Scared Away From Mech Mods

[Taylor7617]

I'd suggest you move to 28 or 30 gauge wire. Using these, you can get a couple more wraps to get the same 1.5 -2.0 ohm (whatever you are shooting for). Generally, a bit more surface area will lend to better flavor. Also...depending on your mod of choice, some won't fire coils under certain values. Just something else to consider, as you get closer to 1.0 it'll take more power to fire the coil and you'll run into issues depending on the battery your using or the restrictive points of the mod.

 

[Credo]

i dont quite understand where the amp thing comes into it can u please explain this?

OKay, lets break it down a bit.

Voltage is the quantity of stored energy. Think of this as a big water tank on a hill. You can adjust the voltage in a number of ways. One would be having a much bigger tank. Another would be to lift the tank up HIGHER in the air.

Ohms is the resistance in the system that will be using the energy stored up in the tank. Think of this as the size and length of all the pipes that will be used to move the water from point A to point B.

Watts is the total power or amount of water that's going to come out of a spicket at the bottom of the hill when you turn it on.

Amps are the current, or 'speed' that the water will flow through the system.

Power and Amperage are altered by either changing the resistance (size and amount of pipes) and/or changing the voltage (height and/or size of the water tank).

If you lower the resistance, the water flows faster, and you get more water coming out of the spiket.

If you raise the voltage, the pressure on the pipes goes up...pushing the water though faster.

So with all that in mind...you can enter you target wattage and resistance into the calculator and find out what the amperage and voltage will be. Or, you can enter the voltage and resistance and see what the wattage and amperage will turn out to be.

Resistance:
If you use bigger and/or shorter pipes...the resistance gets LOWER, and the water flows faster.
If you use smaller and/or longer pipes...the resistance gets HIGHER and the water flows slower.

You can also effect resistance by how LONG the pipes are. Longer pipes will have more resistance than shorter ones.

Note that wire size can be a little different from water pipes. The wire we use for making coils in vaping is an alloy, or mixture of conducting and insulating materials. Larger sized wire with more conductive and less insulating alloys will typically have less resistance (more conductive material for energy to flow through), while smaller sized wire with less conductive and more insulative properties may have higher resistance (less material for energy to flow through).

Why are amps (current) important?
This is potentially the most dangerous part of dealing with electricity. If power flows too fast, it can suck the energy out of the battery (water tank) too fast and cause it to reverse polarity (think of this kind of like a water tank being emptied too fast...it could cause it to implode).

As far as batteries go...they have a maximum current that their chemistry can safely dump energy. Trying to dump it too fast can cause too much heat, or as mentioned above, invert the polarity of the storage centers in the battery.

At the end of the spiket are your WATTS, or resulting POWER.

Safe amperages are determined by the battery's C rating. In general, it's good to keep the maximum amperage your atty build will draw to about half of what the battery is rated for or less, although some people push it beyond that. In short, if you mess with sub-ohm stuff...don't mess with any battery that isn't rated for 20 or more amps.

If you use a regulator like the Kick, or you don't plan to sub-ohm and your mod has a compression spring or you use fuses, and you know you're not going to push your battery beyond say...7amps...ever...you could opt for a higher capacity hybrid cell rated at 10 amps.

I hope this helps a little...if not, keep asking questions

 

[Dampmaskin]

no i did actually work that out with the coil one.. im using 3mm silica with 32aWg kenthal so the inner diamater of the coil will be 3mm yes? then it said it will need 2.94 wraps to make 1.5ohm coil that was straight foward...

When wrapping directly on wick, the wick will become compressed, so the coil diameter will be smaller than the nominal wick diameter. I suggest wrapping on something hard, like a drill bit, and then sliding your wick into the finished coil. That can be difficult with silica. Cotton works better for this.

 

[carrielsal]

If you can wait until next month when they start shipping, get yourself a 30W replica, http://.........blogspot.com/2014/04/dna30-replicas-everywhere.html.

 

[Minnaz]

OKay, lets break it down a bit.

I hope this helps a little...if not, keep asking questions

believe it or not that actually helps alot....

so if i were to build a 0.8ohm coil and vape at 20w that would draw 5amp of energy there fore all id need would be a C10 battery

but if i were to do 20w with a .5ohm coil id be drawing 6.4amps so id be safer palying with a c20 battery

 

[Minnaz]

but with a mech how do u know how ur battery is looking? as if i was vaping my 20w with my .8ohm id be safe with the C10 rated battery. but what happens when the battery is to low as it dosent have enough power to push that is it going to implode on me?

