I wanted chili tonight for dinner but I had never made chili from scratch. I whipped up a pot of this and liked it so much I thought I’d write the recipe down.

2 cans Pinto Beans
2 cans Navy Beans
1 Can Kidney Beans
1 pound beef
2 red onions
1 jalapeño pepper
2 large cans diced tomato
1 green pepper

2 T. corn meal
1 T. flour
5 T. chilli powder
1 T. cumin
1/4 cup dried onion
2 T. dried garlic
2 T. powered beef bullion
1 T dried red pepper
some salt
a few dashes of Tabasco

I put it together the regular way. Brown the beef, drain it. Cut up the onions and other stuff and add that to the beef. A few dashes of Tabasco, cook for a bit. Add the rest of the stuff and cook it for a few hours. Pretty simple.

I like using a little dried onion because I think it ads a bit of kick. You can do without it. The salt can be omitted as well depending on the beef bullion (some contains a fair amount of salt).

Dump the mess in a bowl, top it with cheese if you like, eat.

So there you go. If you try it let me know what you think.

P.S. I don’t know who the guy eating chili is. I just found it on google and thought it was funny.

Roland has a nice line of mesh head electronic drums with their V-Drum line. The top of the line at the moment is the 10 inch PD-125SX dual trigger pad – which costs a whopping $429. It’s a nice trigger but I don’t need the dual zone. it’s also only 10 inches. I’d rather have a full side snare of 12 or 14 inches.

So let’s build one.

Considering I don’t need anything special for a drum shell, I scoured Craigslist for an old snare drum. I found a couple but nothing as cheap as a brand new Sonar snare for $40.

Brand new Sonar snare for $40

The other things I’ll need are;

1.) Snare stand – about $50
2.) One Piezoelectric 35 mm element – 65 cents at the local electronic shop.
3.) A bit of wire and shrink tube – a buck or two.
4.) One 1/4 inch mono phone jack – $1
5.) 3 metal “L” mounts – $1 each
6.) Some foam. I used the ridged foam from a sanding block – $1.29
7.) Fibreglass screen door mesh – $10
8.) Double sided tape – About $3-4
9.) A 5/16th carriage bolt, a few nuts and washers – $5
10.) 3mm beading wire (found in the arts/crafts section of a store) – $2

Let’s try and put this thing together.

The Drum Shell

I removed the skins and hoops....

...and pulled off the snare strainer. I won't be using this on the electronic drum so I'll pack this away for another project.

The idea is to mount the Piezoelectric element under the centre of the drum skin (which I’ll do with the carriage bolt and washers). I’ll need to cut a piece of wood to mount this on. I set the drum shell on a piece of paper and figured out where I want to put my “L” brackets. I traced around the whole thing.

Tracing the shell and brackets.

This is what I have to work with.

A few squiggly lines and I have a template for my wood mount.

To make things easy I’m going to use the lug mount screws to hold my “L” brackets. no need to drill extra holes or use other screws.

Mounting the "L" brackets

All three brackets are in.

My wood mount is cut and spray painted silver. I painted it silver because I noticed a can of silver paint when I was cutting it out. If I had some black paint, it would have been black.

A few wood screws on the underside to hold it in place.

This is the bolt/washer contraption I came up with to hold the piezo in place. The carriage bolt and locking nuts give me some flexibility in the hight and allow me to adjust it later. The washers on the top are held with 3M double-sided tape.

The Electronic Bits

The electronics are really quite simple. One piezo is wired directly to a phono jack. The piezo acts as the trigger. You can not mount the piezo directly to the drum skin or it would be damaged. A bit of foam is placed between the piezo and the skin to transfer the energy of the drumstick hitting the skin to the piezo.

Looking on-line I found several people using different products to transfer the energy. Several people mention using the foam found in sanding blocks. On my trip to the hardware store I looked at various foam products that could be used (pipe insulation, ridged insulation, etc) and the sanding block foam seemed to be a fairly good and cheap choice. I decided to give it a shot.

My I wired up my piezo to a standard 1/4 mono phono jack. I added a bit of heat shrink tubing to keep things tidy.

I didn’t think it would matter which way the piezo was wired so I tested it both ways.. it didn’t seem to matter.

The 35 mm Piezo and 1/4 phone jack.

Wired together. I ended up having to change to another style phono plug. You'll see why in a moment.

I’m going to need a place to mount my phono plug. My first thought was the air vent already in place on the snare drum.  The drum shell was too thick for my phono plug to poke through and fasten the nut in place. What I needed was a nice faceplate.

Oh look! A nice faceplate!

I unscrewed the faceplate, flipped it over, and bent it so it curved with the drum. I drilled a hole under where the faceplate would sit and drilled another hole in the faceplate for the phono plug. Due to the thickness of the drum shell and the size of the faceplate, I swapped out my instrument standard phono plug for another style which wasn’t quite as wide. It fit perfectly.

Phono plug mounted on the faceplate

Now it is time to mount the piezo and foam. I cut the sand paper bits off the foam and cut a block about one inch square. I tapered it a little so it was smaller at the top. I adjusted the piezo mount so the foam block was just over the rim horizon.  Then everything got mounted with double-sided tape.

The piezo element fixed on the mount with double-sided tape.

