Coils, Vapor... couple questions...

[Way2Gone]

Just a couple simple questions for you vets out there.

I am still very new, couple months into vaping.

For the two months I have been vaping, I have been using 2.2 ohm silica wick coils. Single coil.

How does this ohm thing exactly work. You don't have to do alot of explaining if you don't want to. Most of you are going to bash me and tell me to search google, although this is what forums are for is to ask questions correct? Anyways.. for the ones who care, what is the difference between me dropping or going up from the ohms I am at now? Will the only change be having to learn a new voltage or wattage for my liking when changing these coils?

What about dual coils. I have never used one, but might buy one someday.. How doesn't ohms exactly work on those?

Thanks for any information and again, thank you for your time.

 

[rurwin]

I'm not going to be able to teach you everything you need to know in a comment, but I can give you a taste.

Ohms is the unit of electrical resistance. Think of it like friction for electricity.

The more friction there is, the more force you need to get something to move.
The more resistance there is, the more voltage you need to get current to move.

The more friction there is, then more things get hot when they move. Likewise with electricity it is the resistance that makes the coil get hot.

Two formulae:
volts = amps x ohms
watts = volts x amps

Which can be rearranged to make:
watts = volts² / ohms

power (watts) makes the coil hot, just like it makes lightbulbs and kettles get hot, and for the same reason.

Decreasing the resistance increases the heat of the coil, but it also increases the drain on the battery. A 0.2 ohm coil on a 3.7V battery is consuming 18.5 amps and delivering 68 watts to the wick. Most people would say that was too much, and it certainly would require modified wicking and air-flow. It would also require a special battery, as most of them would be in danger of burning at that current.

Increasing the resistance decreases the heat of the coil, but reduces the drain on the battery. A 3 ohm coil on a 3.7v battery is consuming 1.3 amps of current, and only delivering 4.5 watts to the wick, which many people would find too little.

On the other hand, if we increase the voltage to, say, 6V, then the same 3 ohm coil will be consuming 2 amps and delivering 12 watts, which might even be too much.

The sweet spot for generally available batteries and atomisers is in the 1.5 to 2.5 ohm range. Rebuildables and advanced or mechanical mods are required in order to use larger or smaller resistances.

 

[rurwin]

Dual coils are just using two coils instead of one. The battery has to supply current to both coils at the same time, so the effective resistance of the combination is half the resistance of each coil individually. The advantage is that there is more coil surface area in contact with eliquid and therefore more vapour is produced, and more eliquid is used.

Dual coils do not alter the temperature of the coil, the flavour or the temperature of the vapour, only its volume. It's like putting two electronic cigarettes in your mouth at once.

 

[AttyPops]

What device are you using? Mech or VV or regulated fixed voltage mod?

 

[Christopherja]

...what is the difference between me dropping or going up from the ohms I am at now? Will the only change be having to learn a new voltage or wattage for my liking when changing these coils?

Generally, people use different Ω coils to generate different levels of heat (although, as already mentioned, you can then adjust voltage to match the heat you had before, but nevermind). If you are running a 2.2Ω coil, but you'd prefer a warmer vape, or perhaps your liquid really "comes alive" at higher temperatures, you could run a lower-rated, 1.8Ω coil. If on the other hand, you prefer a cooler vape, and your particular liquid has more subtle notes that require a cooler temperature, you could run a 2.5Ω coil.

That all said, if you have a variable voltage device (where you can adjust the input power), you can run your 2.2Ω coil, and simply adjust the power going to it to achieve all of these results without changing your coil Ω-rating.

Hope this helps.

 

[Way2Gone]

What device are you using? Mech or VV or regulated fixed voltage mod?

Its an Itaste VV . Its variable volts and variable watts. I think it is the Version 2, which isn't much different from the version 3 as far as I am concerned. It can still read ohms and all that.

 

[Way2Gone]

I'm not going to be able to teach you everything you need to know in a comment, but I can give you a taste.

Ohms is the unit of electrical resistance. Think of it like friction for electricity.

The more friction there is, the more force you need to get something to move.
The more resistance there is, the more voltage you need to get current to move.

