Looking to delve fully into Cloud Chasing, but need your help!

[dravell]

The new high power regulated mods will put out more power than a mech can, its just a fact. To get even near that wattage on a mech youd have to build under 0.1, and the voltage drop on a mech that low is so big you just arent getting there. Not to mention its much safer on a regulated device since you dont have to go that low on builds. I used to run 0.08ohm builds when I used mechs for cloud chasing, I have completely moved away from using mechanicals as the current regulated devices just perform much better and offer a lot more.
IPV3, sigelei 100+, sigelei 150, all good options and all $100 or less if you shop around.
For RDA there are a lot of good options. The Doge V2, Mutation X V2, Little Boy, CLT V2 Plus, all have massive airflow (which is an absolute must at high wattage) and chuff style drip caps.
With all that said, it sounds like youve never even built a RDA, possibly even a coil period before. If that is the case I IMPLORE you to start smaller on the wattage, learn to walk before you run. You can still buy one of those high powered boxes and use it at lower wattage until you learn it all, same with the RDA, but go slow build some more conservative builds and work your way up on wattage.
Also get good batteries like the VTC4/5, Samsung 25R, etc and have a dedicated brand new pair for that device.

 

[Yojimbo82]

I keep seeing the OP talking about which mod puts out bigger clouds. It's not about the mod as much as the atty on top of it. The iPV3 and Sig100W will both put out power, but you need an arty with huge airflow to handle all that power.

My personal favorite is the CLT V2+ with a close second being a Stillare with a chuff cap. Good flavor, good cloudage.


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[TheJakeBailey]

OP, you are kind of scaring me. I mean no disrespect, but for the months and months of research you've put into this, your basic knowledge seems pretty wanting. You don't seem to have a firm grasp on the difference between a mech, and a vv/vw, how RDA's work, wicking, airflow, etc. Then there is ohms law, and how resistance/voltage effect each other, and the results on your vape. Then lets talk about building the actual coil... what is your experience level with that??? Time to dig in and do some real research. Knowledge is power my friend.

 

[TheJakeBailey]

Personally when I go to the cloud competition I now use a Sigelei 100W+ with an authentic Origen RDA built with a pair of .4 ohm 28 gauge kanthal coils with synthetic cotton for a final resistance of .2 ohm set at 75 watts. Drip with pure VG (no need to try for flavor when blowing clouds) and wind up in the finals every time.

FWIW, if you haven't chased clouds with pure VG before be prepared because most people don't realize how sweet the juice is, it's like straight sugar.

Long time no see brother. Hope all is well!

 

[Brandon Rauls]

I just bought an OHM Reader, 18650 35A 2500 mAheFest Batteries, Battery Charger, Wire Cutters, Needle Nose Plier, 6 PC Set of Tweezers, Coil Jig, 28 Guage Kanthol Wire, KOGA Japanese Cotton a Mutation X RDA 18 Air Holes, and an IPV3 Box Mod, I'm ready to do this. xD

As for actually building the coils, I have no experience at all yet, I'm gonna be practicing making coils first before I even put them on the atty, and I'm looking to build down to .02 OHMS

 

[catalinaflyer]

Long time no see brother. Hope all is well!

Yes sir, long time no see, I kind of got out of the forums after a certain "knowledgeable" individual was made a moderator and like ones home, I gravitated back home here to ECF.

Finished my 1 year contract in Toledo almost 2 months early so moved back home to Kansas and just picked up a 5 year contract out of Red Oak, Texas that I started the 28th of December. Luckily we stay at our home in Kansas for this one and the wifey unit has said that was our last move so once this one is complete and if I don't get an extension I'll probably go back to freelancing around the Wichita area (retire).