Foam block mounted on the piezo with double-sided tape.

Building the mesh skin and putting it back together

I’m going to use several layers of fibreglass screen mesh for my drum skin. Two layers will be sewn to a ring and two layers will be held in place over that with the hoop.

I'll use the ring from the skin which came with the snare. Let's just cut that thing off.

Two layers of screen are sewn to the ring with 3mm beading wire.

The new 2 layer mesh skin is fitted on the shell...

...and two more layers are placed on top.

The hoop is put on and tightened. I then trimmed away the extra fibreglass screen.

I wanted the bottom hoop on the snare. The lower skin made a bit of noise when I hit the top skin so I cut a few holes in it and dampened it with felt.

And that’s all there is to that…

One finished, full size, electronic snare pad.

I did a bounce test (dropping a drum stick on the skin) comparing this drum to my regular snare drum. The bounce back is pretty much the same.

I hooked this pad up to my Roland TD-5 and it worked well. I had to up the sensitivity just a little but it plays perfectly.

Today I picked up a copy of Pandorum in the discount Blu-ray bin. I’ve seen the DVD cover before but didn’t give it much thought or knew what it was about. I scan the back cover. It reads;

“It’s pitch black on an abandoned ship 500 miles from earth. For crew members Corporal Bower (Ben Foster) and Lt. Payton (Dennis Quaid) an unflinching vision of terror is about to be unleashed.”

“500 miles from earth” puts that ship about twice the distance from earth as the International Space Station. So it is a movie about a ship in earth’s orbit?

Nope.

After watching it I find its a movie about a ship in deep space on a 123 year mission going towards another earth-like planet.

Oops. I guess they mean 500 really long space miles.

Other than that, the movie was about as intelligent. For a sci-fi horror flick it wasn’t bad I guess. Pretty basic stuff. A couple of nice twists but not good enough to turn it from “meh” to “wow”. Well worth the couple bucks in the discount movie bin though.

The Coliseum in 1916

The Coliseum closed it doors in 1990 and was later converted to a Banana Republic.

I was visiting some friends in Seattle in 2008 and we were walking around downtown commenting on how much it had changed since I left in the early 90′s. We walked by the Banana Republic and I wanted to go in and see how they changed it.  It was sad to see this wonderful theatre converted to a bland clothes store – but it is better than the entire structure meeting a wreaking ball. In the defense of the Banana Republic, they have done a wonderful job cleaning, restoring and maintaining the outside of the building. When they gutted the inside they salvaged some of the plaster reliefs and display them through the store. They also have some of the original theatre seats scattered around.

Detail of the exterior in 2008

Detail of the exterior in 2008

Detail of the exterior in 2008

I spoke with the manager and she told me parts of the theatre were still there,.. hiding above the ceiling. Forgotten and hidden from sight.

With a small amount of begging, she took me and my friends up.

The Last Movie Showing – 1990:

I was in the Coliseum the night of the very last movie – Tremors with Kevin Bacon. I had a friend who worked for the theatre so I had full access to the building after the movie ended (I only wish I still had the film I took that night).

I was given a complete tour of the space including a visit to the revolving sign out front – which I stood on. Somewhere there is a picture floating around with me standing on it.

I climbed behind the screen to the roof and we wandered around in the basement. The basement still had the remains of the Civil Defense era which included boxes containing 7 pound tins of  “Civil Defense All Purpose Survival Crackers” (aka Saltines), containers to fill with water and about 10 SK  Sanitation Kits (aka, a barrel to poop in). The civil defense storage area was behind the lower level bathrooms.The theatre allowed me to take a couple tins of the Survival Crackers and I kept them for many years – I even opened one of the tins. I was too afraid to eat one though.

This is not one of the tins I had, but it was just like it.

Barrels of Civil Defense fun.

Also in the basement in the far north end (under the screen on the right side) were the remains of a makeshift office. It was explained to me  this was the accounting office area in the 1920-30′s. Because of robberies, all the money was taken to this hard to get place in the theatre for counting. A single bare bulb light hung from the ceiling in this space.

I was told that night the third balcony (then closed due to safety concerns) was “coloured seating”. There is a very thin stairwell to the left of the entrance doors which takes you to the third balcony. This was the “black stairwell”.

I don’t recall when they closed the third balcony (the 1980′s I think) but I watched the end of Tremors from the front row third balcony seats and helped dump balloons when the movie ended on the 100 or so people who were on the ground level. The seats were small and uncomfortable and the stairs were steep and rather thin (not wide enough for a complete foot). It was quite unsettling to be up there.

The Theatre Today:

During the conversion to a Banana Republic, all the seats were removed from third balcony – but it appears to be mostly complete. I do not know the state of the second balcony, projection room and second balcony bathrooms. I get the impression they may have been removed.

The third balcony, minus the seats and carpet, is just how is was that last night as a theatre (with some added dirt and age). They have walled in a few places with drywall and run electrical and utility wires around. There is some damage to the plaster arch over the screen area – which I was told happened during the 2001 earthquake. The ramps in the middle of the third balcony and sides which went to the second balcony have been walled off. 80% of the brass railings are still in place.

The "black" stairwell

Brian and Elizabeth in the stairwell.

The 3rd Balcony

The lower seating area of the 3rd balcony.

