dual coil?

[mwa102464]

OK, I got my DC Carto's today unexpectedly I didn't think I would see them until tomorrow. First off let me state I truly believe that there has been a couple different runs of these things and one or two of those runs the QC hasn't been up to par simply because there is a lot of controversy over these and half the people are crazy about them and the other half are saying they suck so that's my first thought before trying them.

I purchased my DC Carto's from one of my two Nic suppliers Andrew from Crystal Clear vaping ( Top notch extra clean Nic ) I feel I needed to say where I purchased them from because I just wanted to let everyone know that this is the lot of DC Carto's I'm working with.


I started off by filling one of these by means of a syringe and also used the condom fill method, both work great with this filling technique. I then screwed one on and started with a 1000mAh Ego Batt and by the way I am using two carto's, one dually in the clear plastic and one in the steel with a black wrapper both with the same liquid just to see if there is a difference using the two different materials. The only difference I found was a very faint taste of the plastic on the plastic carto's which wasn't found on the steel Carto, the steel is stronger and will take much more abuse.

Running them on the Ego at 3.4v they put out a good bit of vapor but the flavor was very muted and just not much taste to them at all (Compared to the Iken product )

Next I put them on my Provari, I quickly moved up the scale to 3.7-4.2-4.4, then 4.6 the 4.6 actually started to taste OK and not bad at all, then bumped up to 4.8 then 5.0v this was the sweet spot on these carto's ( 4.6v-5.0v ) there was no doubt about it. I then tried to go higher but my Provari kept giving me an error code. I switched and put the cartos in my Reo Grand and 2 x 3.2v LifePO4 AW's and ran them at 6v, way to hot at 6v and I enjoy 6v it is my daily vape with an Iken 3.5ohm HV-510 running a top of almost all my mods, 6v with these just isnt any good to me. The vapor at 4.6-5.0v turned into that creamier looking vapr and the taste exploded compared to the lower voltages but not an explosion like say a V2-Gold Dripper, Fusion, Mega, any of the other Iken product range of carto's. Do I sound like an Iken fan, ya I do, however anyone that knows me knows I tell it like it is. The Iken product of Carto's smokes the Dual Coil in taste and vapor in my opinion, and just to throw in there it's the same with the Iken Atomizer it is the smoothest by far of all Atty's, back to my findings now.

The filler, the filler is a very fluffy burn ......ant type filler and this is one place Issac would come in on these if he decided to work with them amongst other things (Later)

I started thinking here about the dual heating elements, and said to myself ok these are 3ohm each, what if we tweaked these coils and tried 5ohm each as well as going up to 6ohm, 6.5ohm and in between ? ( looking for input on this ) ( Switched, Zen ? ) then I started thinking OK what if we had 3-4 coils and played with the ohms a little bit ( Issac, switched, Zen others ???) what would happen if we had a quad coil 6-6.5 ohm each and ran these at 6v OMG the light bulb went off immediately again and I thought these could really be something if Issac wanted to put a little bit of his own spin on these. ( Issac, Switched, anyone else ?? ) So I will have to let the supreme modders possibly try to play with this Idea because I simply don't have the time or patience it's not my forte ( I'm more about the designing and creating ) so time will tell if some of you guys want to play with this idea. I know it takes time and money but I think the possibilities are there with these dual carto's or more than dual.!

Conclusion: Another new product that was introduced before it was ran through it's paces to seek perfection and possibly a few different designs in more coils and different ohm coils as well as possibly a different inside blanket or wrapping to produce a better yield in flavor. Bottom line is, as is these are just OK, they lack in the flavor Dept and they need more R&D. They need to be ran through different paces and some more all around experimenting to see exactly what these things can really produce, not to use all of us as Beta tester and to just make sales.

It also doesn't surprise me that they have seemed to rush another product to market just to make more sales off all of us here in the states like much of the mass of junk products that are coming at us from China. I really wished these guys would take twice the time to create product then take more time on quality of the machining process and not rush to get it to sales. There is way to much junk out there being thrown at all of us and this product needs to be researched some more. Issac you would have a field day with these you need to grab a 5pack just to run them so you can see some of the things I'm speaking about. I'm more than sure you could come up with a design with your engineers that would blow the current manufacturers product out of the water. I think the initial thought here on these is good, Issac you could make them fabulous if you wanted to yours would be ous

 

[Zen~]

4 coils at 4ohms each will net you a 1 ohm load... Your ProVari will shut down instantly... Your eGo will pop it's mosfet... I would be interested in seeing two 5-6 ohm coils... That would net to 2.5-3 ohms, and the vape at 6 volts should be pretty good with a ton of coil area... The problem I see is the net resistance... It would be better to aim high, and give the power supply a chance to do it's thing.