The more friction there is, then more things get hot when they move. Likewise with electricity it is the resistance that makes the coil get hot.

Two formulae:
volts = amps x ohms
watts = volts x amps

Which can be rearranged to make:
watts = volts² / ohms

power (watts) makes the coil hot, just like it makes lightbulbs and kettles get hot, and for the same reason.

Decreasing the resistance increases the heat of the coil, but it also increases the drain on the battery. A 0.2 ohm coil on a 3.7V battery is consuming 18.5 amps and delivering 68 watts to the wick. Most people would say that was too much, and it certainly would require modified wicking and air-flow. It would also require a special battery, as most of them would be in danger of burning at that current.

Increasing the resistance decreases the heat of the coil, but reduces the drain on the battery. A 3 ohm coil on a 3.7v battery is consuming 1.3 amps of current, and only delivering 4.5 watts to the wick, which many people would find too little.

On the other hand, if we increase the voltage to, say, 6V, then the same 3 ohm coil will be consuming 2 amps and delivering 12 watts, which might even be too much.

The sweet spot for generally available batteries and atomisers is in the 1.5 to 2.5 ohm range. Rebuildables and advanced or mechanical mods are required in order to use larger or smaller resistances.

Thank for all of the information. As I read over this a few times and think of any of questions I might have to help me find what I am looking for I will let you know. Thanks again.

 

[Way2Gone]

Dual coils are just using two coils instead of one. The battery has to supply current to both coils at the same time, so the effective resistance of the combination is half the resistance of each coil individually. The advantage is that there is more coil surface area in contact with eliquid and therefore more vapour is produced, and more eliquid is used.

Dual coils do not alter the temperature of the coil, the flavour or the temperature of the vapour, only its volume. It's like putting two electronic cigarettes in your mouth at once.

So basically, if I was using the same juice (same VG and PG ratio) and I did a side by side comparison of single coil and dual coil, basically I would get a bigger vape without having to hold the button down on my device as long as I would have to hold it on a single coil tank. Does that make since?

 

[AttyPops]

Starting with single coils for a second:

I asked about the device due to things like amp limits. Ohms (or anything else....watts, amps, volts) don't exist in a vacuum. So to talk about only one is ....good for a question but missing some nuances.

You mentioned wattage in your post. Wattage is "work done". It doesn't really exist in and of itself, but we use it all the time. Like for light bulbs. It's an instantaneous measurement...a result....of the other stuff. It's more-or-less defined as volts X amps. But the ohms are part of that too because they are all related. Basically if you know any two of (volts, amps, watts, ohms) you can compute the rest. No one of them acts alone in a functioning circuit. Change one and the others adjust. (more or less).

So....Let's talk VV and VW.

VV lets you adjust the heat level by changing the voltage. Without VV, you'd just have a fixed voltage...like 3.7 let's say...and then you'd select the ohms appropriate for that voltage to get the watts you want for your coil. Lower ohms = less resistance = more energy allowed to flow per second = more watts. That's for any given voltage....keep the voltage steady and adjust the ohms and you adjust the watts.

You can also keep the ohms steady, and adjust the voltage (with VV). That will also change the watts.

Voltage = "electrical pressure". (really potential difference between poles of the battery, but let's not quibble.) So you can see why adjusting it would be similar to adjusting the PSI in an air hose, or in a water pressure system....more "oomph" pushing through a resistance.

Watts basically = approximate heat for our purposes. (less device inefficiencies 'n such). Note: surface area not mentioned here.
Amps = electron flow per second.

Now as we've said with VV you can adjust the voltage to change the heat level for a coil. Coils aren't 100% spot on for their ohm rating...they have a margin of manufacturing error. Also, the ohms change over time as they are used. Moreover, different juices can require different wattages to find a "sweet spot". So VV was revolutionary for e-cigs. No more swapping around different ohm coils...just adjust it and tweak it.