 

[Credo]

believe it or not that actually helps alot....

so if i were to build a 0.8ohm coil and vape at 20w that would draw 5amp of energy there fore all id need would be a C10 battery

but if i were to do 20w with a .5ohm coil id be drawing 6.4amps so id be safer palying with a c20 battery

In theory you could do this; BUT, I would only go with the 10 amp cell in this case if you also include a fuse, the mod has a compression spring, or you use a regulator like the Kick. Here's why....

Atties sometimes short out! Sometimes it's a true hard short from an improper build...or maybe you dropped the mod and the coil broke or moved and caused a short, etc. Sometimes it's just quick intermittent shorts that come and go as you're vaping (very common if you piddle with any stainless mesh wicks). Having the fuse (or contracting spring) or regulator, in my opinion, is a MUST if you go with the 10amp cells, or intend to use 18500 or 18350 cells. Even if you're working with a build that isn't intended to draw that many amps...a short could indeed damage the battery enough that over time it could fail catastrophically (in the mod, or in the charger).

A proper fuse, spring, or regulator will protect you from these kinds of 'shorts'.

Please, if you do not at least use a kick, fuse, or spring, ONLY use 20amp or higher safe chemistry batteries. These should give you enough head room to at least notice the battery is getting HOT before they go into failure if there is some kind of shorting going on.

As an example:
If you hard short a 30 amp battery on purpose, it should take it several seconds before it heats up enough to cause damage and start venting. Now imagine this battery shorting in your mod. Hopefully you'd notice this 'extra heat' right away and let the button loose and set the mod in a safe place to cool down! Of course you'd want to test this cell and check every inch of your mod throughly before you attempted to ever charge or use any part of it again...but you'd at least have some warning of a problem, in that the thing is getting unusually hot.

In contrast, if you hard short the 10 amp cell on purpose...it might not take it many seconds at all to get hot enough to go into failure. If this same short occurs in your mod, you might not have time to let off the button and put it down to cool before it begins to go into melt-down! So...always use in the least, a fuse or a mod with a contracting spring if you go with the 10amp hybrid cells, or want to tinker with smaller battery sizes like the 18350/18500.

Note, the Sony VTC5 18650 is getting close to the Panny 10amp hybrids in capacity these days...so depending on where you shop and the deals you can find, the Sony VTC4 or 5 is a hard cell to beat for all purpose vaping in pretty much any mod you can get it to fit.

 

[Credo]

but with a mech how do u know how ur battery is looking? as if i was vaping my 20w with my .8ohm id be safe with the C10 rated battery. but what happens when the battery is to low as it dosent have enough power to push that is it going to implode on me?

If you use a Kick, the mod will pulse the vapor when the battery is almost dead, then it just stops working when it's time to change the battery. The Kick 2 shuts down at around 2.7v under load.

If you use a Crown 2.0, the mod will play a funeral dirge then stop working when it's time to change the battery. My Crowns usually shut down somewhere between 2.7v and 3.5v under load depending on how I have them set-up, and how bad the under load voltage drop is in the mod/battery (In my K100, it tends to be around 2.7v, while in the Saber it's more like 3.5v).

If you don't use a regulator, then you just have to learn it by 'feel'. It'll take a few days of vaping and checking with a meter to learn it. Alot of us on unregulated mods also just get in a habit of changing batteries at a certain time each day just to be safe (I.E. a fresh one out of bed...a fresh one at lunch time...a fresh one after work...etc.). Of course how often you need to change the battery depends on how hard and how often you hit it. It doesn't hurt to change and recharge the batteries too soon

 

[Minnaz]

so much infomation to take in about mads man.... thankyou so much for helping me. altho i still dont know wheather ur helping me or scaring me more....

i was actually saying in theory so u knew that i understood what was going on. i always belive toomuch is always better than not enough,...
whats the spring do tho? and i see most people just use there mod with no kick or crown or anything does the kick/crown regulate the power than if u were to use it without?

 

[Credo]

so much infomation to take in about mads man.... thankyou so much for helping me. altho i still dont know wheather ur helping me or scaring me more....

i was actually saying in theory so u knew that i understood what was going on. i always belive toomuch is always better than not enough,...
whats the spring do tho? and i see most people just use there mod with no kick or crown or anything does the kick/crown regulate the power than if u were to use it without?

