What is a vape cartridge?

The parts

A cartridge has four pieces: a tank holding the extract, a heating element inside it, a mouthpiece, and a threaded connector at the base. A battery supplies power to the heating element. Nothing burns. The battery warms the oil past the point where it turns to vapor and stops well short of combustion.

The standard connector is called 510 thread, named for its dimensions. Nearly every cartridge on a Montana shelf uses it, and nearly every cart battery accepts it. A few brands use proprietary pods that fit only their own hardware, and those say so on the box.

Cartridges versus disposables

A cartridge attaches to a battery you keep and reuse. When the cart runs out, you replace the cart.

A disposable or all-in-one packages the extract, the heating element, and the battery into one sealed unit. Most are rechargeable now, but the whole device gets discarded when the oil runs out.

Disposables cost less up front and need no hardware. Cartridges cost less over time once you own a battery, and a good battery gives you control over temperature that a disposable usually does not.

What is inside

The extract in the tank drives most of the price difference between two carts of the same size.

Distillate. A refined extract stripped down to mostly a single cannabinoid. Clear, close to flavorless, and highly potent by tested percentage. Flavor comes from terpenes added back after refinement, either cannabis-derived or botanical. Cheapest to produce and the most common fill.

Live resin. Extracted from fresh frozen plant material, which preserves the volatile terpenes that dry and cure drive off. Tastes closer to the source plant. Usually darker and thicker in the tank.

Rosin and live rosin. Solventless, pressed with heat and pressure only. The lowest yield per pound of input and generally the highest price on the menu.

Full spectrum and sauce. Extracts that retain a broader range of the plant's original compounds rather than isolating one.

A cart labeled with a strain name and filled with distillate is telling you about the flavor blend, not the plant lineage. A live resin or rosin cart with a strain name is telling you about the actual source material.

Reading the label

Montana requires licensed lab testing on every product in a dispensary case, and the results reach the label. On a cart, look at:

• Total THC percentage. Distillate carts commonly test very high, and that number alone says little about how the product tastes or how the extract was made.
• Extract type. Distillate, live resin, rosin, or full spectrum. This is the line that separates a 30 dollar cart from a 70 dollar one.
• Terpene source. Cannabis-derived or botanical, when the brand states it.
• Tank volume. Half gram and one gram are the common sizes, and a price comparison only works at the same volume.
• Batch and license. Present on any compliant product.

Concentrate in a cart counts against Montana's 8 gram concentrate ceiling, which sits inside the 1 ounce personal possession limit.

Hardware and settings

Batteries come in fixed voltage and variable voltage. On a variable battery, lower settings produce less vapor and preserve more flavor, and higher settings produce more vapor and burn through the oil faster. Running a thin distillate at a high setting is the usual cause of a harsh, scorched taste.

Store carts upright. Oil that pools in the mouthpiece leaks and clogs. Keep them out of a hot car, since heat thins the oil and pushes it past the seals. If a cart clogs, warming it briefly in a pocket and taking a slow draw with the battery off usually clears it.

Buy from a licensed store

The 2019 vaping illness outbreak traced back to vitamin E acetate used as a cutting agent in unlicensed cartridges. Licensed Montana product goes through a state-licensed testing lab, and the tested batch is documented. Carts sold out of a car or ordered off social media carry none of that, no matter what the packaging looks like. Counterfeit branded packaging is cheap and widely available.

At the counter

Bring your battery or say what you own. Ask whether the cart is distillate, live resin, or rosin before you compare prices, since that single fact explains most of the spread in the case. Check the tank volume so you are comparing the same amount of oil.

If you want the flavor of a specific strain, a live resin or rosin cart gets you closer than a distillate one. If you want the lowest cost per gram, distillate wins and always will.