Looking across the 3rd balcony. The ramp which went to the 2nd balcony (middle of the picture) has been walled off.

Some of the plaster.

Looking across the ductwork and new ceiling for the Banana Republic. A tip of the archway over the old screen area is still visible.

Another shot of the screen archway

Another shot of the screen archway with the original brass railing in the foreground.

Detail work above the screen archway.

Damage from the 2001 earthquake.

I personally hadn’t given Giant Santa much thought over the years and I don’t know why he popped into my head that day.

Janet said she did a little research but was unable to come up with any information regarding the Giant Santa. She started questioning if she imagined the Giant Santa because no one else could verify it. Of course, I made it my mission to uncover something for her.

What we remember:
For a handful of years, perhaps the mid to late 1970′s, a large Santa Claus was assembled around 5th and Pine at the south end of the Monorail Station in downtown Seattle. Being so young at the time my memory (and Janet’s memory) of Giant Santa is vague at best. What we do remember is he was very large, perhaps several stories. He had a loudspeaker in him somewhere which was voiced by someone – perhaps located in the Giant Santa or a nearby building. As children would walk by Giant Santa would speak to them and the children could speak back. I remember being downtown as a child and yelling at Giant Santa but he ignored me. It must have been break time for the voice of Santa.

I’ve been spending a big of time researching Giant Santa and hoping to uncover some information about him. I only vaguely remember what he looked like so a picture of him next to the Monorail would be perfect. I have not been successful in getting any real tangible evidence of Giant Santa… until today.

I received an email back from Carolyn Marr at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. In part it says this:

“Thank you for contacting the Museum of History and Industry about the Santa downtown. Our photo curator remembers the Santa, too, but we have not found much about it.”

Her email contained some information and a few leads.

It appears Giant Santa was the brainchild of John Gilmore – then President of Seattle Downtown Development Association. He is quoted as saying;

“We decided we wanted to build a four-story high Santa Claus as big as the Nordstrom building there at Westlake. The Santa had to be assembled by crane. It usually took about a week.”

It appears Giant Santa was built by a currently unknown company in Enumclaw Washington and shipped to Seattle on semi trucks. He was on display in Seattle for about 10 years. At one point they were unable to store Giant Santa so he was sold to Anchorage, Alaska. At this point I do not know if he was sold to the city of Anchorage or a company located in Anchorage. The details are sketchy at best.

His current status and location is unknown but, yes Janet, there is a Giant Santa Claus.

Janet did discover a Giant Santa located in North Pole, Alaska (North Pole Alaska is about 15 miles south east of Fairbanks – 370 miles north of Anchorage). It is sitting outside of a place called “The Santa Claus House, North Pole”. I have an email to this company requesting more information.

A Giant Santa Claus in Alaska

UPDATE #1: The Santa in North Pole Alaska has been confirmed to be the Giant Santa in question. I received an email from the owners today. In part it reads;

Our Santa was built in the 1960′s by Wes Stanley of Stanley Plastics as a prototype for three giant Santa statues constructed that year (the whereabouts of the other statues is unknown).  Our Santa was displayed in Seattle by a department store for a few years, then was purchased by a group of businessmen in Anchorage, Alaska as a civic pride initiative.  Con Miller, our founder, purchased the statue in 1978 for $4500.  Santa was then driven by truck in four pieces (so he could fit underneath the overpasses on the Parks Highway) to North Pole.  Upon his arrival, Santa was found to be in very poor condition.  However, after extensive repair, Santa found his permanent home at Santa Claus House in 1983.

A little more research and I discover Wes Stanley has created a couple more Seattle icons. Currently in front of the Pacific Science Center sit two large dinosaurs – a stegosaurus and a triceratops. There is a third large dinosaur, a pteranodon, hanging inside the center. These three creatures, along with other dinosaurs  were designed by Wes Stanley in 1968. They were commissioned by a man named Richard Fisher for his dinosaur theme park in Sequim Washington. The park opened in 1975 and closed a year later. The dinosaurs moved back to Enumclaw and lived in Wes Stanley’s field for several years. They were later moved and stored at the Fisher’s property in Bellevue Washington until the majority of them (11 in all) were restored and donated to the Science Center in 1991. Wes Stanley did the restorations himself.

This makes me wonder about the old giant pink martini drinking elephant at the Seattle Center. Where is that thing?

UPDATE #2: The following pictures were in my email inbox today. These were provided by Carissa Brown the business manager of The Santa Claus House.

Giant Santa in his new home outside the Federal Building in Anchorage Alaska - Late 70's perhaps.

A flyer from the Downtown Seattle Development Association - 1975

Giant Santa as he is today in North Pole Alaska

I also received a handful of scanned Seattle Times newspaper articles from the 1970′s care of the Seattle Public Library. I’ll wade through those and put up what I can.

UPDATE #3: Here is some more information I found out about Giant Santa.

The original design concept for Giant Santa was a 4 story tall animatronic Santa. The Downtown Business Development Division wanted him to move his arms and head, smoke his pipe and speak.  When completed Giant Santa only spoke. This might explain why this Giant Santa is referred to as a prototype. I wonder if the other two built by Wes Stanley moved?

Lee Ross, a display business owner at the time, was the man who suggested going to Wes Stanley. Apparently he heard of Mr. Stanley by way of the dinosaur project I mentioned previously.

