This is just totally outrageous and irresponsible of the vape shop. I cant fault the user, probably read on this very forum how great RBAs are with sub ohm coils .... And with a pocket of cash, heads to the local B&M picking up a rba, poldiac, and battery. At least it was an IMR!
One shouldn't even consider sub ohms without being able to wrap it, closely inspect it, measure it with a DMM, tweak the coils, know warning signs, & how to troubleshoot and fix it. Any idiot at a vape shop selling sub ohm coils to anyone walking in off the street is guilty of gross negligence and is dangerous to not only their customers but vapers everywhere ....
I would wager that this happens pretty often. Here's an experience that happened to me not too long ago:
I decided I was tired of the size, fuss, and waste of a carto/tank setup, so I decided that I wanted to try out a small, re-buildable dripping atomizer. I'm a computer nerd, so I'm pretty familiar with circuits, already have precision tools and a Fluke multimeter sitting around, etc. - I figured it would be within my capabilities. I went to my most local b&m, picked up a cheap Squid (mini-Octopus), and all of a sudden I knew why everyone raved about the flavor of dripping. I asked about the coil and wick to rebuild, but they didn't stock these - only the pre-made 1.7ohm pre-wrapped coil/wicks.
A week later I decided that while I loved the RDA concept, I wanted something that looked a little better on my mod so I drove across town to a larger, better known b&m that I knew would have wicks and coils because they advertised them on their website. When I got there, I asked them if I could speak to whoever on their staff was most knowledgeable about RDAs, and told them I was willing to wait if that person was busy. After waiting for a bit for him to finish helping someone else, he came over and helped me choose an IGO-S. While I was there, I also saw a mechanical RDA hybrid mod that I liked and decided to pick it up too.
I asked him if he would mind showing me how to set up the IGO-S (I always do this because hey, I might learn a cool trick, right?). He very nicely explained how to wrap the coil properly around the wick and mount it on the posts. Then he pulled out one of those resistance checkers with the 510 connection and mounted it on that - it read out at
0.7 ohms. He said, "Is that OK?" I said, "Umm, I don't know if that'll work..."
*** His response:
"Oh it'll work. Of course it'll work - it's a mech mod!"
Seeing that little 510 resistance checker made me wonder all sorts of things, like how accurate those things are, and how you could even use one to test the coil on the mech hybrid RDA I had just purchased from them (you can't, because there isn't a 510 connection). Since he was using the same mech hybrid RDA, I asked him what the easiest/least messy way to meter the coil on it was since you can't do it from the bottom. His response:
"I don't know; I've never used a multimeter."
In this case, it was sort of "no harm, no foul" in the sense that I understood enough about what I was working with (without having ever wrapped a coil myself at this point, mind you) to know that trying to run his coil setup was a bad idea, and since I now had rebuilding supplies I brought it home and immediately re-coiled it (to 1.2 ohms, TYVM
). Obviously it concerns me that this can and likely does happen to others who might not realize this was a problem. What do you suggest doing in these situations? Is there a polite way to handle this without seeming alarmist and like you're telling someone how to do their job?
*** Technical details about why I didn't think that was a good idea:
The mod in question is a mech that runs on 14500 batteries. I use
these AW IMR 14500s in particular. They have a capacity of 600maH and a maximum discharge rate of 8C, which means it can handle up to 4.8A of current safely (0.6A * 8 = 4.8A). These batteries come off my charger at 4.2V, and the coil he had wrapped was 0.7ohms. By Ohm's law, 4.2V / 0.7ohms = 6A of current, which I knew to be well over what the battery was rated at. Herein lies one of the dangers of mechs: you can easily rig combinations that "work" in the sense that they will fire and produce vapor, but this should not be considered a properly "working" setup in the sense that it's a very, very bad idea to push your luck with batteries.
Thanks for sharing. Local B&Ms I've visited around me only carry starter ego kits, a few clearos & juices, so haven't experienced anything like this.
. Who agrees with this?