Then comes.....VW. Variable Wattage. I wish they had named it "Auto Wattage" because that's more what it is. The APV reads the ohms of the coil and automatically selects the proper voltage to achieve the set wattage. Unscrew that coil, and screw on some other "topper" and it will auto adjust to that. You may find, however, you still wish to adjust it a bit due to different juices, but over all it works well

Now (almost done) we get to amps. The battery can only put out so many amps. When it hits its limit, it maxes out. When that happens, voltage suffers regardless of desired settings. Many devices will refuse to function if over amped as a protection. Different batteries and devices have different limits. You should research your device's limits. Because we finally get to:

Dual Coils. The bane of many newbie's existence and the foe of short forum posts. You basically need a crash course in electricity to describe what's going on with them and their use on various devices. There are several excellent posts above describing Ohm's law and I've reiterated a bit, but it gets fun with dual coils.

Dual coils are like running two atomizer coils side by side. As if you had two light bulbs side-by-side. It takes twice the watts. You use twice the electricity. And your electric bill will reflect that. The voltage (pressure) stays the same. The Net-Ohms are 1/2 of what each coil is (basically twice the paths for the electricity to follow = less resistance over all....like sucking a thick milk shake through two straws rather then one...easier due to less resistance/more path).

So...dual coils:
twice the watts.
The net-ohms are 1/2 each coil's ohms.
twice the amps.
voltage setting is around that for a single coil (2x net ohms). Maybe a bit lower. Don't want it too hot!

So a 1.5 ohm dual coil is really two 3.0 ohm coils and you would set your voltage to around 5 volts for a "full" vape. Although in practice many want it cooler with dual coils. You don't set it to 3.3 volts like you would for a 1.5 ohm single coil...because it's two 3.0 ohm coils. Make sense?

Also, your device has to be able to put out twice the watts and amps because it's powering two coils at the same time. So you need 15 watts to run a dual coil at 7.5 watts per coil.

You need to know the amp limit of your device and make sure you set the voltage accordingly. You may or may not like the results if you're amp limited. Some devices may refuse to function in this case (the smart ones) unless you turn the voltage down.

Sorry for the long post. Much is redundant and explained well by others above, but this is a train-of-thought kind of thing too. It's hard to discuss dual coils without all the other stuff.

 

[AttyPops]

But the "short answer" is:

Start low, dial it up (either voltage or wattage) until you like the vape. Note with dual coils...you may hit limits that you didn't know were there with single coils.

 

[Flt Simulation]

I am thinking what the OP is trying to say in regard to dual coils vs single coil units .... If you had a good variable voltage battery that was capable of powering both the single and dual coil units in there respective voltage "sweet spot" ... which one would you choose, and why?

And would the dual coil unit make more vapor than the single coil unit as long as both were again running in there respective voltage "sweet spot" (and considering you were holding the battery button down the same amount of time on both units)?

 

[Katya]

For the two months I have been vaping, I have been using 2.2 ohm silica wick coils. Single coil.

2.2Ω coil is very versatile and works with almost any battery. However, you didn't tell us anything about the voltage you're been using with your coil. Do you have a variable voltage-, set voltage-, or variable wattage-battery?

Anyway, I like to vape at 6 watts or so, so I do my math (see below) and set my voltage at 3.6v. I set my variable wattage batteries at 6 watts and don't have to worry about math--my PV does the math for me.

How does this ohm thing exactly work. You don't have to do alot of explaining if you don't want to. Most of you are going to bash me and tell me to search google, although this is what forums are for is to ask questions correct?

Correct. And don't bash--unless you happen on a ProVari thread. Most of the bashing happens there.

Anyways.. for the ones who care, what is the difference between me dropping or going up from the ohms I am at now? Will the only change be having to learn a new voltage or wattage for my liking when changing these coils?

Here's how it works--quick and dirty and not as scientific as Atty's or rurwin's responses above, but mine comes with pictures and cool links.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...-understand-ohmz-vs-voltage.html#post12088068

What about dual coils. I have never used one, but might buy one someday.. How doesn't ohms exactly work on those?

Dual coils are a bit more tricky than single coils. How much do you want to know?