Alice Stanley, (Wes’ wife) was responsible for the original concept of Giant Santa. Apparently she worked on many of the other projects with her husband.

To build the Giant Santa, Mr Stanley needed to construct a special shed for it at his Enumclaw plastics shop.

Construction started in 1968 and by November 1969 Giant Santa was complete. He was 42 feet tall, weighed 900 pounds and had a 33 foot waistline.  He was displayed for the first time Christmas 1969.

In 1971 Giant Santa received a new paint job in warehouse space on Pier 37. Under the supervision of Walter Atkinson, boys from several Boys Clubs throughout Seattle volunteered to paint him.

Giant Santa was stored in Seattle for another year. During this time the Downtown Anchorage Association bought him. On Tuesday November 8th 1977 Giant Santa boarded the ship Portland at Sea-Land Services en route to his next home in Alaska.

Giant Santa made his debut in front of the Federal Building in Anchorage that Christmas.

I have a few pictures from this time. I’ll see if I can secure permission to put them up.

I have been unable to find any other documentation of Giant Santa’s two siblings.

—-I will update this page as I discover more.

I found a small discarded Telus traffic cone outside the office. I figured this would make a nice base.

I replaced a seized 120mm fan from a server and re-lubricated it. One it got warmed up it stopped making that noise (you know, that noise). Good enough for personal cooling I thought.

There is a stack of old and dying Cobalt web servers from the early 2000′s in the office. None of these will ever be used in production – or anything for that matter. Most have been gutted and the cases converted to shelves. There is now a box of old, but working, Cobalt 12v power supplies. These are cool power supplies because they’re small with a single MOLEX connector and power switch. Again, good enough for personal cooling.

I cut a hole for the power receptacle and switch.

Stuffed the Cobalt power supply inside.

Mounted my refurbished fan on the top with a zip tie.

Now I can stay cool at work.

A powerful preventive against pneumonia, influenza and other respiratory diseases may be promised by a brilliant series of experiments conducted during the last three years at the University of Chicago’s Billings Hospital. Dr. Oswald Hope Robertson last week was making final tests with a new germicidal vapor—propylene glycol—to sterilize air. If the results so far obtained are confirmed, one of the age-old searches of man will finally achieve its goal.

Link

Crazy. E Cigarette 2nd hand vapour just might be good for you.

Another report states the same benefits of PG when 105 children were exposed in 1945.

Inhalational safety in children. In a series of experiments to control airborne infections, over 105 children were subjected to bactericidal concentrations of propylene glycol in the wards of a children’s convalescent home in experiments conducted over 3 years.

Method. Six wards of the Children’s Seashore House in Atlanta containing 105 bedfast children aged 3 to 15 years were divided into 3 control and 3 undergoing vaporization for 3 week periods with 2 to 3 days between, before the control wards become vaporized, and the vaporized wards became controls. This rotation continued for 7 months. The PG was heated to vaporize it, but not above 80 degrees C, and vaporization continuously maintained a concentration of 0.069 mg per liter. (0.07 ppm)

Results. No ill effects were reported. In the first year, 100 infections occurred in control wards without PG, and 5 in wards with PG  vaporization, with rates of 0.18 per week and 0.09 per week respectively. Most of the upper respiratory infections in control wards were common colds, suggesting the PG is also virucidal.

Harris TN and Stokes Jnr, J. Summary of 3-year study of the clinical application of the disinfection of air by glycol vapour. Am. J. Med Sci. 1945; 209:152-156.

I’d be interested in finding more of these types of tests.

ORCHARD, Texas – A third-grader at Brazos Elementary was given a week’s detention for possessing a Jolly Rancher. School officials in Brazos County are defending the seemingly harsh sentence. The school’s principal and superintendent said they were simply complying with a state law that limits junk food in schools.

Link to Article

It goes on to say “Jack Ellis, the superintendent for Brazos Independent School District, declined an on-camera interview. But he said the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned “minimal nutrition” foods.”

Her detention is to be separated from other students during lunch and recess through Friday.

Interesting.

I wondered what her school lunch options were? What kind of meals did the school district provide for her?

It just so happens they provide their school lunch menu on-line.

Monday April 5th
Breakfast – Pop Tarts.
Lunch – Corn Dog, Mixed veg, Mac and Cheese, fruit.

Wednesday April 14th
Breakfast – Breakfast taco
Lunch – Soft Taco, Salad, Corn, Fruit and Rice Krispy

Other breakfast items were Blueberry muffin, Pancake wrap, and Breakfast pizza. Other lunch items were Sausage pizza, Fish nuggets and fries, Chicken Nuggets, and something called a “Crispito”. You can find their lunch menu here.

I for one am glad they took away this little girl’s Jolly Rancher, stuffed a Pop Tart in her mouth, and made her sit in the corner and eat it all by herself. That will teach her a valuable lesson on nutrition she will carry with her for a lifetime.

Good for you Brazos Elementary School…

…you fucking retards.

So, how do I feel at the start of week three? I am starting to notice a few things. My lungs actually do feel a bit clearer today. The slight yellow tint on my index/middle fingers has faded. I can smell regular cigarette smoke – which I always could but when you don’t smoke it has a different smell than when you do smoke. I’m also enjoying not having to stand around outside.