 

[mwa102464]

4 coils at 4ohms each will net you a 1 ohm load... Your ProVari will shut down instantly... Your eGo will pop it's mosfet... I would be interested in seeing two 5-6 ohm coils... That would net to 2.5-3 ohms, and the vape at 6 volts should be pretty good with a ton of coil area... The problem I see is the net resistance... It would be better to aim high, and give the power supply a chance to do it's thing.

Yes Zen thank you I edited it, I should have said 2-5, 6, and 6.5ohm coils I believe.! Also as I said in my post my Provari even shut down with these cartos somewhere in the 5v or higher range

 

[Zen~]

Yes Zen, this is why I am not a modder and more about creating new stuff, you are correct I'm more than sure, and one of the reasons I asked for you and switched to comment on your thoughts, sorry if I made errors in my calcs I should have said 2 - 6.5 coils I believe.! Also as I said in my post my Provari even shut down with these cartos somewhere in the 5v or higher range

That's more like it... Two 6.5s will net you 3.25 ohms... Much friendlier load... The only question I have is about the logarithmic nature of all of this... Two coils will not produce twice the heat... I asked an engineer I know to spell it out for me in lay terms... He laughed at me and said things are never linear in the world of thermodynamics... Doubling the power increases heat output by a fraction of the original output at the original power...

For example, if a coil produces 200 degrees with 10 watts of power, then putting double the power into the same coil will produce 203 degrees... It would take 100 watts to double the heat, or roughly ten times the power... Things are not simple linear calculations.

Similarly, two coils of equal resistance will net a load that demands twice the power, and the supply will, in theory double the wattage if the supply can keep up. BUT this will not produce 200 degrees... The coils are less efficient when used in this way, and losses in the system will come into play...

So the bad news is multiple coils equals a loss in efficiency... But an increase in surface area has other benefits, toss enough power at the two coils and the benefit is more surface area heating distributes the heat across more eliquid and vapor production increases... It will take gobs of power...

So let's look at a practical application that he explained to me... He said to imagine a room that is at 60 degrees, and let's say you want to raise the temperature in that room to 80 degrees.

Get yourself a space heater and turn that bad boy on... In time... It raises the temp to 80 degrees... So we can be certain that the space heater changed the room temp to 80 degrees.... Will adding another space heater cause the room to double in temp, to 160 degrees? Not a chance... You will be spending twice the money on electricity while raising the temp another couple of degrees!

Now, let's send 1/2 the available power to one space heater and the other half to the second heater... Will that keep the room at 80? No it will not, because the heating coils are not as efficient operating at half power.

The folks that have argued ohms law with regard to this have not taken into account that the heating coil in an carto does not energize in a linear fashion... It is very inefficient at lower power...

Your experience today really does demonstrate this in a big way... You had to push the ProVari to the limit to get the carto into it's efficient range... Asking the PV to deliver a whopping 5+ volts into a 1.5 ohm load... A single coil at 1.5 ohms will be hotter than blue blazes.... Dual is just warming up.

Interesting stuff.

 

[atavanhalen]

Thanks for your thoughts mwa, it is pretty sad they way that we beta test for the chinese. It is also a real bummer that it is a crap shoot deciding who to order them from (this wouldnt be so if there was a ikenvape dualie)but so far I have been pretty lucky. The one bad one I got did not have a slot in the pos connector so it did not have airflow. One thing that you did not mention was throat hit, how was that for you. The throat hit is my favorite thing about these things.

Zen, I will say that you are correct, this design is not the most efficient, I have definitely noticed that my batteries do not last as long but on the other hand, I really dont care about the diminished batt life because of the smack in the back of the throat that I get without a burning taste. I usually have to go to 6 volts to get that but cartos cant handle that, not for very long at least. I actually mostly use these at 4.0 or so and I enjoy them at that voltage but I get poor vapor production and the flavor is not as good as it is at 5 or 6 but like I said earlier that trade off for the throat hit is fine with me.