Some mechanicals have a spring in them that acts kind of like a fuse. If it gets too hot it will shrink up so the battery no longer makes contact. These are nice for builds from around 0.8 Ohms and up, but if you intend to do cloud chasing sub-ohm builds, they can shrink prematurely, or cause unwanted voltage drop.

The Kick or Crown is only for use with unregulated mods like Mechanicals, Bolts, Silver Bullets, etc.
If you use a Kick or Crown, you've essentially turned an unregulated mod into a fully regulated Variable Wattage (and in some cases Variable Voltage) APV (Advanced Personal Vaporizer). The Kick will keep the power constant from the first drag to the last...as the battery drains, it'll 'boost' or 'buck' the voltage to keep it constant until the battery is too low to maintain your setting. It'll provide safety features like over-drain, short circuit, and thermal protection.

With a KayFun, you really don't need a tremendous amount of watts, so going with a mech at this point would be simply because you like the looks, heft, size, profile, and features of the mod. Again, these things perform quite well at moderate wattage.

If you opt for something like a Provari, MVP, VTR, ZMax, SID, DNA 20/30, VAMO...etc. Then of course you would NOT want or need a Kick, fuses, etc. All the stuff a Kick or Crown would do is built into the mod. You'd probably also get some extras like a display/screen with a battery meter, and resistance checker. Such mods usually can NOT take atties below 1.2 Ohms or so, but since you can boost the voltage quite a bit on these...there's not much need to go sub-ohm with them.

If you don't already have a multi-meter, and aren't seeing yourself wanting to pack 2 or more coils into a big dripping atomizer, then a kicked mech or normal APV might be a better call for you.

Unregulated mechs are mainly for the following seekers.
1. Really stealthy vapes with tiny batteries. You have to know what you're doing to build a good atty for these.
2. High power sub-ohm rigs that typically have 2 or more coils in them.
3. People who just like a mech for some reason (style, size, weight, durability, button type, etc.), but want to add a Kick or Crown to turn it into an APV.
4. People who want a regulated vape with a Kick or Crown most of the time, but occasionally like to remove the Kick and build an unregulated cloud chaser set-up.
5. People who just love their mech(s) and see no need to regulate it.

The people who are using straight mechs with no fuses or anything hopefully know what they are doing. Most will probably be cloud chasers wanting to go well beyond 10 watts in their builds...or simply have dropped slightly below 1 Ohm to get a little hotter vape for a dozen or so more tokes off of a battery as it dips from 3.7v down to 3.5ish v (or to compensate for some voltage drop in a mod) before recharging.

 

[Minnaz]

So say i wan t to play with some clouds if i crank the W up on a vv can i still get a decent vape/cloud off of a APV rather than having to worry about buying a mod? as it sounds i dont think i need a mod. as i like the look of a few APV such as the VAMO or the itaste 134 looks cool too....

Thats of course if i can get some cool clouds off of an APV

 

[Credo]

So say i wan t to play with some clouds if i crank the W up on a vv can i still get a decent vape/cloud off of a APV rather than having to worry about buying a mod? as it sounds i dont think i need a mod. as i like the look of a few APV such as the VAMO or the itaste 134 looks cool too....

Thats of course if i can get some cool clouds off of an APV

Sure. It's as much about the wick and air flow as it is power. Atomizers with smaller chambers and air holes don't need as much power. You might have to suck on them longer though

Making massive clouds can also have much to do with your chosen PG/VG ratio in your e-liquid.

Going beyond 15ish watts is mostly of interest to those using multiple coil rigs in larger building platforms.

The 15w and up build can give you a massive burst of vapor with a very short fire time, so people often find themselves cutting way back on the nicotine level when using such a set-up. It can also drink e-liquid and drain batteries really quickly, so learning to DIY your own liquids is pretty smart if you'll be chain vaping something like this!

 

[B2L]

OKay, lets break it down a bit.

Voltage is the quantity of stored energy. Think of this as a big water tank on a hill. You can adjust the voltage in a number of ways. One would be having a much bigger tank. Another would be to lift the tank up HIGHER in the air.

Ohms is the resistance in the system that will be using the energy stored up in the tank. Think of this as the size and length of all the pipes that will be used to move the water from point A to point B.

Watts is the total power or amount of water that's going to come out of a spicket at the bottom of the hill when you turn it on.

Amps are the current, or 'speed' that the water will flow through the system.

Power and Amperage are altered by either changing the resistance (size and amount of pipes) and/or changing the voltage (height and/or size of the water tank).

If you lower the resistance, the water flows faster, and you get more water coming out of the spiket.

