Refilling Nicolite cartomizer cartridges

I have tried refilling my Nicolites E-cig cartomizers with some e-juice that I purchased from juicycigs.co.uk. I am not sure if this is advised or not but after watching a tutorial online I decided to give it a try. However this is my personal experience and not a set of instructions I think it is safe but I am no scientist or e-cig expert.

I purchased 3 10ml bottles of e-juice from jucy cigs which arrived the next day and I was ready to go.

The first thing that I did was remove the white cap from the end of the cartomizer, The website I found said use a nail of some pliers, as I was  in the kitchen I took the first item to hand that I thought would do the job which turned out to be a fork I just put one of the prongs in the hole and levered the cap out.

Removing cartomizer cap

When the cap was removed I washed out the inside of the cartomizer with hot water, blowed through it to get rid of the excess water then left overnight to dry out.

The next day after the cartomizer had dried I added about half a dozen drops of the e-juice into the cartomizer while rotating the cartomizer to let it soak into the filler material, I think I added too much or did it too quick as it started leaking from the bottom onto my finger, which is is a little concerning as it says on the bottle "toxic in contact with skin" I did wash my hands after and I am not dead yet so that's good.

Cartomizer filled with vanilla e-juice

After this I replaced the plastic cap and tried the cartomizer. It took a few puffs to get it going then it started producing a good amount of vapour. The taste of the vanilla was nice but probably a bit too subtle for my tastes. I am going to try with more flavours and give them a good try and I will review these later.

So far this seems to me like a good way to save a few Penny's and re-use my cartomizers, I don't know how long they will work for before the atomisers eventually die and I think in future if I am adding the same flavour e-juice I will skip the washing out step and go straight to the filling up part.

Update

So far my my experiance with refilling these has not been great, although i do gat some vapour its not up to the standard of the purchased cartomizers. I am going to try drying them for a longer period of time to ensure that the wading is not still damp and diluting the juice.

I have removed the wadding in one cartriddge to try and dry it with a paper towel, this proves allmost impossibl to refit as if you do not get th heat sleeving on correctly you inhale a terrible burning taste. if any one knows th best way to refit these please let me know.

I have also ordered a ego-VVC so I can compere the e-juices against the caromizer flavours. Watch this space...

Introduction

I wanted to try an electronic cigarette to try and cut down my smoking and try and improve my health. I was given this idea after speaking to a photographer at Crystal palace sprint track earlier this year. He was puffing away on one and I was surprised about the amount of vapour that was coming from the e-cigarette that he had.

He did say to me that the one he had was quite an expensive one and that it cost him around £15 a month to smoke using it. He also mentioned that within a week his chest felt better and that he had now been using it for 3 months and had not looked back.

Although I was excited to try one of these and find out what they were like I was loathed to spend £60 on a kit that I might not get on with, so I decided to get a cheap one from a chemist to try it out first.

I went into a local Tesco’s thinking of buying a disposable one to try out but after speaking to the guy at the counter I decided to go with a Nicolites e-cigarette starter kit.

First 10 Days of Vapeing

I have been vapeing now for 10 days and I am enjoying the sensation and I am not craving cigarettes at all. It is nice been able to vape in the house watching TV, when I was smoking roll ups I banished myself to the out doors, which is nice in the good weather but terrible in the rain and cold.

I would love to say that I have not smoked since but after a week of vaping I decided to try a traditional cigarette from a friend. I was surprised to find that I didn’t find the traditional cigarette as satisfying as the E-cig, there was less smoke than the vapour that I have being getting for the past week and it didn’t feel as dence as I was inhaleing it. Trying the traditional cigarette should have being a bad thing to do but I actually feel that it has helped me make up my mind that I do actually prefer vaping to the traditional cigarette which is good for me as I am a bit of a techy and this is an extra gadget for me to play with.

I want to look into getting a more advanced e-cigerette and look at e-juice’s. I was thinking of getting a tank or drip system although I don’t fully understand what these entail at the moment or understand which is the best one to buy. I don’t want to waste my money as my supplies of it are limited. I would appreciate it if anyone reading this blog could add there advice/recommendations as to what you use and prefer. Any information I find out I will also post. Whichever one I get I will review on here.

As an afterthought it would be nice to see an e-tobacconist on the high street somewhere, if anyone knows of one please let me know.

Thanks for looking

Nicolites E-cigerette

The basic starter kit cost me around £20 from the chemist at Tesco’s which comes with a USB charger, battery and 2 cartomizers which the pack claims each cartomizer has around 20 cigarettes worth of puffs. The cartomizers come in boxes of three and have varying strengths and 3 flavours, Tobacco, Menthol and Cherry. The battery has a red light in the tip that serves as an indicator to show when you are vapeing, when the battery is charging and it also flashes as a low battery warning.

I think that you should charge the e-cigarette for a minimum of 8 hours before use, but being a bloke I threw the box away before reading any instructions and just went ahead and used it, I haven’t had any issues with battery life yet because of it but I might just be lucky.

I tried connecting the medium strength first and had a good old suck on the e-cig to find I got a nasty throat burn and a bit of a cough. This was not the fault of the e-cig rather mine for going over the top on taking the hits. With a little practice I got used to how much puff to use and found it a satisfying vape and very similar to smoking, I decided to go with the high strength cartomizers, Personally I couldn’t tell much difference between the high and medium strengths, but decided to go with the high because I normally smoke roll ups.

My cartomizers last me around a day and a half, that is a occasional puff during the day and heavier use at night after my son has gone to bed.

The price for a box of three cartomizers comes in at about £6.95 There are three in a pack, so far I have tried the tobacco and menthol flavours. Although I don’t smoke menthol's normally I prefer the menthol vapours. I have not yet tried the cherry ones as I have not been able to find them for sale.

I think that I have wasted a little bit of vapour in my cartomizers by not realising that my battery is getting low and thinking it was my cartridge that was running out, so I would suggest recharging your e-cig and trying with it again before throwing out your cartomizers or even purchasing some e-juice and trying a refill which could save you money. There are some good online tutorials online by Dr Vapour http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y10Xeiudydc  that shows how to care for and refill cartridges, I have not tried it yet but watch this space.

All in all I like this e-cigarettes. I find it a nice smoke and as I work at a desk during the day I always have a charger handy so battery power is not an issue for me and I can have fun blowing vapour in the office.

My Half used Nicolites