You know how we used to be unrepentant smokers?And two thumbs up to not changing, reminiscent of your days as a "Surly Curmudgeon".
Now we're unrepentant mech mod users!

You know how we used to be unrepentant smokers?And two thumbs up to not changing, reminiscent of your days as a "Surly Curmudgeon".

Dammit Jim, I'm a vaper not a chef!If you Leaning towards a Theory, why don't you take it out of the Mental Realm and do some Home Science.
Place a Cookie Sheet in your Oven and heat it to say 450F. Now pull it out and Drop a Glob of Nicotine Base and Cotton onto the Cookie Sheet. What do you observe?
Now do the Same thing with a Glob of your Day2Day Flavored e-liquid and Cotton. Same Same?
What happens when the Cookie sheet is say 420F?
What happens when the Cookie sheet is say 500?
Does the Vapor coming off the Cookie sheet Smell Good?
Or is the a Hint of "Peach Blossoms and Biter Almonds"?
That reminds me, I need to make some juice.Dammit Jim, I'm a vaper not a chef!
all that tells us is coil temp. It doesnt tell us juice temp, and the assumption is that the coil gets hotter than the juice.
i mean a wicked and wet coil. was your example wet or dry? if juice temp is lower than coil temp just make coil temp lower than danger temp. am i oversimplifying? (most of this is moot to me since i couldn't get more than 240f out of my preferred setup)
It had a wet wick in it. I just couldnt read the wick separate from the coil, the camera resolution wasnt high enough to get that granular.
I have a stand alone ohm meter for atomizers. I use that as the benchmark. i did a test where i tooks some puffs, warmed up the coil then switched it to the ohm meter to see how fast the ohm's return to room temperature. Well mine do that very rapidly. may be that's because they are low mass and fresh liquid is percolating through the coil and cooling them, which is what the liquid is supposed to do. May be how hot the liquid gets depends on how much time it spends absorbing heat from the coil. The faster it is carried away the lower it's temperature? I would be surpriised if at least a tiny amount of liquid was converted to bad stuff at most any coil temperature but would also expect the amount is trivial until you create a frankenstien atomizer for the purpose of producing toxins. But hopefully more work will be done on this. At the moment I'm enjoying my vape at max 260 F and typical power of 15-20 watts. I bet somebody in Callifornia wants to prove that's hideously dangerous too.I imagine the wick temp can get very close to the coil temp. It doesn't seem to me to matter which way the liquid in a wick is being converted to vapor/aerosol or whether the leidenfrost effect is at work in our attys, the vapor is being produced everywhere that wick touches wire, that includes the inside of the coil too. So where does that hot vapor entering inside the coil go? Some of it comes out through the wick and crevices sure, but I've got to think that with the absence of airflow and only incoming juice to cool things down that the wick temp is pretty high. Is it just as hot as the coil? I don't know. Anyone have a high precision thermocouple I can borrow?
It had a wet wick in it. I just couldnt read the wick separate from the coil, the camera resolution wasnt high enough to get that granular.
I'd be most concerned about the dryhits you mentioned. Coil temps can soar during those.Here's my question. I have a Smok Stick V8 which I use with the included Baby Beast Tank and the higher ohm 0.25 coils. Aside from a tendency to dry hit when chain vaping, I've found the mod to produce a very cool vape when the air flow is all the way open. Now, obviously my saying it is a cool vape does not equate to an actual figure of temperature but I am finding it quite hard to believe that the thing is hitting anywhere near 470*. In fact, I'm finding it quite hard to believe the thing is hitting much north of 400* even when fully charged and even if I installed the 0.15 ohm coil. Am I wrong? It just seems to me the vast majority of mods are not going to come anywhere close to the 470* mark. Perhaps somebody taking 250 watt vapes on a tiny coil but the regular prebuilt mods that most of us are using -- are they really getting that hot?
I noticed that the density of the vapor has more influence on my perception of warmth than the indicated coil temperature. The resistance of your coil is probably lower than mine because you have a lot more wire to vaporize more liquid for bigger clouds. it could turn out that the cloud chasers have, or could have, lower temp coils than the tootle puffers because if they were the same the higher density of vapor would make them uncomfortably hot. If you must know the wire temperature of your setup you may have to make a TC emulation and compare. Another possibility is use temp controlled builds so you can see what coil temps you are running. that's where i am as of a few days ago and thanks to some open source firmware that runs on my pico.Here's my question. I have a Smok Stick V8 which I use with the included Baby Beast Tank and the higher ohm 0.25 coils. Aside from a tendency to dry hit when chain vaping, I've found the mod to produce a very cool vape when the air flow is all the way open. Now, obviously my saying it is a cool vape does not equate to an actual figure of temperature but I am finding it quite hard to believe that the thing is hitting anywhere near 470*. In fact, I'm finding it quite hard to believe the thing is hitting much north of 400* even when fully charged and even if I installed the 0.15 ohm coil. Am I wrong? It just seems to me the vast majority of mods are not going to come anywhere close to the 470* mark. Perhaps somebody taking 250 watt vapes on a tiny coil but the regular prebuilt mods that most of us are using -- are they really getting that hot?
I mean, in your opinions, what would be best to recommend for those just starting, or those who aren't comfortable with the more advanced mods, and those who haven't built coils??

Thank you!! That's great info!!My recommendations for beginners--don't sweat it. Just switch to vaping. Vaping is much better for you than smoking, period. But choose a "safe(er)" (3rd generation) setup that also gives you options to transition (or just try) TC--with either premade or rebuildable coils.
Get a simple TC box mod: eVic VTC mini, Wismec Presa 75W or Pico are all decent choices and can be had for ~30 bucks if you look around for sales and deals. They all work fine in both power and TC modes.
The most versatile tank on the market is Subtank mini V2. It's not exactly a beginners atty, but it gives you most options. It comes with all kinds of coils, including kanthal, nichrome, Ti, and ss coils (for TC vaping); and a simple RBA coil. It even takes Aspire BVC and BDC (dual) (non-Natilus) coils. Just be VERY careful when ordering SSOCC coils! Kanger screwed up the naming of those coils royally, and most of those SS coils have a ss casing, NOT WIRE. If you want ss wire (for TC) you need to find the newer CLOCC 136L coils!
$12.53 Authentic KangerTech CLOCC 316L Stainless Steel Coil Heads (5-Pack) 5-pack - 0.5ohm / at FastTech - Worldwide Free Shipping
Less versatile but much more user friendly is the Eleaf GS Air Tank series. Get the old 1.5Ω dual coils--they work great out of the box and the load (wattage, power) is split between two coils, so if you apply 10 watts, each coil only gets 5 watts. They are really nice. The tanks come in different sizes and Eleaf also offers Ti and Ni TC coils.
I also love and use eGo One tanks--I like the megas (4.5 ml), V1 or V2, both good. Single coils, both TC (Ni and Ti) and non-TC, very easy and dependable. I recommend you throw away the included CL coils (they are garbage) and buy CLR (rebuidable) coils. Those come in two resistances (1Ω and .5Ω) and can be used out of the box and later rebuilt with any wire you want (if desired--they are ridiculously easy to rebuild).
Good luck!

Dammit Jim, I'm a vaper not a chef!
Time for another OOMA theory. Efficiency, as far as we are concerned, has to do with vaporizing liquid as quickly as possible. The leidenfrost effect is inefficient for our purposes as the bulk of the liquid vaporizes slowly due to the vapor cushion between heat source and liquid. So, we want the coil temp to be between the boiling point and the leidenfrost point. Also, if the leidenfrost effect keeps the liquid away from the coil, what happens to the wick that is still in physical contact?