I have noticed one possible side effect of using e-cigs – dry mouth in the morning. Now, this could just be related to allergy season kicking in and me being a little stuffy. At some point in my sleep I must start breathing through my mouth and that could be drying it out. We’ll see how this goes over the next few weeks.

Overall I’m pleased with the changeover.

I received new juice flavours last week so I’ve been having fun mixing and blending. After a bit of trial and error I’m currently enjoying a blend of PG “classic tobacco”, VG “tobacco”, PG RY4, and PG peppermint – all mixed in equal parts. I’ve mixed up several batches and this is what I’m using today.

The RY4 flavour is a bit of a mystery. From what I can tell this blend was developed by Ruyan – the original e-cig developer. This flavour being copied by just about everyone. Some say it tastes like tobacco with a hint of caramel. I’ve seen it listed as a Juicy-Fruit flavour. One recipe I found for it included tobacco, caramel, and marshmallow flavours. Everyone seems to think it tastes like something different, and I think because of everyone attempting to copy it, it does. The bottle I received tastes a bit like smokey caramel. The prefilled cartridges I received from Happy Vaper taste almost like cotton candy. Hmmmm? Weird. In any case, it seems to be a fairly popular flavour and I recommend it to people just getting started. Try it and see what it tastes like to you.

Speaking of flavours, Happy Vaper has 100′s of base flavours you can order and make your own mixes. They have everything to mint, tobacco, pear, butter, lemon, and various meat flavours. Yes, meat. I even saw asparagus.

Personally, I don’t think sitting around vaping roast beef and asparagus sounds very appealing. To each their own.

Some of the pre-mixed liquid I ordered last week contain too much nicotine for my taste.  They say they contain about the same levels as the liquid I originally started with (between 16-24 mg) but for some reason these just seem stronger. The liquid of the stronger fluid seems a tad thinner in viscosity so perhaps this has something to do with it? More liquid is getting to the vapourizer perhaps? I’m not quite sure. Cutting it with a 50% mix of another fluid seems to do the trick. Today I received some unflavoured/non-nicotine PG and VG fluid. I’m going to experiment with cutting the stronger fluid down and seeing how that works.

And speaking of mixing and flavours – I ordered a bunch of straight flavours today to play with. I ordered peppermint, clove, maple, hazelnut, vanilla, caramel, chocolate and a couple of tobacco flavours. That should keep me occupied in my little mad scientist lab for a bit. If I come up with any super cool mixes I’ll be sure to post them.

In my last entry I said I ordered a new device. It arrived today and I’m enjoying right now. The device I ordered was the Janty eGo starter kit. The eGo is basically a suped-up Joye 510. It uses the same atomizers and mouth pieces but the battery is a slight larger and it has a cone piece that fits over the atomizer.The starter kit contained two batteries, one standard 510 atomizer, one of the cones, 5 pre-filled cartridges, and a USB charger. I ordered the stainless steel version.

The device itself seems fairly rugged. It really isn’t that much larger than the standard 510 battery. It is a bit thicker around and a touch longer. The standard 510 is about 9mm thick and the eGo is about 13mm. Ideally the battery on this bugger is supposed to last me all day. The standard 510 uses a 3.7 volt, 180 mAh battery. The eGo uses a 3.7 volt, 650 mAh battery. I’ve found with my normal use the standard 510 battery lasts around two hours before I need to recharge. Let’s see how long the eGo lasts.

I also ordered a low resistance atomizer.

Low resistance (LR) atomizers is the thing all the vapour-people are talking about right now. It is supposed to burn a bit hotter and produce more vapour. Apparently you are NOT to use these on standard 510 batteries (High drain or something. Some talk about killing the batteries. I’m not quite sure.) The down side to the LR atomizers is I hear they burn out faster. The costs of the LR 510 atomizers are the same as traditional 510′s so I thought I’d give them a go.

I charged both of my new eGo batteries, put a new standard atomizer on one and the new FR atomizer on the other. I primed both new atomizers with a couple drops of RY4 and I popped on two new pre-filled RY4 cartridges. I used them side by side for about 30  minutes.

At first use, I’m not noticing anything different. They seem to both be providing the same amount of vapour. Hmmm? Curious. I’ll keep playing with this and see if I notice anything different over time. Right now, I’m not impressed.

To change the subject: Here is something I’ve learned in my e-cig use I thought I’d share.

When you first fill a cartridge it provides more vapour in the first drags. There is lots of fluid, it gets down to the burner, and works great. When the cartridge gets down to about 50% empty the fluid doesn’t flow as well and you end up with lame drags. I hear people saying they carry a bottle of fluid with them and keep topping up the cartridges. That just seems like too much of a hassle and a bit messy for me.

What I’ve been doing is filling about 8-10 cartridges up and placing them in a box which I carry with me. When my current cartridge starts to not produce as much vapour I just swap it out with a fresh one. Quick. Easy. No muss. No fuss. At night I mix my liquid and refill all the cartridges.

The only thing I need to make this easier is a some sort of cartridge carrying container with two compartments – one for full and one for used.

Analogue: This is what some vapour people are calling traditional cigarettes. The idea being electronic cigarettes are digital in nature (or something). I don’t care for the term myself.