 

[Timothy Cullen]

i like how the DC are shaping up in reviews. but if issac does try this or just a note to somebody out there in the vaping ether. instead of adding more coils we should try different postions of the 2. like horizontal instead of vertical. the bloog maxfusion cartos are horizontal i belive. and they apparently work amazing. id love to beta test that. or try a longer coil. like streched out 3/4 of the way to distrubute the heat. idk just proposing ideas.

 

[mwa102464]

Zen,

I here what your saying but where not talking about the area of a room, and sometimes you have to throw theory out the window when trying new ideas, look at what the dually coil has brought to this very small space, it has dispersed the heat from one area of the carto to two areas of the carto thus not putting all of the heating element into one place. Therefore dispersing the heat into two different zones per say, kind of like your example here but - like a house has 2-3 different heating zones and it is much more efficient than just one zone, can you feel that ? this is my thoughts here behind a triple or even better a quad coil it will disburse the heat from 4 different positions in the carto making it heat more efficiently and take the liquid from 4 different places instead of one or two, I'm thinking one in each corner of the circle carto if you could picture this and look at the carto as a square instead of a circle. I also would like to make the carto jumbo sized, not to big only a little bit bigger of a radius. I have spoken to Smoketech this evening and have one of the salesman asking there engineers a couple of questions for me as well. I think the filler in these things are bad, I wondered what they would be like with the 400ss wicking material was used as well as being wrapped with filler like Boge uses and Issac uses but not quite as much of it leaving more room for juice. Just some thoughts !

PS. The only reason I happen to speak to one of Smoketech people is because I happen to know one of them and we where having a discussion on Skype, it was quite interesting at that.

 

[EvilGnome6]

Thanks for the review, mwa. My initial impressions are pretty similar to yours but a tad more positive. As I'm using these, I'm finding that it does take 8-12 hours before they really hit their stride. They are also more flavorful with a very long, slow drag.

 

[EvilGnome6]

So let's look at a practical application that he explained to me... He said to imagine a room that is at 60 degrees, and let's say you want to raise the temperature in that room to 80 degrees.

There are a few flaws with this analogy.

Let's start with one heater in a 60 degree room and you use it to raise the temperature to 80 degrees. This means that you've increased the temperature by 20 degrees. To suggest that adding a second heater wouldn't increase the temperature to 160 degrees (an increase of 100 degrees) as evidence of inefficiency is... well... absurd.

We're also not talking about a situation of running two heaters at half power and expecting the same results as a single heater at full power. It is fascinating that it wouldn't be the same, but that's besides the point.

What the Dual Coil cartomizers do is run two heaters, at full power, in one room. This is in contrast to one heater, at full power, in one room. The real question is whether two heaters, at full power, in one room will heat it faster than one heater, at double power, in one room.

Considering the other thing he said:

For example, if a coil produces 200 degrees with 10 watts of power, then putting double the power into the same coil will produce 203 degrees... It would take 100 watts to double the heat, or roughly ten times the power... Things are not simple linear calculations.

If you need to put ten times as much power into the same coil to double the heat, then it is an argument FOR the dual coil. You could have two coils producing 200 degrees each for a mere 20 watts of power versus a single coil drawing 100 watts to double the heat.

 

[pizza2me]

Quick question. I got some DCs from avidvaper. XLs I think they were called. Are they the same as what you all are talking about? Are they actually made by smoketech? (Somebody told me Smoketech was the only one they knew that was making DCs, but I seem to think I've seen different types)

Is there only one DC out there right now? Just being sold by diff vendors? Or is there diff DCs?

 

[Switched]

Good review Matt. Yes it does seem a little bias, but the technical data is therein contained.

second observation...

I as well agree with Zen in part but do not agree with some of the explanations as they are indeed flawed.

Plugging two heaters in a room to raise the temp 20 degrees will get you at 80 quicker, that is a no brainer. The downside is you are using twice as much power to get there, which in turn is not actually true, but a fraction less than double perhaps (doesn't take as long to come up to temp), therefore theoretically more efficient. Without running the experiment on test equipment these observations of course are pure conjecture.

