cartos is the batteries......when the batts start losing power so then the carto sucks too. So there is a difference with the liquid being used up and the battery losing power. Personally, and I just did this, I refill tons of cartos at once, got the XL carrying case from V4L that I can fit 5 batts and almost 20 cartos in....it is made for 4 batteries and 8 cartos, BUT there is a HUGE empty space when it is closed in which you can pile more stuff in. Can you tell I NEVER want to be out and unprepared???????

[illyria]

That is lesson #1 grasshopper.A lot of vendors lie .Get you some liquid and refill.I use 20 to 30 ml a week.

ROTFL. So true, so true.

[nana]

another issue with the cartos is the batteries......when the batts start losing power so then the carto sucks too. So there is a difference with the liquid being used up and the battery losing power. Personally, and I just did this, I refill tons of cartos at once, got the XL carrying case from V4L that I can fit 5 batts and almost 20 cartos in....it is made for 4 batteries and 8 cartos, BUT there is a HUGE empty space when it is closed in which you can pile more stuff in. Can you tell I NEVER want to be out and unprepared???????

In other words...backups, backups, and more backups!!!

[DerStadtschutz]

Well, as many have already said, vendors lie like crazy. But, it depends on what unit you have. Not all e-cigs have the same exact size cart. But keep in mind, the number of puffs you will get out of one cartridge will depend on how big of a puff you take. I personally don't even bother with carts or cartos because it's more convenient to just drip directly into the atomizer than it is to remove the cart and drip into that instead. Also, cartos and cartridges both have filler, which seems to reduce the flavor(it also doesn't work well with 100% VG juice). Dripping just tastes better to me. But, to each his own.

[mwsmith1778]

Echoing pretty much what everyone else has said. I used the pre-filled tobacco flavored carts that came with my Ego and I only took about 7-8 good, long puffs before I felt a significant reduction in flavor and vapor. I'll use them, because they were "free" with the unit, but direct dripping tastes much better, and produces more vapor. I'm also gonna order some cartos from VTS for the road when I can't drip constantly, but other than that, I'm gonna stick with direct dripping.

[juliery]

In other words...backups, backups, and more backups!!!

YUP, no such thing as too many backups. There is NO way I will run out of batts, cartos or liquid. Just won't happen! I will simply not allow it, LOL. Hell, we aren't even low on anything, just keep acquiring more. I figure that it will all get used...even batteries we won't be actively using. IF we won't be using it I will give the stuff to someone who needs it.

[RITSH]

There is nothing wrong. It may happen because some vendors provide only test pack. May be this can be reason behind it.

[juliery]

There is nothing wrong. It may happen because some vendors provide only test pack. May be this can be reason behind it.

All the prefilled cartos I have bought have claimed to be the equivelant of anywhere between half a pack or 1.5 packs depending on the vendor. I smoked 2-3 ppd and I vape EASILY 7ish cartos a day...that I have refilled myself. The prefilled I vaped even more of. I think they exaggerate to make it sound like you will save tons of money off the bat, which as far as I have heard you really don't. Not until you start either refilling cartos or direct dripping. We spent a lot of money at the beginning and again are now with ordering better/newer products, mods, etc. But overall we have saved money. Plus we like vaping and we know we aren't killing ourselves.

[thorne]

I agree. I went through my 5 pack the first day, and refilled a couple. (I wasn't smoking analogs though, so I may have overdone it a bit.) In the end, I think vaping will work out to cost approximately the same as smoking for me. (I may save a bit, it's really too early for me to tell.) It is definitely worth it, though, as cost wasn't the reason I wanted to quit. I started dripping on my second day, and find the taste and vapor production to be much more to my liking. I hope it is not an atomizer killer. (It seems to me that they won't last as long, but again, it's really too early to say.) Whether you stick with carts or drip... Whether you save 60% from analogs or not... At least you can "breathe a bit easier" knowing that you are doing much less damage to your internals, and it's tough to put a price tag on that.

[juliery]

I agree. I went through my 5 pack the first day, and refilled a couple. (I wasn't smoking analogs though, so I may have overdone it a bit.) In the end, I think vaping will work out to cost approximately the same as smoking for me. (I may save a bit, it's really too early for me to tell.) It is definitely worth it, though, as cost wasn't the reason I wanted to quit. I started dripping on my second day, and find the taste and vapor production to be much more to my liking. I hope it is not an atomizer killer. (It seems to me that they won't last as long, but again, it's really too early to say.) Whether you stick with carts or drip... Whether you save 60% from analogs or not... At least you can "breathe a bit easier" knowing that you are doing much less damage to your internals, and it's tough to put a price tag on that.

We recently calculated this.....there was a big cost upfront, that exceeded the cost of cigarettes. We paid $40 a carton, for me it was 2 a week for my husband half a carton give or take. So basically 10 a month, so 400 a month. At first we were ONLY buying prefilled cartos in the quest to find flavors we liked so we could then refill, etc. During that time I found youtube vids about cleaning/washing cartos and soaking in everclear, etc. So now we have a whole system. Really our only expense for about 8ish months has been e juice. We accumulated hundreds upon hundreds of cartos the first few months. We aren't even using most of them right now....we just have a rotation, and in all the boiling/soaking we have only lost like 10 cartos this entire time. I rotate 70ish and they last about 9 days. I have a system of knowing when they need to be washed etc. Anyway, we figured out it has cost about 60%, but like you, it was NEVER about cost. Even if it cost the exact same, or if it cost a bit more, we would still do it. Now we are buying bigger and better batteries and a couple mods, so that cost will go into next year's calculations, but since we know what we are buying and what we want, there won't be all that experimenting, etc. So this year I figure the cost will drop significantly from smoking.