Atty: Atomizer

Cart: Cartridge. The mouthpiece which contains the liquid used to create vapour.

Cartomizer: A disposable, combined, atomizer and cartridge.

DIY: Do it yourself.

Dripping, Drip, Dipping, Dip: Putting e-juice directly on the atomizer (see below)

e-juice / e-liquid: The liquid which produces the vapour in an electronic cigarette.

Juice: The liquid which produces the vapour in an electronic cigarette.

LR or LR Atty: A low resistance atomizer which allows more power to the heating coil.

Mod: Short for modification. This is a custom design or a redesign of some aspect of the electronic cigarette.

PCC: Personal Charging Case.

PG: Propylene Glycol

PT: Pass-though. An alternate way of powering an electronic cigarette.

PTB Mod: Pyramid Tea Bag Modification. This uses tea bags as filler in a cartridge.

PV or Personal Vapourizer: The electronic cigarette

Ruyan: the company who first developed the electronic cigarette

TH or Throat Hit: The sensation on the back of the throat.

Topping or Topping Off: Refilling or topping off a cartridge with e-juice.

VG: Vegetable Glycerine

Vape or Vaping: This is commonly used in place of the term “smoking”.

-Electronic Cigarettes – How They Work

All electronic cigarettes contain the same basic elements – a power source (battery or some form of power adapter), an atomizer, and a mouthpiece (also known as a cartridge if it contains fluid).

The vapourizer liquid is heated by the atomizer. When this happens the liquid turns into a fine mist which is inhaled. The atomizer is basically a small heater coil and a wick of some sort to help feed the liquid into the coil.

-Types of Electronic Cigarettes

DSE-601 Electronic Pipe

E-cigarettes come in various shapes and sizes.

Super Mini – These are about the same size as a traditional king size cigarette.

Mini – These are about the same size as a traditional “100″ size cigarette.

Super – Supers are also made to look like regular cigarettes but are longer than the “mini”.

Pen Style – This is where we start to get away from emulating the cigarette look. Pen styles are just that, they look more like a ballpoint pen.

Cigar – Just what you would expect.

Pipe – These look like a traditional pipe.

Mods – This is a vast category. Most mods are basically a different battery holder for a standard group of atomizers. Some look like boxes, screwdrivers, flashlights and a whole slew of things. One mod I’ve seen is called the laser mod because it uses the case from a cheap laser pointer.

302 Pen Style

-Manual and Automatic

Electronic cigarettes come in two different operational modes – manual and automatic.

The automatic e-cigs have a sensor which activates when you inhale from the tip. This powers up the atomizer to provide vapour. The manual ones are just that. They have a switch of some kind you press to activate the atomizer.

The only ones I’ve used were manual. I read some of the automatic types can be triggered just by bouncing around in your pocket. I read of one case where the loud music in a club triggered the e-cig to fire in the guys shirt pocket.

Of course manual e-cigs can misfire as well. If it has a regular button, something can press on it when you least expect it. There are a few manual mods out there that provide a main power switch or a touch sensor switch.

-Atomizers (AKA; Atty)

The anatomy of an atomizer is basically a heating coil, a wick, a handful of air passages and a place to connect the battery.

New atomizers normally come with some sort of “primer” on them. This is a result of the manufacturing process. Many people report the primer as being safe but bitter tasting. It takes a handful of drags on a new atomizer before the primer taste disappears. Personally myself, I haven’t really noticed. It’s there, I can taste it, but I don’t find it as bad as some people claim.

Various Atomizers

There are a handful of popular size atomizers which are identified by the manufacturer model number. At the moment these are the 901/808D-1, 801, 401, 103/4081, and 510 (there are more but I don’t care to list them all). From what I can tell, most of the atomizers are all constructed in more or less the same way with the main difference being the size of the screw threads to attach the atomizer with the battery. Of course whenever someone creates two things of a different size, someone will invent an adapter so you can connect the two.

401 Atomizer

Atomizers have an unspecified life-span. Some people say they got several weeks of use off an atomizer while others say they’ve been using the same atomizer for months. Two main things can go wrong with an atomizer. The heating coil can burn out (a break in the coil so no electricity can pass) or it can become clogged. The heating coil can also get fully, or partially, coated in burned e-juice. This insulates the coil from properly heating e-juice and can result in poor or no vapour production.

There are many methods on how to clean and extend the usefulness of an atomizer and there is some minor regular maintenance that should be done to keep your atomizer running smoothly. I won’t get into the specifies of all the different ways to clean atomizers (that will be a future post), but here are a few guidelines.

Some people have had good luck using the “dry burn” method to clean the burned crud from the coil (google “atomizer dry burn”).

The air passages can get filled with old fluid and residue. Reduced airflow can result in low vapour production, It is fairly easy to maintain this. Remove the atomizer from the battery and cartridge. Put a paper towel over the mouthpiece end and blow into the atomizer from the battery side. This should blow out all the residue that has built up within the atomizer. You can also rinse the atomizer under hot water and then blow out the extra water. Make sure to let the atomizer fully dry before using it.

