Mech mods vrs Higher wattage Box mods, doing something wrong?

[Mrez]

Just trying to figure out where I am going wrong in my builds. I had a Cloupor 30 watt box that I was running several different atty's in the .8- 1.3 ohm range and at 20-25 watts and I loved it. Big clouds, big flavors. Sadly, my box died and I decided to try a mech mod (an infinite nemesis clone). I use a pair of vtc4 batteries on both. I noticed with the mech mod that I can't seem to get some of the lower gauge kanthal to fire (26 gauge) in dual coil builds. It's only when I use twisted 32 gauge that I can get a dual coil to fire decently. But the "thump" that I was getting from my box is just not there. My builds are still ranging in the .6-1 ohm range, my attys are a bunch of clones of varying quality (magma, plume viel, tohb and kayfun which is my driving/dont feel like dripping atty). Does anyone have some suggestions on how I can get more out of my builds? Should I just give up on the dual coils?

 

[Ryedan]

You didn't give any indication if you know this, so here it is just in case you don't.

When you build for a mechanical mod you set the watt (power) range with the resistance of the atty and the actual watts will depend on the battery voltage. Batteries start at 4.2V off the charger and we usually swap them out at around 3.7V. There is also voltage drop to consider for actual atty power that depends on how good your batteries are, how clean the mod contact surfaces are and what the resistance of the atty is. So a 1 ohm atty will make between 12-16 watts and a 0.6 ohm atty between 17-24 watts.

So if you like a setup at 20 watts and build for that in the mech mod you will need to setup so it's a bit higher than that with a fresh battery, hits 20 watts by around say 3.9V and then gets weaker by the time you get to 3.6-3.7V and you swap batteries.

This is one of the down sides to mech mods and there is no way I know of to get around it. It works for me, but some people don't like it.

Hope that helps.

 

[Mrez]

I was kinda aware of that, but wasn't exactly sure how it was interacting with the dual coils at the same resistance as a single coil. Right now I've got everything shifted over to either single coils or 32 gauge twisted coils and they seem to be firing quickly. So my .8 dual coils are probably just not getting enough power to the coils at thicker gauges? I am assuming I'd need to drop down to .4 dual 28/26 gauges to get any kind of response from the battery?

 

[edyle]

If you were running the clouper at 4.5 volts, those builds that needed that higher voltage won't perform on the mech at 3.7 volts.



If you find a single coil build that performs on the mech, then you just need to add the second coil for a dual coil.

 

[Ryedan]

I was kinda aware of that, but wasn't exactly sure how it was interacting with the dual coils at the same resistance as a single coil. Right now I've got everything shifted over to either single coils or 32 gauge twisted coils and they seem to be firing quickly. So my .8 dual coils are probably just not getting enough power to the coils at thicker gauges? I am assuming I'd need to drop down to .4 dual 28/26 gauges to get any kind of response from the battery?

The battery does not know how many coils you have, but the power is shared between the coils. So if you have a single 0.6 ohm coil it will be seeing about 20 watts. Two 1.2 ohm coils in parallel making 0.6 ohms together will each be making 10 watts for the 20 watt total.

This is however exactly the same way a regulated mod will handle things.

Yes, your choice of wire gauge will probably be more critical with a mech mod simply because you can't dial things in like you can with a regulated mod.

I am currently running a 0.5 ohm dual coil setup in a Cyclone RDA using 27 gauge Kanthal and it is performing very well for me in a mech mod. Heat-up takes about 1/2 a second. I find the vape at 0.7 ohms too weak and at less than 0.4 ohms too aggressive.

If I used thinner wire I would get faster heat-up, but I would get a hotter vape and would degrade my juice at less power.

 

[Mrez]

The battery does not know how many coils you have, but the power is shared between the coils. So if you have a single 0.6 ohm coil it will be seeing about 20 watts. Two 1.2 ohm coils in parallel making 0.6 ohms together will each be making 10 watts for the 20 watt total.

This is however exactly the same way a regulated mod will handle things.

Yes, your choice of wire gauge will probably be more critical with a mech mod simply because you can't dial things in like you can with a regulated mod.

I am currently running a 0.5 ohm dual coil setup in a Cyclone RDA using 27 gauge Kanthal and it is performing very well for me in a mech mod. Heat-up takes about 1/2 a second. I find the vape at 0.7 ohms too weak and at less than 0.4 ohms too aggressive.

If I used thinner wire I would get faster heat-up, but I would get a hotter vape and would degrade my juice at less power.

So does the gauge really matter then? For safety reasons I do not want to go below .5-.8ish. When I built a dual coil with 26 gauge kanthal I found the firing time to be very sluggish and the hit to be weak.

 

[Ryedan]

So does the gauge really matter then? For safety reasons I do not want to go below .5-.8ish. When I built a dual coil with 26 gauge kanthal I found the firing time to be very sluggish and the hit to be weak.

What resistance was your dual coil and what was the battery voltage?

 

[edyle]

So does the gauge really matter then? For safety reasons I do not want to go below .5-.8ish. When I built a dual coil with 26 gauge kanthal I found the firing time to be very sluggish and the hit to be weak.

It is the gauge of the wire that is really important; people like to use thick wire because they can put more power to it, but using thick wire usually ends up with really low ohms

 

[Mrez]

What resistance was your dual coil and what was the battery voltage?

I don't recall the exact resistance but it was probably .
1 ohm or there about. Battery was probably partially discharged because I was using it on the way home from work. Given my current vaping habits when I pull my Sony vtc4 off the charger it has about 4.1 volts in it. If I don't switch batteries and use it till I get home it will have roughly 3.6 left. How exactly does resistance of the wire affect the heat of the coil?

 

[inswva]

How exactly does resistance of the wire affect the heat of the coil?

Lower resistance = more power. More power = more heat.

 

[tj99959]

In a nut shell, the build that you used for your VW PV will not work the same with a mechanical. So all that is needed is to build for the mechanical instead of the VW.
It's hard to do I know, but forget that .8 to 1.3 ohms worked so well at 20-25 watts, you're using a different PV now.

Now you're using XX resistance @3.7v to get 20-25 watts. (and you may, or may not, like 20-25 watts on the mechanical)

 

[Mrez]

I just got a bunch of new juice today so I'll rebuild my attys down to a .6 dual and see how it goes. At that resistance am I gonna be better off with 28 or 26 gauge wire?

 

[USMCotaku]

You will need more wraps on the 28 gauge, but at.6 (that's what I run in my dripper, using 28 gauge) it won't be excessive....i like having the higher surface area

 

[Ryedan]

I just got a bunch of new juice today so I'll rebuild my attys down to a .6 dual and see how it goes. At that resistance am I gonna be better off with 28 or 26 gauge wire?

Here is a online Ohm's law calculator. Plug in 4.2 volts and the resistance you want to check and hit enter. It will fill in amp draw for mech mods and watts produced. That calculator site also has a very good coil design calculator on the web site.

You can use either 28 or 26 gauge for 0.6 ohm dual coils. Personally I think I would chose 28 gauge to start with and see how that goes first.

 

[Mrez]

Thats the calc I use all the time. Thank god for net connectivity on my phone at work because i theory build on and off during the day. Good news though, I did a .5 dual coil with the 26 gauge on my infinite magma clone and the hit was definitely there. I'm gonna try the same thing with the 28 gauge tomorrow on my plume clone and tobh atty tomorrow and see how it goes. Thank you much gentlemen, looks like I won't be rushing off to get a new box any time soon.