Mech mods- should I?

[PeterKay]

Hi guys,

I have a question: I've been seeing quite a lot of mech mods and mech squonk mods recently (the latter would be the most appealing option for me- I'm not a very good dripping material), very reasonably priced.

So I started to think whether getting a mech mod would be a good option or it's just better to stick with regulated mods.

Are there, and what are the advantages of using mech mods over regulated devices?

Thanks!

 

[Dudeman]

Short answer:
The advantage of a mech is that it should always work. No electronics to fail.

The disadvantage is, as the battery drains, the hits get weaker. You also have to know ohms law to vape safely and have to be extra careful with your batteries.

I prefer regulated mods for hit consistency but I do have a coupla mechs as back ups for a SHTF scenario.

 

[Doffy]

Are there, and what are the advantages of using mech mods over regulated devices?

there used to be more advantage

when i started, mechs were the only way to sub ohm, or vape over 15 watts, there was no option
no 10/15 second cut off, so if you take huuuuggggeeee drags
no "rattle snake" to the draw, just smooth output

those things are much less relevant these days

as mentioned above. There is less to fail on a mech. Contrary to popular belief they are not all immune to failure, some have weak points like hot springs, or contacts prone to snapping etc

main down side for me is maintenance. A little bit of grime on contacts makes for quite a big drop in performance. For this reason and a few others, silver contacts are great

 

[AngeNZ]

Despite vaping for 2 years, I only got into mech squonk mods recently. I agree completely, the size and price of mech squonkers makes them extremely tempting.

For me the difference between a mech squonk mod and a regulated squonk mod is the instant hit of a mech mod. However the chips in newer regulated mods are getting better all the time, and providing a near instant fire of your coil. The other difference is as you mentioned, mech squonkers are usually smaller.

This is all just my experience:
my first few unregulated mods were fully protected unregulateds. They had short protection, low voltage protection and more. This gave me a chance to find what builds I liked using, what resistance I needed to aim for, yet still have the backup of a protected mod.

It's a balancing act building for an unregulated mod. You need to find a coil resistance that firstly draws within the limits of the CDR of your battery at 4.2v. And secondly will give you the wattage you want. As voltage drops, your wattage of course drops - so you want a resistance that is rowdy at first, then moves into your preferred wattage range.

If you are new to building, I'd definitely go for a protected unregulated mod first. Once you've had time to learn, then look at a mech mod.

Some protected unregulated mods are:
Ultroner x asMODus Luna Squonker Box Mod 80W 6ml - Cvapor.com

Wotofo Recurve Squonk Mod

 

[gsmit1]

As has already been said, there's a minimum level of knowledge you absolutely MUST have to safely and enjoyably use fully unprotected and unregulated devices. Absolute must.

If you have it, mechs are perfectly safe.

If you don't........................................they're not.

 

[dripster]

The cons:
Mech mods require more in-depth knowledge about battery safety, Ohm's Law, and other key important battery safety related guidelines that are part the same (basic part), part different (advanced part) compared to regulated mods. Mech mods also require more advanced knowledge about battery performance aspects and about how these aspects relate to how a given coil build will perform. Getting the desired level of performance may prove to be a real challenge, and, performance also is limited, to a fairly large degree, by personal first-hand experience with, and technical knowledge about, coil building and advanced coil building. Mech mods are not for everyone. They are intended to be used by advanced users only.

The pros:
Mech mods have a great potential to give you a much better vape experience compared to regulated mods, i.e., they offer a unique opportunity to find out for yourself what all the fuss is about. Even, if you still end up disliking mech mods, at least you will no longer be able to blame it on yourself the fact you never did anything to try to find out what exactly your own preferences truly are. It's a new adventure, an exploration. To some (myself included), mech mods have become a way of life. Speaking of potential, mech mods also give the potential to be safer. That's because they give you more of an incentive to learn about fact-based safety, whereas regulated mods can, and very often do, create a false sense of security by letting the user wrongfully assume that the built-in protection features of a regulated mod logically imply they're safe, when the reality is that many people use these features for a pretext to not needing to learn about battery safety, and about common false myths surrounding battery safety. Also it's because I trust my brain more than I trust some vague Chinese chipmaker. Finally, mech mods don't break easily, whereas with electronics it is merely a question of time before it fails, and so I don't need to carry a spare mech around with me everywhere I go.