If you raise the voltage, the pressure on the pipes goes up...pushing the water though faster.

So with all that in mind...you can enter you target wattage and resistance into the calculator and find out what the amperage and voltage will be. Or, you can enter the voltage and resistance and see what the wattage and amperage will turn out to be.

Resistance:
If you use bigger and/or shorter pipes...the resistance gets LOWER, and the water flows faster.
If you use smaller and/or longer pipes...the resistance gets HIGHER and the water flows slower.

You can also effect resistance by how LONG the pipes are. Longer pipes will have more resistance than shorter ones.

Note that wire size can be a little different from water pipes. The wire we use for making coils in vaping is an alloy, or mixture of conducting and insulating materials. Larger sized wire with more conductive and less insulating alloys will typically have less resistance (more conductive material for energy to flow through), while smaller sized wire with less conductive and more insulative properties may have higher resistance (less material for energy to flow through).

Why are amps (current) important?
This is potentially the most dangerous part of dealing with electricity. If power flows too fast, it can suck the energy out of the battery (water tank) too fast and cause it to reverse polarity (think of this kind of like a water tank being emptied too fast...it could cause it to implode).

As far as batteries go...they have a maximum current that their chemistry can safely dump energy. Trying to dump it too fast can cause too much heat, or as mentioned above, invert the polarity of the storage centers in the battery.

At the end of the spiket are your WATTS, or resulting POWER.

Safe amperages are determined by the battery's C rating. In general, it's good to keep the maximum amperage your atty build will draw to about half of what the battery is rated for or less, although some people push it beyond that. In short, if you mess with sub-ohm stuff...don't mess with any battery that isn't rated for 20 or more amps.

If you use a regulator like the Kick, or you don't plan to sub-ohm and your mod has a compression spring or you use fuses, and you know you're not going to push your battery beyond say...7amps...ever...you could opt for a higher capacity hybrid cell rated at 10 amps.

I hope this helps a little...if not, keep asking questions

Credo, this is one of the best explanations I have read, it should be stickied.

 

[Credo]

Credo, this is one of the best explanations I have read, it should be stickied.

Thanks. I remember something similar from reading in 'bonehead science' class back in middle or high school (they would not let me take the college prep stuff because I was a lousy student). I don't remember what publication it came from though. Maybe a HighLights Magazine for kids? Could have been Popular Mechanics....hmmm...

 

[Minnaz]

Credo, this is one of the best explanations I have read, it should be stickied.

lol u got that right mate ive been trying to wrap my head around this .... for days.. all it took was 10 minz of typing from credo and i get it... its not actually as difficult as everyone else makes it sound

 

[B2L]

Being able to explain abstract concepts in an easy to understand way is a gift.
If you have 12 minutes to watch this, it is one of the best I have ever seen:

It's not entirely applicable to this discussion, but a great explanation of an electrical concept. Steel Jan is/was the best at breaking it down. Wish she was still reviewing

 

[Minnaz]

Being able to explain abstract concepts in an easy to understand way is a gift.
If you have 12 minutes to watch this, it is one of the best I have ever seen:

It's not entirely applicable to this discussion, but a great explanation of an electrical concept. Steel Jan is/was the best at breaking it down. Wish she was still reviewing

ill give it a suss when i get home... im at work ATM these stupid computers are blocked out of so many things, im actually suprised that i can be on here lol... i only watch grimmgreen and twisted420 is there any other good vape reviewers?

P.S. if u havent seen twisted u should check him out hes funny as hell plus does great reviews

 

[Baditude]

My favorite is PBusardo. pbusardo - YouTube

 

[Minnaz]

When wrapping directly on wick, the wick will become compressed, so the coil diameter will be smaller than the nominal wick diameter. I suggest wrapping on something hard, like a drill bit, and then sliding your wick into the finished coil. That can be difficult with silica. Cotton works better for this.

ive seen lots of people that rewick with cotton.. what kind of cotton like cotton yarn or cotton balls or what? and wouldnt the coil burn cotton?

 

[B2L]

I use organic cotton balls from CVS, some use yarn and I have heard that some folks use the cotton off the end of Qtips. It doesn't take much, my $3 bag should last the rest of my life.
As to the burning, if it is dry it will vaporize immediately but as long as you keep it soaked there is no problem.
Another good reviewer is Todd, he seems to like most everything but does some great close up stuff, a lot of times I will watch just to hear his accent. Rip trippers is entertaining and is the guru of off the wall coil builds.