Back on topic-sort of, I tried chasing clouds back when I first started vaping but back then a high powered VV/VW would go all the way up to, wait, it's huge......... 15 Watts. So if one wanted to make a cloud it required a mechanical with high drain battery and carefully measuring resistance down to a 100th of an ohm. Time passes, I happily vape my carto's given to me by another member for a year of which I still have 12 that I haven't opened. Then I finish my contract in Ohio and move back home to Kansas and my very first stop was back at my original Vape Shop that got me started. The owner was standing there with an IPV3 and an authentic Origen dripper he handed me to try. I was blown away, the flavor was out of this world, the vapor was off the chart and this thing was a simple dual micro coil at .8 ohms, not .08 but .8. So I made my usual juice purchase, took another hit on his setup then as I was walking out the door he sent it home with me to "try out a while",

Now I own my own IPV3, Sigelei 100W, and 100W+, the same Origen RDA, an Aspire Atlantis and blow through more juice in a week than I used to use in over a month. Oh and I don't have to worry about blowing up a battery, wrapping a perfect .02 ohm coil or recharging after just 25 hits. I get great clouds and flavor from my Atlantis then when I want to make a fog I screw on the Origen, run the wattage up and add a few drops of VG - clouds!

In fact I'm sitting here right now with my Sigelei 100W with a pair of....wait..... Efest 1600 V1 batteries in it, the Origen on top set at 45 Watts completely fogging my office with Heavenly Custard Elixir from Dixie. The screen says that the coils are at .6 ohms and I'm only using 5.5V to get said clouds (yes I know, before we start splitting hairs, ohms law says that at 5.5 volt on a .6 ohm coil I'm making 50.4 watts but I don't care, it's working and so what if the onboard software is off a little bit). Now if this were a mech I would not be getting clouds at .6 ohms and each vape would be less than the one before till the battery bottomed out.

Cloud chasing today is similar to a year ago in name only, the advances in hardware have changed the game completely.

 

[Jimi D.]

Surface heating area makes huge clouds. This is the beginning of a 0.8 ohm dual. A mech would take forever to heat up. This is why the high wattage boxes are better.

 

[catalinaflyer]

I just bought an OHM Reader, 18650 35A 2500 mAheFest Batteries, Battery Charger, Wire Cutters, Needle Nose Plier, 6 PC Set of Tweezers, Coil Jig, 24 Guage Kanthol Wire, KOGA Japanese Cotton a Mutation X RDA 18 Air Holes, and an IPV3 Box Mod, I'm ready to do this. xD

As for actually building the coils, I have no experience at all yet, I'm gonna be practicing making coils first before I even put them on the atty, and I'm looking to build down to .02 OHMS

I don't know much but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once and with that I don't think the IPV will even fire a .02 ohm build. Try something in the .4 to .8 range since your using a VV/VW mod. IMO you won't get nearly as much vapor from a .02 ohm as you will a .4.

 

[HecticEnergy]

Mmm.... Scary... Jumping in the ocean without learning to swim first... There's reading about swimming, then there's doing it.. You can read all you want but until you get in the pool and learn to tread water first it's dangerous...
I'd start a bit higher, some where around 1 ohm with single coils.
I'm glad you said you wanted to learn how to safely do it!
One question you asked I didn't see answered was what's the difference between a $300 mech and a $100 regulated mod: usually it's because of where it's made. It simply costs more to produce something in the US. You are also paying for quality assurance, as most Chinese manufactures have low or no QC. some of the cost is unrelated to costs of product production and the manufacture figures what price their target market will bear.
I agree with most of the other posters here, there is little advantage to using a mech with the products available on the market today- with a mech you have fixed voltage (battery load) so to get more wattage you need to drop the ohms. With a regulated mod it can boost the voltage so you can build at higher ohms and adjust the voltage above the raw load available on the battery, using higher amps to achieve your desired wattage, thus super subohming is not necessary. It's also regulated, so your vape quality does not drop as the battery voltage drops with discharge (fully charged batteries put out around 4.2v, slowly draining. I think most recommend recharging around 3.5v to prevent damage to the battery cells).
Batteries: get good quality, high amp batteries like the Sony vtc4 or Samsung 25r. There are tons of knockoffs out there marketed as the real thing, so be sure to buy from a reputable source like rtdvapor, illumination supply, or sun vapors. I'm sure there are others, but those are touted here on ECF pretty regularly. Don't buy from fasttech, Amazon or ebay for your batteries.
I haven't seen a charge port for mods that use two batteries, so you also need to buy a quality charger. I use the nitecore i4 and an xtar 2 bay charger for travel.

