Turning Points: The 6 Most Important Developments in the History of Vaping

A guest post by EasyPuff New Zealand.

There’s nothing more exciting than a young industry that’s full of promise and under constant active development. The vaping industry is one that definitely possesses this level of excitement. The vaping industry is extremely profitable, so product manufacturers have invested heavily into research and development. Meanwhile, due to the newness of vaping, vapers aren’t at all set in their ways. Most of us will gladly adopt a new technology and are ready to embrace whatever comes to marker next.

The vaping industry has seen its share of revolutionary products, with tangible evidence of this in the many different types of vaping device we have seen since the earliest of eCig devices began this revolution over a decade ago. These are the ones which have proven to be most important.

CARTOMISERS

A key component of most of today’s cigalike vaping devices, you simply can’t overstate the importance of the humble cartomiser in the vaping world.

The earliest e-cigarette required constant tweaking and molly-coddling, it broke down constantly and boy did it leak. It just didn’t work that well and the puff was at best hit and miss. And yet, when it did work it promised to at long last provide something close to being a like-for-like experience.

The cartomiser is a single component disposable plastic cartridge, inside of which is an eliquid impregnated wadding/wick and a fixed atomiser coil. Overnight it overcame many of the earliest niggles was without leaks or breakdowns and provided more vapour per puff. A new vaper was immediately enabled to have a much better vape experience and it still remains a key component of most of today’s cig-alike devices as used by vaping newbies.

REGULATED MODS

Mechanical mods are great. They’re both inexpensive & powerful. However, their lack of safety features makes them niche products that are quite frankly best left as documents which tell part of the story of the vaping industry’s past.

The modern Regulated Mod – with true digital power regulation & safety monitoring – is the technology that truly brought 'cloud chasing’ to the masses.

Now that we have the modern dual-battery regulated mod which reaches higher wattages and handles lower coil resistances than a typical mechanical mod – all while keeping the user safer, many people feel that there’s no longer much of a reason at all for mechanical mods to exist.

MODERN TANKS

Many people consider tank systems to be the very best way to vape however, it wasn’t always that way.

It has taken a huge amount of research and development to create vaping tanks that are without serious wicking and airflow issues.

The first e-cigarette tanks were seriously flawed..… imagine taking a cigalike type cartridge, drilling in a couple of holes for filling then surrounding the cartridge with a big plastic and rubber cylinder.

It wasn’t long before purpose-built e-cigarette tanks with replaceable coil heads appeared soon after, but while nowadays, even a mediocre tank will work without giving you dry hits this wasn’t always the case and it took a long time before any company was able to develop a tank that didn’t suffer from frequent dry hits and leaks.

REBUILDABLE ATOMISERS

Believe it or not, rebuildable atomisers have existed almost as long as vaping has been 'a thing'.

Early on, people realised that buying their own resistance wire and cotton wicking would cost less – and also that their self built coils and atomiser heads could produce for them a far superior vape than using stock atomisers. Vaping forums became a hotbed for the topic of self builds and rebuilds.

The manufacturers in China have long since made it a habit to capitalise on the world's trends by keeping their ears to the ground so it wasn’t long before affordable RBAs were being exported in their thousands.

Those same forums and online resources now hosting a vast library of instructional content so that anyone who has a mind to can learn how to build his or her own coils safely thus putting ‘cloud chasing‘ within the reach of anyone with acare to try it.

NICOTINE SALT POD VAPING SYSTEMS

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the Juul and its pod-based competition.

Unlike traditional cigalikes with their disposable cartomiser, the pod-based e-cigarette uses small disposable tanks. Pods can store more e-liquid and produce more vapour per puff than a cartomiser, with some even being refillable.

Additionally, Pod-based vaping systems have another secret weapon hidden up their proverbial sleeves, that of nicotine salts. While most e-liquids contain freebase nicotine, a nicotine salt e-liquid contains an acid that increases the pH of the nicotine and converts it to a salt.

Some research is suggesting that e-liquids that contains nicotine salts may be more satisfying than a standard e-liquid. While that might be a debatable claim, what isn’t debatable is that pod vaping systems and nicotine salts have become very popular driving the industry in a new direction.

During an age in which vaping has historically been driven by an unrelenting thirst for bigger and more powerful, some former sub-ohm vapers have begun to “downgrade” and are moving back toward the small in order to adopt the use of a smaller pod vaping system.

It’s a fascinating development, don't you think?

BOTTOM FEEDING MODS

Rebuildable atomisers are cheap to operate. They can produce dense vapour clouds that absolutely explode with flavour.

One problem with using an RBA, though because it only remains wet for a few puffs and needs to be drip fed is that it forces you to carry around a bottle of e-liquid for when you wish to vape. RBAs are often messy & leaky and well, frankly they’re rather inconvenient.The bottom feeding mod – also known as a Squonk Mod – has resolved that problem with a bottle that is positioned under the RBA. Squeezing the bottle sends e-liquid through a hole in the middle of the 510 threading, keeping the atomiser wet and therefore totally eliminates the need to drip.Oddly though, just like the RBA, the bottom feeding mod/Squonk is an invention that goes back all the way to the very beginnings of the vaping industry proving that some ideas take longer than others to find their audiences.

The day of the Squonk Mod is finally here with nearly every major Chinese manufacturer producing for market at least one bottom feeder and, since Squonk Mods solve so many of the problems inherent with RBAs, it’s no wonder that they’ve so quickly become such a popular device with mainstream vapers.

About the Author

Jason Artman is the owner and author of eCig One. Jason is a professional freelance writer who offers content writing services to vaping companies around the world.