510 Atomizer in various colours

Sometimes liquid and other gunk can get on the battery connector. It is a good idea to clean around the battery contacts and threads on both the atomizer and the battery so there is always a good electrical contact. A few days back I actually thought I had a dead atomizer. I’d screw it on to the battery and it wouldn’t fire. The only thing wrong with it was the battery contact needed wiping off. Doh.

One thing that really sets atomizers apart is how you choose to use your electronic cigarette (see below). Some atomizers like the 510 are popular with people who use cartridges where as the 401 is good for dipping as the wick is exposed.

-Cartridge and/or Mouthpiece

The cartridge is a mouthpiece which contains a reservoir for e-liquid fluid. The cartridge attaches to the atomizer. There is a filler inside the reservoir which helps to hold the liquid. The most common filler is a fine threaded polyfill – much like what you see as the stuffing inside some pillows. There are two basic types of cartridge mouthpieces – flat (or whistle tip) or round. At first I thought I’d like the flat ones but the manual button on my battery is on the side and sometimes the button and flat mouthpiece don’t like up. This results in having to hold the e-cig in an unnatural way to trigger the button. Not a big deal, but I don’t have this problem with the round ones.

Flat or Whistle Tip cartridge

There are a number of modifications people are attempting to increase the usefulness of the filler and how it wicks fluid to the atomizer. This is something you won’t really need to worry about when you first get started but if you like fiddling with things you’ll have fun with this (I’m using the PTB Mod – using nylon tea bags as the filler – and having good luck with it).

Some electronic cigarettes use a cartomizer which is a cartridge and an atomizer combined.

There are other mouthpieces designed specially for “dripping” (see below).

-The Liquid (AKA e-juice)

E-Juice

The vapourizer liquid is a base of propylene glycol (PG) or vegetable glycerin (VG) or a mixture of the two and a flavouring. The liquid may also contain nicotine which is often listed in milligrams per milliliter (16mg, 20mg, etc).

You can buy e-juice in pre-filled cartridges or in bottles. Most bottles come in 10, 15 and 30 ml sizes. You can buy it flavoured or unflavoured, nicotine or no nicotine, in a drippy bottle or with a dropper, or in giant bulk bottles. Many people are buying unflavoured with nicotine and adding their own flavours.

How much e-juice fluid will you go through? This is really hard to say. Some people say they use 2 ml a day, others more, some less. I’ve stopped keeping track but I think I’m somewhere around 1-2 ml per day. The nicotine level I’m commonly using is 18-24mg. I have some e-juice I diluted from 24mg and I estimate it is around 12-14mg.

Like everything, the price varies on where you buy it and how much you buy at a time. I’m seeing 30ml bottles going for around $15-20 CAD.

-Power

At first glance the power aspect of electronic cigarettes seem confusing – but it really isn’t. I’ll try to explain the differences.

Battery – The most used power source for an electronic cigarette is a lithium ion battery. Obviously this is because it is small, portable and convenient. Batteries are recharged in a standard charger or some can be charged in a charge case (PCC). The common voltage for the mini’s are around 3 – 4 volts. The mAh (or, in simple terms, how long the battery will last) is around 100-200 mAh. The higher the mAh number is, the more vaping you can do on a single charge.

510 Manual Battery

To give you an example; I have two different batteries for my 510 atomizer. One is 180 mAh and the other is 650 mAh. The 180 mAh battery will last around 1-2 hours of average use. The 650 mAh will last around 8 hours of average use. I read somewhere one person counted 499 20-30 second drags off a single charge of a 650 mAh battery. To put that in perspective of average cigarette use, before I switched to e-cigs I counted about how many drags I took off a king size cigarette. It was normally around 10-14 drags.

Commonly the electronic cigarette battery will have an LED on the end of the battery which lights when the device is in use.

Some batteries contain an electronic component which shuts the battery down if it is switched on too long. This is to avoid atomizer coil burnout. Some will shut down the battery if the voltage is too low – which would not produce proper vapour. On these, when the voltage runs too low, the LED will flash 15 or more times to indicate it is time to recharge.

USB Pass-Through

USB Passthrough – A USB passthrough is a device which plugs into a USB port and connects directly to the atomizer of the e-cigarette. Many USB passthoughs also contain a small box with a battery somewhere along the wire. On those devices the atomizer is powered by the battery and the power from the USB port recharges the battery.

A USB passthough can be powered by the USB port in your computer or laptop, a powered USB hub, or an adapter (AC or auto cigarette lighter).

Battery Pack – I don’t think battery packs are in production by any major electronic cigarette manufacturers, but I’ve seen some on-line. Basically the battery pack is an external battery which connects to the atomizer by a wire. The reason for this is to have a power source which provides either more voltage or more mAh.

-Voltage

As I mentioned above, most minis run around 3 to 4 volts. 3.7 volts seems to be fairly common with the “popular” models.

Some people have discovered that providing a bit more power (5 to 6 volts) to the atomizers this causes the heating coil to heat up faster and run hotter which produces a thicker vapour. The downside to running at higher volts is you will run a risk of burning out your atomizer heating coil. Higher volts will also eat through more e-juice. There are companies out there which produce higher volt devices which commonly use the 801, 901 or 510 atomizers.

I would say the higher volt models are not a good jumping off point for entry-level vaping.

