Does the size of the "combustion chamber" has any effect on vaping performance?

[paulw2014]

Say you got 2 dripping attys, both has single coil, both have side air holes, and the air holes are the same distance from the coil on both.

However, one atty has a diameter of 15 mm, while another has diameter of 30. Will the larger "chamber" cause more air to dilute the vape?

 

[Hypatia]

30mm? That's HUGE! Lol, my largest rda is 20mm wide, so that's where I'm coming from. Yeah, IME, my 20mm Helios is "more airy" than my tiny 14-15mm rda's. The bigger ones require different builds, I use the bigger for dual coil, sub-ohm builds and such. I do use a lot more wick (long tails) in the Helios. That way, it makes the "usable" chamber volume less and helps concentrate the vapor.

My "regular" (single coil, 1.5-ish ohm range) builds go in my little RDA's, which interestingly, produce intense flavor and vapor on par with a sub-ohm build. Not "cloud chasing" by any means, but crazy intense flavor can be had a little easier with a smaller RDA in a moderate ohm range.

Of course, these are MY builds, others' will vary as will experiences.

 

[paulw2014]

Is it true that the closer the air hole is to the coil, the better the vape?

 

[Weizenheimer]

Yeah smaller chambers seem to produce better flavor. It is true that more air flowing over the coil is better.

 

[emus]

Is it true that the closer the air hole is to the coil, the better the vape?

My gold standard mouth to lung inhale topper is 14.5 mm; beats my 22 mm toppers.
Coil position relative to air hole makes a huge distance.
Short of nano wind tunnel testing, trial and error is needed to fine tune coil position.

If coil is too close to air feed, flow is restricted and vapor quality suffers. This seems to happen with coil closer than about 1 mm to air feed.

My starting point is 1 mm to 2 mm distance between coil face and air feed. This works on 14.5 mm and 22 mm toppers set up for mouth to lung with air hole just over 1 mm. I fine tune by adjusting coil elevation.

Lung hit large air holes toppers coils can be positioned farther from air hole.

 

[Bunnykiller]

Im on the other side of the fence on this one.... my RSST gives a better "juicer" hit than the HC3.1 KFC and the RSST has a "huge" air volume compared to the 3.1 ( about 3X more volume) I feel its more of a coil size length/contact with wick ratio that produces hit quality...

 

[zanedog]

no no no! It's a vaporizing chamber lol.

The size of the chamber has an effect, as do many other variable. They are linked together, one has effect on the other. Engineering all of the variables to work together will always be a trade off. As emus has stated, it is trial and error. Perhaps there will be an app that will model all the variables, and output a beautifully rendered simulation to work from. Civilization might just bomb themselves back into the stone age before that happens. Trial and error will do for now.

 

[NiburianElf]

My gold standard mouth to lung inhale topper is 14.5 mm; beats my 22 mm toppers.
Coil position relative to air hole makes a huge distance.
Short of nano wind tunnel testing, trial and error is needed to fine tune coil position.

If coil is too close to air feed, flow is restricted and vapor quality suffers. This seems to happen with coil closer than about 1 mm to air feed.

My starting point is 1 mm to 2 mm distance between coil face and air feed. This works on 14.5 mm and 22 mm toppers set up for mouth to lung with air hole just over 1 mm. I fine tune by adjusting coil elevation.

Lung hit large air holes toppers coils can be positioned farther from air hole.

Which topper is that? Looking for a small dripper/topper for a friends tiny mod.

 

[emus]

Which topper is that? Looking for a small dripper/topper for a friends tiny mod.

IGO-F

 

[trouble1000]

I have noticed with my Kayfuns that the chamber/chimney size is one of the things that can affect the vape. The one that I got that has a smaller chimney does give slightly better flavour than the standard chimney sizes. But I did need to drill out the airhole on it, to get as much vapour as my other Kayfuns. As others have said though, there's a lot of other variables that can come into play too. I try and optimize coil build, wick density, coil position and airflow on each topper - does take a bit of practice though

 

[EvilZoe]

Does size matter or is it the motion of the potion?


But back to the topic, I've found the answer to be the TYPE of the topper rather than the size of it.