The good thing about cartos is that they can take quite a bit of abuse as far as all this boiling and soaking in everclear. If they keep only dying at this rate, we have about a 100 year supply of them, LOL. Actually, that is really true....even if 20 a year died, we have like a 50 year supply....craziness! So really, the only things we are buying now are better hardware/replacing hardware and liquid. AND if you figure that a lot of the liquid we bought we don't even like, what we actually CONSUMED is less....like had we NOT bought the stuff we don't use we would have cut the cost. Now that we REALLY know what we like, there is FAR less waste.

[ricks]

Wow, I cant believe what I am reading about cartos. I am using an e-cig company for just over a month now and I was a 1-2 pack a day Marlboro smoker and quit just after I bought it. With my e-cigs, I use a cartimizer type and I go thru 1-2 cartomizers a day. I am disabled and sit on my couch all day from 7:45am until around 1:00am vaping almost the whole time. The batteries last for 4-7 hours per charge. I keep a record of how many carts and battery charges I go thru every day and its consistantly the same. I just cant get having to use a drip type of e-cig. Maybe Im just too lazy. The bateries I use with the brand I use come with a life time warranty so I will never have to buy another one. And the cartomizers are 17.95 for 10 pcs.

[juliery]

Wow, I cant believe what I am reading about cartos. I am using an e-cig company for just over a month now and I was a 1-2 pack a day Marlboro smoker and quit just after I bought it. With my e-cigs, I use a cartimizer type and I go thru 1-2 cartomizers a day. I am disabled and sit on my couch all day from 7:45am until around 1:00am vaping almost the whole time. The batteries last for 4-7 hours per charge. I keep a record of how many carts and battery charges I go thru every day and its consistantly the same. I just cant get having to use a drip type of e-cig. Maybe Im just too lazy. The bateries I use with the brand I use come with a life time warranty so I will never have to buy another one. And the cartomizers are 17.95 for 10 pcs.

smoketip.com right? That was my very first starter kit. You must be a pretty light smoker, those are low mah batts and I could kill those in 30-45 mins MAX. But they DO stand by their warranty, which is nice. Cartos are decent flavors but only come in a few flavors, not the hundreds of flavors like are available. I liked it just fine except I was a much too heavy smoker for those batts. My husband is still using the batts, like 11 mos later. I did have one that died, and they promptly replaced it.

[ricks]

smoketip.com right? That was my very first starter kit. You must be a pretty light smoker, those are low mah batts and I could kill those in 30-45 mins MAX. But they DO stand by their warranty, which is nice. Cartos are decent flavors but only come in a few flavors, not the hundreds of flavors like are available. I liked it just fine except I was a much too heavy smoker for those batts. My husband is still using the batts, like 11 mos later. I did have one that died, and they promptly replaced it.

I am a heavy smoker and continue to be one with vaping now. I go thru 1-2 carts a day with only 3 battery charges a day.I am looking to try other liquid flavors to mix it up a bit. But I really am a heavy smoker.

[juliery]

I am a heavy smoker and continue to be one with vaping now. I go thru 1-2 carts a day with only 3 battery charges a day.I am looking to try other liquid flavors to mix it up a bit. But I really am a heavy smoker.

I have six of the xl stick style batteries and had to get a PT because I could go through all 6 batteries in less time than it takes them to recharge. The smoketip batteries are minis and longs which I used up even faster than the XL's. I have two chargers, but they still take about 3 1/2 hours to charge. I now have the elegant easy from cig easy which is 750mah and lasting considerable longer than the stick type batteries. I am also planning on getting a couple of the XXL elegant easy batteries too, they are 1300mah so will last even longer. They both work with all my KR808 cartos, which I like just fine, so I didn't want to have to waste the hundreds of cartos I have already by switching to some entirely different style device. I smoked nearly 3 packs a day of cigarettes for 30 yrs. I really like using the PT, but they don't last very long and sometimes it is inconvenient to be tethered to the computer.

The smoketip products are what got me to give up analogs, so I will be forever grateful.....I just would need like 5 starter kits with a power strip of chargers to use only their products. Plus the flavors I now like vaping are not theirs. But when I first started I was happy with their products...they are a great intro product, and you cannot go wrong with the lifetime warranty on the batteries, and they have free shipping too. But they don't sell liquid to refill the cartos, and I was using 5 of them a day which is rather expensive. I saved all the cartos though because common sense told me they had to be refillable, and cleanable, which of course they are. I am still using the cartos that originally came from them.....just not being filled with their flavors any longer.

[ricks]

.

The smoketip products are what got me to give up analogs, so I will be forever grateful.....I just would need like 5 starter kits with a power strip of chargers to use only their products. Plus the flavors I now like vaping are not theirs. But when I first started I was happy with their products...they are a great intro product, and you cannot go wrong with the lifetime warranty on the batteries, and they have free shipping too. But they don't sell liquid to refill the cartos, and I was using 5 of them a day which is rather expensive. I saved all the cartos though because common sense told me they had to be refillable, and cleanable, which of course they are. I am still using the cartos that originally came from them.....just not being filled with their flavors any longer.