As far as what wire to get, I'd start with 25' or so of 28ga and maybe 26ga for after you get your chops up. Maybe that plume or something like a tugboat, or stillare to start with as you can do single coil, and use them to move to dual coils. Something like the dodge may work as you can cut the airflow down quite a bit, but I think it's built for dual coils only.
Not all ohm readers are created equal. Some have a margin of error of .1 ohm, but building in a regulated mod should protect you a bit more as it reads resistance as well as having other protections.
There is a lot more to creating vapor than building low, slapping a wick in, and applying juice. Getting wicking down can take a bit of tweaking, as well as getting the correct amount of airflow for your coil... To make fire you need fire, oxygen and fuel. Vapor isn't much different, you need heat, something to vaporize and oxygen. Not enough air and its getting too hot and boiling the liquid, too much and it can't get hot enough. Surface area of the coil is also important as a bigger fire burns more fuel, a wider coil will potentially vaporize more juice,

It's all a balancing act. Spaced coils have more surface area, but Microcoils build more eat and are generally easy to wick.

As far as gear goes, it sounds to me like the other posters have made some great recommendations.
I hope all that makes sense. Have fun and be safe!



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[Asbestos4004]

.02 ohms is where you're going to be building? You should practice wrapping coils one handed. Practice with each hand. If you wrap better with your right hand, fire your mod with your left.

CATALINA!!!!!

 

[Brandon Rauls]

Yeah, I missed that entirely, the IPV3 won't even fire at .03 OHMS from what I've read, Handles up to a 3.0 and handles down to a .1, so I'm thinking about doing a 2 OHM build as I want the most clouds possible, I'm all about them clouds, idk why, xD

 

[smacksy]

As stated before, I don't think you'd go wrong with the IPV3..I don't have to build low .15 ohm coils like I have to for my mechs to get thick, milky white clouds..
I still like my mechs for clouds but this box mod is growing on me..actually I can't seem to put it down.. Lol


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[catalinaflyer]

Yeah, I missed that entirely, the IPV3 won't even fire at .03 OHMS from what I've read, Handles up to a 3.0 and handles down to a .1, so I'm thinking about doing a 2 OHM build as I want the most clouds possible, I'm all about them clouds, idk why, xD

Now your thinking too far the other way, Shoot for a pair of 2 ohm coils giving you 1 ohm and I think you'll find the clouds your looking for. Too far either way and your getting out of the "ideal zone". For example to get a moderate 50 watts at 2 ohms would require 10.0 volts. A pair of 18650's in series makes 8.4 fully charged. Yes you can get more voltage out of the mod than the actual voltage of the batteries but why when you can build a lower ohm setup and not draw too much voltage without going so low that your drawing way too much amperage. A pair of 2 ohm coils which end up being 1 ohm will only require 8.66 volts drawing 8.66 amps to make 75 watts. Or if you drop the voltage to what the batteries are putting out (8.4v) then you'll be making 70 watts. Now if your were to build the .02 ohm coil talked about earlier and try to fire it at a very moderate 50 watts you would only need 1 volt however you would be drawing 50 amps (blowing up battery range).

Again, all my opinion and ohms law but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once and have been vaping for a while. I've successfully blown up a couple of LiPo batteries in the past (RC Drones not e-cig's) and I can guarantee you that you do not want a thermal event in your hand, the taste of burning flesh will ruin your cloud.

 

[smacksy]

Now your thinking too far the other way, Shoot for a pair of 2 ohm coils giving you 1 ohm and I think you'll find the clouds your looking for. Too far either way and your getting out of the "ideal zone". For example to get a moderate 50 watts at 2 ohms would require 10.0 volts. A pair of 18650's in series makes 8.4 fully charged. Yes you can get more voltage out of the mod than the actual voltage of the batteries but why when you can build a lower ohm setup and not draw too much voltage without going so low that your drawing way too much amperage. A pair of 2 ohm coils which end up being 1 ohm will only require 8.66 volts drawing 8.66 amps to make 75 watts. Or if you drop the voltage to what the batteries are putting out (8.4v) then you'll be making 70 watts. Now if your were to build the .02 ohm coil talked about earlier and try to fire it at a very moderate 50 watts you would only need 1 volt however you would be drawing 50 amps (blowing up battery range).

Again, all my opinion and ohms law but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once and have been vaping for a while. I've successfully blown up a couple of LiPo batteries in the past (RC Drones not e-cig's) and I can guarantee you that you do not want a thermal event in your hand, the taste of burning flesh will ruin your cloud.