OTOH the aforementioned statement is with an unlimited power supply or two separate circuits. Plug both heaters on the same circuit and chances are you will blow the breaker. e.g plugging a toaster and a kettle on the same circuit, the resistive load is too great and pops the breaker, hence why building code dictates running split plugs (separate circuits for top and bottom).

Now lets apply the same analogy to our power sources. It is not an unlimited source but fixed by its container and its chemistry. What kind of draw are we placing on the battery?

• @ 5V we are drawing 3.3A for 16.6W per coil or 6.6A; and
• @ 6V we are drawing 4A for 24 watts per coil or 8A.

The Provari with its safety features as an over current lock out at 3A (I believe) as experienced by Matt where his unit shut down at HV.

Now I know that each coil will not deliver the aforementioned wattage as experienced in the field by the users, this is where I sort of get loss, but the current demand based on Ohm's Law is definitely there (to its max discharge rate of the batt) unless my analogy is flawed. OTOH if my analogy is correct, then using these atomisers will definitely stress most batteries (= shortened duty cycle and life span), something I am not comfortable with especially in stacked applications, not to mention unprotected batts, which some folks still use. Just a word of caution in searching for Nirvana.

 

[EvilGnome6]

Now lets apply the same analogy to our power sources. It is not an unlimited source but fixed by its container and its chemistry. What kind of draw are we placing on the battery?

• @ 5V we are drawing 3.3A for 16.6W per coil or 6.6A; and
• @ 6V we are drawing 4A for 24 watts per coil or 8A.

The resistance of both coils in parallel is 1.5 Ohms:

@ 5V, I = 5/1.5 = 3.33 Amps total
@ 6V, I = 6/1.5 = 4 Amps total

Doing some quick poking around, it looks like the maximum discharge rate of an 18650 is a little over 4 Amps. Pushing the DCs up to 6V is running on the ragged edge of what the batteries can deliver.

 

[Switched]

Gotcha! OTOH AW can safely handle the load IMRs and all LI Ion batts above RCR123As (16340)

 

[mwa102464]

You gentleman really are more advance on the technical end of Ohms law and the math than I. However being in the RE Development business I do know some things about heaters and different zones and balancing the systems ( a little bit ) my question still lies in asking you gentleman what you think about a quad coil carto. I'm thinking that the tube size would be a little bit bigger of a radius then the current one being used but stuffing the ....... with quad coils and disbursing the heat from 4 areas rather then 2 and using lower ohms at each power point to get the total ohm output, thus not stressing the filler material as much yet sit achieving the perfect heating element to produce the vapor. As well as possibly using a 400 ss mesh lightly wrapped as a filler leaving more area for pure juice.

Will this 4 coil be even better than 2 ? it seems to me that two could be better than one as I use these DC's. So 4 may really be absolutely perfect. If we are cutting the power to the coil by 1/4 and each delivering 1/4 of the total power wouldn't this be very efficient transferring the power to 4 sources ? as well as not burning up the juice as 1 coil does in one spot to create the vapor. Also not heating that filler at each of the 4 points as much as normal but still giving us the total power we need. I'm a bit more concerned at this point more so about the actual carto right now than the power needed to make it work I think that's there one way or another.

After using these for another day : I make a small change in the sweet spot I have noted earlier. I now believe the sweet spot on the current build DC is 3.7-4.2 over my earlier 4.6-5v mentioned in my review. These carto's are getting to hot in the upper 4's to 5v range and flavor is best for me at this 3.7-4.2 once the carto is broken in

 

[Zen~]

Good review Matt. Yes it does seem a little bias, but the technical data is therein contained.

I as well agree with Zen in part but do not agree with some of the explanations as they are indeed flawed.

Plugging two heaters in a room to raise the temp 20 degrees will get you at 80 quicker, that is a no brainer. The downside is you are using twice as much power to get there, which in turn is not actually true, but a fraction less than double perhaps (doesn't take as long to come up to temp), therefore theoretically more efficient. Without running the experiment on test equipment these observations of course are pure conjecture.

OTOH the aforementioned statement is with an unlimited power supply or two separate circuits. Plug both heaters on the same circuit and chances are you will blow the breaker. e.g plugging a toaster and a kettle on the same circuit, the resistive load is too great and pops the breaker, hence why building code dictates running split plugs (separate circuits for top and bottom).

