Lol, right?Thanks for resurrecting this thread and providing such wonderful insight.
But seriously, this discussion is new to me, so I'd like to add to it, if I may. Bear in mind that although I do my reading, I vape between 3.5 and 4.2 volts at around 2 ohms of resistance, so I'm not exactly experienced when it comes to the matter at hand.
It is my understanding that there are two ways you can go about attaining higher wattages (which, with certain delivery systems, lends itself to better vapor production and flavor.) You can either up your voltage or lower your resistance. There is a clear trade-off to doing either.
According to ohm's law, lowering the resistance will increase power (W) at a set voltage, but will also demand more current (I, or amps, as lowering resistance increases current.) Increasing your voltage at a set resistance can achieve the same wattage increase but will not require as much amperage in order to do so.
If you think of voltage as the initial water pressure coming out from a spigot valve, then you can also say that you can either increase the water pressure (voltage) or you can increase the net water flow (amperage) to get the same amount of force from the water coming from the end of the hose (wattage.) Whether the water is flowing through the the hose at a faster rate or you are pumping more water through that same hose at a slower rate, you get the same force from the stream coming out of the hose. The only difference with electronics is that you can simply widen the hose to get more flow, whereas you would need a higher-flow valve to get more water at the same pressure with plumbing. The flow of current naturally increases simply by lowering the resistance (widening the hose.) The valve essentially adapts to deliver the same pressure through the wider hose. Basically, you can either run less water (lower amperage) with more pressure (high voltage) through a narrow hose (more resistance) or run more water (higher amperage) with less pressure (low voltage) through a wider hose (less resistance.)
At any given moment, which of the two would take less water to produce the same stream at the end of the hose?
When you think of it like this, it's easier to see how a high voltage/high resistance setup can be more efficient than a low voltage/low resistance vape in terms of the amount of mahs required from the battery. In order to get the same wattage with the latter, you are going to need more current. A high voltage vape requires less current to produce the same wattage because there is more "pressure" behind the current, therefor increasing the voltage is going to be easier on the battery/circuitry than decreasing the resistance. Increase either volts (directly, by increasing voltage) or amps (indirectly, by decreasing resistance) and you will get more watts. The former makes for a more powerful flow of electrons, while the latter makes for a greater flow of electrons. You can thus have less electrons traveling with greater force to produce a given amount of power or more electrons traveling with less force to produce equivalent power. The latter is going to drain your battery more quickly and strain your circuitry harder, as it will expend more electrons in a given time span to deliver equivalent power.
A higher wattage is of course going to require more from the battery either way, but between increasing voltage and decreasing resistance, the former should theoretically lead to significantly longer battery life. It all comes down to the amperage levels. More volts means less amps per watt and vice versa. More amps = more electrons passing through in a given time frame to provide energy = more battery charge expended at any any given time. More volts = less electrons passing through in a given time frame to provide energy = less battery charge expended at a given time.
The thermodynamics of resistance wires are a different story though. It may very well be true that a low-ohm coil may heat up differently than a high-ohm coil run at the same wattage level.
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