Hi
I'm a noob to ECF and to vaping. I've done some research about vaping and the equipment I'd need, but I haven't actually bought my first kit or used one yet.
Yet I'm really keen about the RDA where I get to customize the amount of heat and wattage by the way I set up. I've some questions and I'm still researching the forum for my answers but if someone can give me some pointers, I'd greatly appreciate your help.
1. Mechanical mods - How safe/dangerous are these, even if I used batteries with protection caps? Why do these exist when we have the regulated mods?
2. Coil - from what I understand, the bigger the wire gauge, the higher the resistance = more heat = less chance of burn out. Correct?
3. Conversion from 20's pack per day cigarette smoking - What should I expect? Vaper's cough?
Thanks.
1) Mechanical mods are nothing more than a glorified flashlight tube in essence. No electronics, battery, two contacts, resistor in the rda coil, a mechanical switch, and most a locking mechanism on the switch to prevent accidental firing. With current regulated engineering, most that own or buy a mech anymore are hobbyists, collectors, or just like mechanicals over regulated mods. Mechanical being so simple in design, just a little TLC maintenance, they are simple to trouble shoot or repair.
Though on the more advanced side, they need a lot of technical knowledge, how a basic circuit works, ohms law, battery safety, and how to balance their potential output at the coil. Before regulated mods caught up engineering wise, about a year ago to cloud competition, chuck clouds, or build a setup that just oozed juicy flavor, a mech and an RDA was really the only option.
2) As stated above, yes, higher the AWG (American Wire Gauge Standard) number, ie 30awg, the thinner the wire and more resistance per inch in the wire, where 24awg, being thicker, electricity moves through it easier, less resistance and more surface to wick contact, but takes more power to heat up, yet more wire to wick contact in one area equals more liquid to vaporize at once, produces more vapor, more flavor, and more throat hit as you could potentially vaporize almost 6x the amount of liquid at once compared to a beginner device like the Kanger Protank. Most RDA builders balance wire resistance, wire gauge, air flow, wicking, with what they want cloud and flavor output to be with wire durability, heat up and cool down. Fast heat up, decent vapor, good flavor - 28awg higher resistance in a narrow 18 or 19mm rda, to an extreme cloud chaser, 24awg low resistance in a wider rda with massive air flow and wide mouth piece top cap. The first heats up and cools down quickly so doesn't cook and boil liquid yet risk snapping a coil each rewick, where the second example, the coil takes about a second or two to reach top temperature and stays hot long after power has stopped being supplied so carmelizes liquid being pulled into the coil that doesn't get vaporized, yet the coil can last weeks even months due to it is so strong.
3) Pack a day full flavor - Nic level I'd suggest on a basic starter kit (MVP 2.0 and a Nautilus for example) would be 12mg to 18mg, yet when taking into account #2, on an advanced higher output device that can vaporize 2x,3x, even up to 6x the amount of liquid at once, you'd be in the range of 2, 3, up to 6mg Nic juice to keep from causing Nic overdose and razor dart throat hit. Like stated above, a lot of vaping is subjective to each vaper or potential vaper, this includes transition, detox, and how your body will react while purging itself clean. Some have a morning smoker's cough to clear out ejected garbage from cigs out of the lungs, anxiety, a mildly short temper, the list is long and this period could last a week to even 6months down the road getting less drastic at the end. Just have to ride it out like with any other stop smoking regimen, drink lots of water, juices, and green teas, decrease caffeine intake the first week or two, nor get let down if you get such a bad urge to have smoke while vaping, smoke 1/3 to 1/2 a cig if you have to waking up, going to bed, high stress situations, break at work, after eating, start with the vape first, but still strong urge have the 1/3 to 1/2 cig to kill the urge, eventually you'll just naturally put your last cig down due to taste and revulsion.
Good luck, and welcome to the forums.