Short version: dual coil atomizers require more voltage (or wattage). How much more? Personal preference. I usually increase my watts by 50% or so with the dual coils. YMMV

Longer version: when you throw 6 watts into two coils, each coil gets approximately 3 watts (if its perfectly balanced) of power, which is very different from 6 watts going all into one coil (at the same total ohms). If I tell my vw PV to supply 6 watts to two coils, my atomizer will not vape the same as it would if it only had to apply 6 watts to one coil--a single coil would be working at 6 watts, two coils--at 3 watts each, more or less. In theory, at least, as I explained above.

A 2.2Ω DC atty consists of two 4.4Ω coils configured in parallel. However, the battery doesn't care how many coils are attached to it--it just reads the final resistance of the atomizer. A 2.2Ω single coil atomizer will run much hotter than your 2.2Ω DCC, which splits the load between two 4.4Ω coils (thus producing a cooler but more voluminous--due to increased surface area--vape). The main reason DC cartomizers were invented in the first place was to decrease the heat of the coils to prevent burning of filler in cartomizers (the first dual coils were used in cartomizers).

The dual coil design increases the demand for amps the battery needs to supply and decreases the overall heat (power) of each coil, thus requiring higher voltages.

In the real world, the realized, true experience would be probably somewhere between the two wattage figures--when using a dual coil device.

So, as my friend AttyPops already suggested above, when in doubt--start low and adjust up as needed.

Happy vaping.

 

[Aviz]

I got an EE and I could not give you a better tutorial. Kudos ruwin you should teach

I'm not going to be able to teach you everything you need to know in a comment, but I can give you a taste.

Ohms is the unit of electrical resistance. Think of it like friction for electricity.

The more friction there is, the more force you need to get something to move.
The more resistance there is, the more voltage you need to get current to move.

The more friction there is, then more things get hot when they move. Likewise with electricity it is the resistance that makes the coil get hot.

Two formulae:
volts = amps x ohms
watts = volts x amps

Which can be rearranged to make:
watts = volts² / ohms

power (watts) makes the coil hot, just like it makes lightbulbs and kettles get hot, and for the same reason.

Decreasing the resistance increases the heat of the coil, but it also increases the drain on the battery. A 0.2 ohm coil on a 3.7V battery is consuming 18.5 amps and delivering 68 watts to the wick. Most people would say that was too much, and it certainly would require modified wicking and air-flow. It would also require a special battery, as most of them would be in danger of burning at that current.

Increasing the resistance decreases the heat of the coil, but reduces the drain on the battery. A 3 ohm coil on a 3.7v battery is consuming 1.3 amps of current, and only delivering 4.5 watts to the wick, which many people would find too little.

On the other hand, if we increase the voltage to, say, 6V, then the same 3 ohm coil will be consuming 2 amps and delivering 12 watts, which might even be too much.

The sweet spot for generally available batteries and atomisers is in the 1.5 to 2.5 ohm range. Rebuildables and advanced or mechanical mods are required in order to use larger or smaller resistances.

 

[Way2Gone]

Starting with single coils for a second:

I asked about the device due to things like amp limits. Ohms (or anything else....watts, amps, volts) don't exist in a vacuum. So to talk about only one is ....good for a question but missing some nuances.

You mentioned wattage in your post. Wattage is "work done". It doesn't really exist in and of itself, but we use it all the time. Like for light bulbs. It's an instantaneous measurement...a result....of the other stuff. It's more-or-less defined as volts X amps. But the ohms are part of that too because they are all related. Basically if you know any two of (volts, amps, watts, ohms) you can compute the rest. No one of them acts alone in a functioning circuit. Change one and the others adjust. (more or less).

So....Let's talk VV and VW.

VV lets you adjust the heat level by changing the voltage. Without VV, you'd just have a fixed voltage...like 3.7 let's say...and then you'd select the ohms appropriate for that voltage to get the watts you want for your coil. Lower ohms = less resistance = more energy allowed to flow per second = more watts. That's for any given voltage....keep the voltage steady and adjust the ohms and you adjust the watts.

You can also keep the ohms steady, and adjust the voltage (with VV). That will also change the watts.

Voltage = "electrical pressure". (really potential difference between poles of the battery, but let's not quibble.) So you can see why adjusting it would be similar to adjusting the PSI in an air hose, or in a water pressure system....more "oomph" pushing through a resistance.