-Low Resistance Atomizers (AKA; LR or LR atty)

Low resistance atomizers allow more power to travel from the battery (or power source) to your atomizer heating coil. This emulates the results of higher voltage devices. Commonly a 510 atomizer has a resistance of 2.3 ohms. Low resistance atomizers run around 1.5 ohms.

Like running an atomizer at a higher voltage, low resistance atomizers run hotter and the talk is they burn out faster.

To reduce the risk of damaging your battery, you should only use LR atomizers at 3.7 volts and on batteries with over 450 mAh (at least this is true with the 510 LR atomizers).

-How People Rate “Vaping”.

Vaping is the verb for the action of using an electronic cigarette. Commonly people will refer to how well it produces vapour, the “throat hit” (TH), and fullness of flavour. The throat hit is really what emulates smoking a real cigarette. It is a slight peppery burn in the back of your throat. Not all e-liquids provide the throat hit. If you were to vape on plain VG fluid you wouldn’t feel it (trust me, I tried it). The throat hit comes from the nicotine content, the fluid mixture, and how well of a vapour the device produces.

Vegetable glycerin is good at creating a thick vapour, but doesn’t seem to be able to provide a good throat hit. Propylene glycol can produce a good throat hit but doesn’t produce a great vapour. Needless to say this is why more and more people are mixing both bases to get the best of both worlds.

The only way I can describe the vapour itself is to say it is softer than cigarette smoke. Cigarette smoke is smoke. Vapour is more like dense steam.

-How To Use Your Electronic Cigarette.

How you use the e-cig comes down to how you get the liquid to the atomizer. There are three main ways;

Cartridge – This is the standard method. The cartridge is part of the mouthpiece and it contains a reservoir which holds the liquid e-juice. The amount of e-juice a reservoir can hold depends on the cartridge – but from what I can tell is seems to be commonly around 1/2 ml or so. The majority of the cartridges are refillable in one way or another. Refilling your own cartridges takes time (not THAT much time) and it can also save you a bundle of money. Another benefit of refilling is you can mix various flavours and nicotine strengths. I think 80% of electronic cigarette users refill their cartridges.

Drip Tips

Dripping – The user drips a few drops directly on the atomizer’s wick. Some companies have started making mouthpieces designed for dripping. These are called drip tips. They are designed to be able to drip liquid directly down the mouthpiece without removing it.

Dipping – The user dips the atomizers wick into the e-juice.

-Sounds good. I want to use one. What should I buy?

Like I mentioned in my first post, Adventures in Electronic Cigarettes – Part 1, I did a fair amount of research on devices before I jumped in and bought my own. I waded through many different websites and forums, read reviews, and took into consideration the comments left by the general population of vapour-people.

Overall, the top contender for a entry level device is the Joye 510.

The core of every system is really the atomizer and the 510 atomizer tends to be a generally well liked product. There are tons of modifications and other products that use the 510 atomizer so your options for the future are open. You wouldn’t want to invest in 5-8 atomizers ($50-80) and then decide to change to an entirely different format. Many people started with the 510 and months later are still very happy with it.

510′s are also readily available. Almost every full service on-line store I’ve seen carries parts and accessories for the 510.

So, you’re ready to take the plunge into the world of electronic cigarette? Now, where to start and what to buy. Here is where I point people.

-Hardware

I have two recommendations.

A basic 510 Starter Kit

Joye 510 Starter Kit – There are several starter kits out there but find one that contains a couple batteries, a PCC (charging case), a few atomizers and a handful of cartridges. Some include a USB passthrough device or other battery charging options which are nice to have.

This really is a fine jumping off point. The charging case has a slot for three full cartridges, a battery (which will charge in the case) and space for a spare atomizer (Because atomizers can fail at any time, it is a good idea to carry a spare with you). The 510′s are a nice size and the PCC fits in a shirt pocket.

Janty eGo starter kit - Commonly this comes with two batteries, an atomizer, an atomizer cone, a charger and a handful of cartridges. The advantage to the eGo is the higher mAh battery (650 mAh) over the standard Joye 180 mAh battery. If you order the eGo starter kit, I would recommend ordering at least one more atomizer.

The eGo does not have a carry case because ideally the battery should last you most of the day. This also means you’ll need to figure out a way to carry around your extra cartridges. To start, an empty Altoids tin works well.

Janty eGo

While you are at it, order a handful of ready to be filled cartridges. These often come in a pack of 5. This will give you a chance to play with your new e-juice flavours.

-Juice

Normally the starter kits come with some kind of pre-filled cartridges. Take a shot in the dark with these. Just pick what sounds good.

I suggest getting a few small bottles of different flavours and nicotine strengths. I would advice starting with a nicotine strength under 24mg – just to be on the safe side.

Being a smoker, at first I was interested in tobacco flavours. I’m sort of drifting away from this right now. I’m starting with a tobacco base and highlighting it with other flavours. Right now, peppermint is my augment of choice. This is kind of weird because I always disliked menthol cigarettes.

I mixed two of my e-juices together and it produced a maple aftertaste. I actually really enjoyed this. So much so I’ve ordered a maple flavouring to add to my tobacco flavours. I would never have expected that.

But, this isn’t that unusual. I’m actually reading many people are experiencing the same thing.

Pick out a few flavours that sound good and experiment. 10ml bottles are small and are fairly inexpensive.