 

[paulw2014]

Okay, so some says that size of the chimney/vaporization chamber doesn't matter and some say it makes a difference.

To those of you who think it matters:

are you sure it's not due to the greater distance between the coil and the air hole, rather than the size of the chamber itself?

The way I think about it, when you vape, you take in a mixture of the vapor and air. The amount of vapor is determined by how long you hold down the firing switch. The amount of air you take in is determined by the size of the air hole. So therefore, I don't think the size of the chimney makes that much of a difference. I mean, we breath in 500 ml of air per inhale, 1 or 2 ml of extra "chimney space" isn't going to matter. Just like having a longer drip tip should only cools the vapor, but shouldn't dilute it in any significant way...

what do you think?

 

[sonicdsl]

Moved to Rebuildable Atomizer Systems

 

[Wicked & Coiled]

In my mind it adds up to the vapor not being allowed to dissipate or commingle with a larger air volume due to a reduced chamber. The Ithaka and Kayfun don't allow excess air other than what is drawn onto the coil. The vapor is restricted to a small space, and then even reduced further as it moves into the chimney. May also have to do with the air coming from the bottom, less than a mm away from the coil.

I just see the chimney-style atties offering a denser vapor than an IGO-W which has quite a large space inside of which the newly-created vapor can thin out.

 

[SkvLTD]

I feel that yes, it does. Bigger chimney gives you more room to come up with a crazier coil build to get taste X. A smaller chimney requires far less of a coil and wick to get that same taste X. I personally like efficiency and lower wattage, so smaller chimneys more than do it for me.

 

[superstardj]

From what I have experienced, yes - My first rebuildable was a Patriot RDA (genuine) which performed very well...Just got my Atomic in yesterday and it is smaller than the patriot---It does seem that it is a warmer more dense vape.

 

[UncleChuck]

I've yet to find an atty that produces as strong of a flavor, or produces as much vapor on such little power as the ERA. It's similar in size to the Igo-F, Igo-S, RM2, etc, very small chamber volume. I'm assuming the other small attys listed will perform similarly I just haven't had the chance to own them yet.

Personally I feel a smaller chamber will give stronger flavor but not always better flavor. The AGI in dripper mode has a HUGE chamber, bigger than anything else I've ever used, and on some juices I can detect some more nuanced flavors that I don't pickup on small chambered attys, but overall flavor seems muted and less in your face. The flavor muting might allow some less potent flavors to come through, honestly I have no idea of the reasons, just sharing things I've noticed.

It might also have something to do with the large surface area, not only the larger volume, when dealing with larger attys. With a larger chamber you are going to have a much larger surface area inside the chamber where vapor can touch/interact with more than it would in a smaller atty. Maybe a larger chamber encourages condensation more, or cools the vapor as it touches the walls, something going on that slightly alters the flavor between large and small chambered attys.

Whoever mentioned coil position made a ton of sense too. I use long legs and always extend coils right in front of the air hole so it's not usually an issue for me, but it seems many people like to keep their legs as short as possible, and will then have coils really far away from the air hole on larger attys, which will definitely give an airy vape.

Everyone knows to line their holes up vertically and horizontally, but it seems less are concerned with butting their coils right up against the air hole, which always seems to give a much thicker more substantial feeling and looking vapor in my experience.

 

[Gonzi]

Can't think of much to add, yes, small chambers produce more concentrated flavor, IMO. For me, big chambers requires dual coils and a lot of power to compensate for all the extra room, to make sure that all that air that you inhale is well saturated with a juicy vapor that will knock you off your feet.

 

[Gonzi]

Can't think of much to add, yes, small chambers produce more concentrated flavor, IMO. For me, big chambers requires dual coils and a lot of power to compensate for all the extra room, to make sure that all that air that you inhale is well saturated with a juicy vapor that will knock you off your feet.

I don't know why they sensored my post, I just wrote vapor that is juicy, just in reversed order

 

[SkvLTD]

I just don't see a point in having to build hotter coils to squeeze out next to the same kind of flavor. With small chambers you can always cut some of the power and close down some of the air flow to control what you're getting out of it, but if you have to squeeze big ones for all they're worth it's very inefficient.