Watts basically = approximate heat for our purposes. (less device inefficiencies 'n such). Note: surface area not mentioned here.
Amps = electron flow per second.

Now as we've said with VV you can adjust the voltage to change the heat level for a coil. Coils aren't 100% spot on for their ohm rating...they have a margin of manufacturing error. Also, the ohms change over time as they are used. Moreover, different juices can require different wattages to find a "sweet spot". So VV was revolutionary for e-cigs. No more swapping around different ohm coils...just adjust it and tweak it.

Then comes.....VW. Variable Wattage. I wish they had named it "Auto Wattage" because that's more what it is. The APV reads the ohms of the coil and automatically selects the proper voltage to achieve the set wattage. Unscrew that coil, and screw on some other "topper" and it will auto adjust to that. You may find, however, you still wish to adjust it a bit due to different juices, but over all it works well

Now (almost done) we get to amps. The battery can only put out so many amps. When it hits its limit, it maxes out. When that happens, voltage suffers regardless of desired settings. Many devices will refuse to function if over amped as a protection. Different batteries and devices have different limits. You should research your device's limits. Because we finally get to:

Dual Coils. The bane of many newbie's existence and the foe of short forum posts. You basically need a crash course in electricity to describe what's going on with them and their use on various devices. There are several excellent posts above describing Ohm's law and I've reiterated a bit, but it gets fun with dual coils.

Dual coils are like running two atomizer coils side by side. As if you had two light bulbs side-by-side. It takes twice the watts. You use twice the electricity. And your electric bill will reflect that. The voltage (pressure) stays the same. The Net-Ohms are 1/2 of what each coil is (basically twice the paths for the electricity to follow = less resistance over all....like sucking a thick milk shake through two straws rather then one...easier due to less resistance/more path).

So...dual coils:
twice the watts.
The net-ohms are 1/2 each coil's ohms.
twice the amps.
voltage setting is around that for a single coil (2x net ohms). Maybe a bit lower. Don't want it too hot!

So a 1.5 ohm dual coil is really two 3.0 ohm coils and you would set your voltage to around 5 volts for a "full" vape. Although in practice many want it cooler with dual coils. You don't set it to 3.3 volts like you would for a 1.5 ohm single coil...because it's two 3.0 ohm coils. Make sense?

Also, your device has to be able to put out twice the watts and amps because it's powering two coils at the same time. So you need 15 watts to run a dual coil at 7.5 watts per coil.

You need to know the amp limit of your device and make sure you set the voltage accordingly. You may or may not like the results if you're amp limited. Some devices may refuse to function in this case (the smart ones) unless you turn the voltage down.

Sorry for the long post. Much is redundant and explained well by others above, but this is a train-of-thought kind of thing too. It's hard to discuss dual coils without all the other stuff.

3.3 - 5.0 volts

6 - 11 w

3.5 ampere maximum current output

hope that helps. 2.2 ohm coils

 

[Way2Gone]

I am thinking what the OP is trying to say in regard to dual coils vs single coil units .... If you had a good variable voltage battery that was capable of powering both the single and dual coil units in there respective voltage "sweet spot" ... which one would you choose, and why?

And would the dual coil unit make more vapor than the single coil unit as long as both were again running in there respective voltage "sweet spot" (and considering you were holding the battery button down the same amount of time on both units)?

Yes basically that is what I was saying. See I figured since they were dual coils, that you would produce a nice vapor cloud faster than you would with a single coil... so yeah.

 

[Way2Gone]

i usually vape pretty low settings on these coils, because i don't like burning my wicks. btw, my coils are reading through my device at 2.3 ohms, even though they are supposedely 2.2 ohm coils. which in understandable and happens quite a bit from what i have heard several times. anyways, i usually run under 4 volts in volts mode and 6 to maybe 7 watts max in wattage mode. I don't need high watts or volts in either mode to enjoy flavor, being that my coils are so high in resistance. Now, if i switched to a different tank, which all tanks seem to wick differently... i might or might not crank it up. i have a kangertech tank that wicks twice as good as the tank im using. so it depends on which tank and how the wicking is to the coils on that specific tank. so when i switch tanks i change my settings a bit.