I'm back and as confused as ever. I got a 65W mech mod...
Yes, you are confused.
There's no such thing as a 65W mech mod.
Mechanical (unregulated) mods don't have any electronics or regulator to put out power or watts. The power comes directly from the battery and the resistance of the coils being used.
A Beginner's Guide to Your First Mechanical Mod
I don't know what ohm rating to get, or style. I was looking at some .45 & .5 Claptons, but not sure if that's right or not. Does it make a difference with the ohm rating when it comes to unregulated mods?
The ohm rating, or resistance, of the coils has EVERYTHING to do with an unregulated, mechanical mod. The
two most important things to know when using coils in an RBA is to know the
amp limit of the battery you have and to know the
measured resistance of your coil. This is where Ohm's Law comes into play. If you come away with anything after reading this, this is it.
When you push the button on a mech mod, you complete a DC circuit. The battery in your mod doesn't know or doesn't care what the resistance of the coil wire is. All the battery knows is the circuit is complete. And that it has to obey Ohms Law.
Ohm's Law Explained for Vapers
Ohms Law says that the amount of amps will be equal to the voltage divided by the resistance. The more resistance you have with the coil, the higher the ohms will be and the less amps from the battery are needed. The lower the resistance of the coil, the lower the ohm will be and higher amps will be required to fire the coil.
1.0 ohm coil = 4.2 amp draw from battery
0.9 ohm = 4.6 amp draw
0.8 ohm = 5.2 amp draw
0.7 ohms = 6 amp draw
0.6 ohms = 7 amp draw
0.5 ohms = 8.4 amp draw
0.4 ohms = 10.5 amp draw
0.3 ohms = 14.0 amp draw
0.2 ohms = 21.0 amp draw
0.1 ohms = 42.0 amp draw
0.0 ohms = dead short = battery goes into thermal runaway
It doesn't matter if the battery can safely do this. It's what the battery has to do by completing the circuit.
So if you ask a battery to provide more amps than it is capable of, it is going to get hot trying to power the coil. Just like a thin extension cord gets hot when you draw too many amps thru it.
But a battery isn't an extension cord. It is a cylinder full of chemical compounds. And these chemical compounds can rapidly react, breakdown and even burn/explode. And when they do, they release gases. This is called "thermal runaway", or venting. It's these vented gases that can build up in your mod causing it to explode. Thus, mechanical mods must have adequate vent holes to allow the escape of gas.
If you're going to use a mech mod, you have to be able to calculate how many amps you are going to ask your battery to safely provide. Then you have to look at what the "continuous" amp rating is for the battery; this is the "amp limit" of the battery.
So if you battery is rated at 20 amps continuous discharge, you should not build anything that requires the battery to provide more than about 18 Amps. You should always leave a little "headroom" or safety margin.
In review, when you build your coil and fire it on your mod, it will draw a specific amount of current (amps) from the battery. That current must not be more than the total amps in continuous discharge rate of the battery, or very bad things could happen.
Explain it to the Dumb Noob: Ohm's Law Calculations
What difference does the guage make? Does it just affect the longevity of the coil or what?
The "gauge" of the wire is the thickness of the wire.
Thinner wire has a higher resistance, so a coil made of thinner wire will require more volts but less amps to fire it. Thicker wire has a lower resistance, so a coil made of thicker wire will require less volts but more amps to heat up the coil. Thicker wire provides more "surface area" to vaporize e-liquid, which is a plus to make "clouds", but the increased mass of the thicker wire takes longer to heat up the coil so the "ramp up time" will be longer. So, there are tradeoffs in what size wire to choose to use. One gauge is not better than another gauge, what you choose to use depends upon your personal preferences, which you don't yet know.
In my experience, thicker gauge wire is more durable than thinner gauge wire.
26 or 28 gauge Kanthal is a good starting place to make simple coils. Use a coil calculator (ie Steam Engine) to decide how many wraps and what diameter coil to make to meet your target resistance.
Information Resources for Your First RBA
