I am always thinking of ways to improve the efficiency of my vape. Having just recently acquired a regulated device, I learned a few things that have helped me to make a huge improvement in vape efficiency that will lead to improved battery life, less voltage drop and less contact maintenance. The contact maintenance part will not apply to you if you are using regulated device but all other aspects will apply to either regulated or mechanical mods.
Follow along with me if you will. Up until I had the regulated device I was running mechanical mods with dual coils netting 0.43 ohms. I was constructing these coils using 26 ga Kanthal A1 at 2.5mm inside diameter. It vaped amazing. I take short 3-4 second pulls and typically chain vape quite a bit. So that calculation is 4.2 volts divided by 0.43 ohms = 9.76 amps. 4.20 volts x 9.76 amps = 40.992 watts. Just a little trailer park math / ohms law to paint the full picture.
Many people in my circles suggested using 1 to 1.2 ohm builds on the regulated device. Being the lazy freak that I am, I just put the atomizer with the same 0.43 ohm build in there and thought that this is vaping fine when I set it at 30 – 35 watts. BUT my batteries – brand new 3000mah Samsung 30Q’s were dying after like 2ml of liquid vaped. So I did what was suggested and placed 2 28 gauge 3.0mm 10 wrap coils on there. The net resistance is 1.07 ohms. I left the watts set at 30 and hit the device. It was a much warmer vape. So I backed the watts down to 26.5 and the vape was perfect. I vaped this setup all day yesterday and the battery lasted all day. I pulled it this morning and it was at 3.70 volts.
So I got to thinking – why does 30 watts with thick wire and lower resistance vape the same as 26.5 watts with thinner wire and higher resistance? If you guessed because it takes thicker wire considerably longer and use more energy to heat up, you are correct. So by using thicker wire to reduce resistance (ohms) you are causing your device to run much less efficiently to heat that thicker wire. If you are only taking 3-4 second pulls, the wire hasn’t even fully heated up when your letting off the fire button!. Here – try this (if you are using heavier gauge wire than 28 gauge and running like a 0.4 (or less ohms build): press the fire button for about 5 seconds then hit it – Its warm as hell right – like as in too warm? That’s because it’s taking that long to heat up your wire. So you are only really wasting power to heat that fat wire and it isn’t even fully heated when you are letting off the fire button.
So I decided to apply the same theory to a mech mod. Remember, the lower the resistance on a mech, the more voltage drop and the more you will have to maintain your contacts. I removed the 26 ga Kanthal A1 at 2.5mm inside diameter dual coils from that atomizer and replaced them with 2 28 gauge 3.0mm 6 wrap coils netting 0.68 ohms. 4.20 volts divided by 0.68 = 6.17 amps. 4.20 volts x 6.17 amps = 25.91 watts. Guess what? The vape was the same as on the regulated device. Pretty awesome right? Every increased point of resistance reduces voltage drop, reduces contact maintenance and will result in greater battery life. So I’d highly suggest trying this or a similar experience yourself to dispel the rumor that thick wire and low resistance is required to produce a great vape.
So the moral of the story is many of us don’t need fat wire and low resistance to get the same vape as a higher resistance MORE EFFICIENT build will produce. Now there are exceptions to that rule of course, but I still challenge the doubters to try the 5 second button press on a really low resistance build and see if you like that vape. Then try putting in a higher resistance build with thinner wire and see if the vape isn’t the same as you thought you needed thick wire and low resistance to achieve.