Now lets apply the same analogy to our power sources. It is not an unlimited source but fixed by its container and its chemistry. What kind of draw are we placing on the battery?

• @ 5V we are drawing 3.3A for 16.6W per coil or 6.6A; and
• @ 6V we are drawing 4A for 24 watts per coil or 8A.

The Provari with its safety features as an over current lock out at 3A (I believe) as experienced by Matt where his unit shut down at HV.

Now I know that each coil will not deliver the aforementioned wattage as experienced in the field by the users, this is where I sort of get loss, but the current demand based on Ohm's Law is definitely there (to its max discharge rate of the batt) unless my analogy is flawed. OTOH if my analogy is correct, then using these atomisers will definitely stress most batteries (= shortened duty cycle and life span), something I am not comfortable with especially in stacked applications, not to mention unprotected batts, which some folks still use. Just a word of caution in searching for Nirvana.

Lol... It wasn't me! I posted the comparison as it was explained to me... If it's flawed, it's flawed! Thermodynamics is outside my wheelhouse... The best I can do on my own is pure conjecture... But my gut tells me there's issues with the dual coil concept. These batteries don't play well with these loads on paper...

 

[ukeman]

I got a pak of smoktech DC from MadVapes today... black Mega 510's 1.5 (2 3.2 = 1.6 ohm). They also sell a 2.5 version.

I put a filled one on my Provari at 4v and after one hit, got E2 error... turned it down to 3.3 and after about 15 minutes of heavy vaping... E1 (dead atty).

Tried a second one on my eGo.... and it worked pretty good. Put it back on the Vari at 3.7v ... E2... dropped it to 3.4v and it's holding up...

Vape value.... pretty good all around... nothing spectacular imo.. ( i only drip so i can't compare cartos)...

I am wondering if i got the "wrong kind" since i haven't seen anything HV about it ... should i kick it up? (raise the voltage)

 

[EvilGnome6]

Will this 4 coil be even better than 2 ? it seems to me that two could be better than one as I use these DC's. So 4 may really be absolutely perfect. If we are cutting the power to the coil by 1/4 and each delivering 1/4 of the total power wouldn't this be very efficient transferring the power to 4 sources ?

We're already running on the ragged edge of current delivery of many batteries with these Dual Coils. If we divide the current even further we're not going to be able to get each coil hot enough to vaporize properly. We would have to start using more/bigger batteries to feed enough power to 4 coils.

 

[Switched]

We're already running on the ragged edge of current delivery of many batteries with these Dual Coils. If we divide the current even further we're not going to be able to get each coil hot enough to vaporize properly. We would have to start using more/bigger batteries to feed enough power to 4 coils.

... unless we start running 2 large cell IMRs in parallel, which IMO is getting to be border line ridiculous.

 

[Switched]

Lol... It wasn't me! I posted the comparison as it was explained to me... If it's flawed, it's flawed! Thermodynamics is outside my wheelhouse... The best I can do on my own is pure conjecture... But my gut tells me there's issues with the dual coil concept. These batteries don't play well with these loads on paper...

I know Matt, I edited my post as second observation

 

[atavanhalen]

I got a pak of smoktech DC from MadVapes today... black Mega 510's 1.5 (2 3.2 = 1.6 ohm). They also sell a 2.5 version.

I put a filled one on my Provari at 4v and after one hit, got E2 error... turned it down to 3.3 and after about 15 minutes of heavy vaping... E1 (dead atty).

Tried a second one on my eGo.... and it worked pretty good. Put it back on the Vari at 3.7v ... E2... dropped it to 3.4v and it's holding up...

Vape value.... pretty good all around... nothing spectacular imo.. ( i only drip so i can't compare cartos)...

I am wondering if i got the "wrong kind" since i haven't seen anything HV about it ... should i kick it up? (raise the voltage)

You wont be able to kick it up on the provari, you would need to use something that does not have the over current protection.

edit; So I think a lot of people are mistaking the single coil 2.5ohms with the dual. From what I can tell, madvapes only sells the 1.5ohm dual coils, the other ones you noticed were the same brand but are just a single coil at 2.5ohms.