Don't know about all that but I'm using the Dark Horse on the IPV3 running dual 24g macro coils at .51 ohms.. thick clouds, great flavor..on the other hand on my mech I build the Zenith with dual parallel 24g coils at .15 ohms that produce about the same clouds/vapor as the .51 ohm build in the IPV3...Both have their place in my cloud blowin' arsenal...but batt life is shorter on my mechs running those low .15 builds..on the other hand batt life is great on the IPV3 running the .5 ohm builds that fog up my room with just two good pulls so bad I can't see my 55" flat screen, trying to watch football! lol

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[EnigmaX]

I would suggest not doing anything until you do more research. If you try and build a .0X without a perfect setup, you're making a bomb in your pocket. Don't be the reason vaping has such a stigma. Also, .02 is too low for ANYTHING. I run .1 - .2 and I get really nice clouds with a dark horse on a paragon with vtc4's. There is so much more to producing vapor than low ohms. Surface area, materials, wicking method, juice, airflow, hitting method (yes, it really does matter!) riptrippers has a decent video on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CePIUN2-JiA

 

[readeuler]

Noteworthy is that fact that, on a regulated mod, your resistance has (to my understanding) no effect on the amperage or even battery life. Amperage on batteries can be calculated as wattage divided by current battery voltage (which could be 8.4 volts, if using two stacked 18650's, etc).

 

[catalinaflyer]

Don't know about all that but I'm using the Dark Horse on the IPV3 running dual 24g macro coils at .51 ohms.. thick clouds, great flavor..on the other hand on my mech I build the Zenith with dual parallel 24g coils at .15 ohms that produce about the same clouds/vapor as the .51 ohm build in the IPV3...Both have their place in my cloud blowin' arsenal...but batt life is shorter on my mechs running those low .15 builds..on the other hand batt life is great on the IPV3 running the .5 ohm builds that fog up my room with just two good pulls so bad I can't see my 55" flat screen, trying to watch football! lol

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And you just made my point, the .15 ohm on a fully charged battery using 4.1 volts (your probably not getting 4.2 volts out of the battery after the first micro-second of pressing the button due to battery droop) your making 112 watts but drawing 27.3 amps which is one #### of a drain on an 18650 battery. If you crank the .51 ohm build up to the same 112 watts your only drawing 14.8 amps (1/2) and only using 7.5 volts to get that which is well below the 8.4 parallel volts in the IPV3.

So lets say the OP wants to make the same clouds from the same .15 ohm build that your making with it on his brand new IPV3 he's be burning through the batteries twice as fast and taking the mod to the upper end of it's limitations considering the manufacturer lists the high voltage as 7.0 and the high amperage as 30. Obviously the mod will go above the manufacturers listed 7 volts but why do it when he can build something that will produce close to the same and possibly even better vapor without running it wide open?

I'm not even going to drive off into the surface area discussion but IMO the larger the surface area the more vapor produced. So using the same 24 gauge wire in duel coils it takes more wire to make .51 ohms resistance than .15 so if your pushing the same 112 watts of heat then the .51 should make more vapor.

 

[smacksy]

Noteworthy is that fact that, on a regulated mod, your resistance has (to my understanding) no effect on the amperage or even battery life. Amperage on batteries can be calculated as wattage divided by current battery voltage (which could be 8.4 volts, if using two stacked 18650's, etc).

My actual experience is indeed the lower the build the less my batteries last..even in my regulated mods, that's a FACT I know firsthand...this .5 ohm build lasts all day on the dual 18650 box vaping at 50 watts on a single charge..can't do that on my mech at with a .15 ohm build to get the same clouds/performance

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[Wolfenstark]

I just bought an OHM Reader, 18650 35A 2500 mAheFest Batteries, Battery Charger, Wire Cutters, Needle Nose Plier, 6 PC Set of Tweezers, Coil Jig, 28 Guage Kanthol Wire, KOGA Japanese Cotton a Mutation X RDA 18 Air Holes, and an IPV3 Box Mod, I'm ready to do this. xD

As for actually building the coils, I have no experience at all yet, I'm gonna be practicing making coils first before I even put them on the atty, and I'm looking to build down to .02 OHMS

Think your typing wrong.

0.2Ω NOT .02Ω

If you do mean .02Ω you need to do more reading.

 

[Jjshbetz11]

This is entertaining me on a rainy saturday