Sentinel M16 performing poorly with 1.2 ohm coil?

[aruga]

Hello

Vape mail came today with a Sentinel m16 purchased from Vapory Shop. I have been using vv/vw bottom feeders with a few RBA's and I wanted to get more pure with a mech mod.

I am using a Gamma tank V2 with dual coils showing 1.2 ohm. 28 gauge kanthal wire, 12 wraps per micro coil..dual coil.. Brand new fully charged AW IMR 18650 1600 Mah batteries. Batteries show 4.19 with under load of 4.05. So I got ready to see this Sentinel chuck out some vapor and it is the exact opposite. Poor vape, no clouds, no throat hit ect.. Put the Gamma on my Opus D and it chucks the vapor. I watch all these videos and read reviews with people using dual coils around 1.5-1.8 ohms and the vapor appears great.. you can even hear that great sound of the wicking in the videos. Why is my Sentinel not performing like I was hoping. I know you can't compare a 3.7 volt battery to 20 watts on the Opus-D, but what am i missing?

I am not an expert buy any means on all this, but I do have a basic understanding of what could blow up in my face. I have ordered the new Sony VTC5's along with a short stop so I can sub ohm with this Sentinel worry free (mostly), but 1.2 ohms on a mech mod she be performing better right?

any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all who read and post.

Aruga

 

[jefsview]

Did you clean it before using it? Sometimes there is machine oil residue on the contacts.

Mine has worked well with all of my kayfun clones and RDAs, and I usually run between 1 and 1.5 ohm microcoils.

Also check your floating center pin is pushed all the way in before screwing on your device; I usually push the top cap onto the table to make certain it's popped back in before switching devices.

 

[aruga]

Thanks for the response.. I took everything apart..even the spring and contact and wiped clean. And I have been threading the Gamma with the top off then screwing the top to the MOD to make sure the adjustable firing pin is in place.... no improvement. I am trying to use Grand Vapor's website to authenticate the Sentinel, but i keep getting a server error... it seems to be one of those bad nights in vape world for me.

I would bet the bank it is authentic dew to the laser engraving, buttery smooth threads, and my research. Plus the website is a reputable distributor.. I am at a loss.
Good advice though.. thank you.
Any other ideas?

 

[Ryedan]

I know you can't compare a 3.7 volt battery to 20 watts on the Opus-D, but what am i missing?

1.2 ohms at 4V puts out 13.3 watts, or 6.65 watts per coil. That's two, 2.4 ohms coils. If you are running the Opus at 20 watts you're going to get significantly more vapor/flavor/TH from it with the same setup compared to 13 watts.

Set the Opus to 13 watts and it will be an apples to apples comparison

I'm vaping a Trident dual coil setup right now at 0.5 ohms, so two 1.0 ohms coils. I'm using two, 2.2mm air holes. That's around 25 watts average after voltage drop. It's a fantastic vape for V/F/TH.

ETA: Took my dog for a walk and I realized it's possible you may not know that power in a mechanical mod is determined by atty resistance. The battery's voltage is what it is, there's no way to change that. Using 4.2V (fully charged at no load) is a safe practice. As the battery voltage goes down its power output also goes down. Here's a online Ohm's law calculator. Plug in the battery voltage and the atty resistance, click calculate and it will fill in the amps and watts.

Amps are important for your battery, you don't want to draw more than they can safely make. I leave a safety margin in there too. Your AW 18650 1600 are good to 24A. Watts is power, the amount of heat the coil puts out per time.

HTH.

 

[Shields42]

If you have cleaned the contacts, pulled it all apart, I would take a 510 pin from another mod (if you have one) and if it fits (might not) try that. If that improves the performance, take some sandpaper, and sand down the original 510 pin and see if you can see anything wrong. If it's plated, I do believe that authentic sentinels don't have plated posts, so that's one way to authenticate it.

 

[JaRod]

in addition to what other people have said, make sure the firing button is making good contact, remove the bottom assembly, unlock the ring and push the firing button, the silver plated pin must protrude a little beyond the black oring so it makes proper contact with the battery.
Also, although unlikely, test the battery, it may read 4.2V nominal, but if the cell is bad, the voltage will drop dramatically under load producing weak if any vapor at all.

 

[vapo jam]

do you have another mech mod you can try it out on? i'd check with that first to see if you get the same vapor production.

i did some quick calculations: with a 1.2 ohm coil and a mech, you should be outputting around 14-15 watts full charge (4.2v), 9-10 watts nominal (3.7v). check how the build performs at those settings on the opus.

i've never had any issues with my m16, but i typically run about .4-.5 ohm d/c on a dripper.

 

[aruga]

Great advice. Thanks you all for posting.

I don't know why I have such a hard time wrapping my head around ohms law and how much watts are going to each coil, but Ryedan's post put it into perspective. I put the Gamma RBA on the Opus at 13 watts and it was still hitting harder. I decided to lightly sand down the contacts on the Sentinel and it performed exactly on par with the Opus at the specified watt range.

I also received a reply from Grand Vapor confirming the authenticity of the MOD (yayy). The website did not work so I emailed then directly.

From my research the lowest you can safely go on a 18650 AW IMR 1600mah battery is .9ohms. I received my short stop and tried a .75 ohm coil just to see and it did not fire with the short stop. I guess that confirms the short stop really works.

I feel that vv/vw have altered my view of vaping and for me to achieve my type of vape.... I need to wait on the new Sony VTC5 batteries and drop around .3-.4 ohm coils.

Thank you all so much for the helpful advice. I love this Sentinel.... quality

 

[Tbev]

Check your voltage drop

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

 

[vapo jam]

From my research the lowest you can safely go on a 18650 AW IMR 1600mah battery is .9ohms.

i think 0.9 ohms may be a little on the high side...

the aw 18650 1600mah battery is rated for a continuous discharge of 15c, which equates to 24 amps. a fully-charged battery with a 0.2 ohm load would discharge 21 amps (not that i'd recommend using a .2 ohm coil). at 0.3-0.4 ohms (again, fully charged batt), you're drawing 10-15 amps, which is well within the battery's specs.

i will definitely acknowledge, though, that "safety" is a relative term. to me, a 0.4-0.5 ohm coil with my aw's or mnke's is safe, but i know people who won't even touch a mech because they don't feel safe using an unregulated device.

 

[sawtoothscream]

Not a fan of anything over .7 on my builds. just seem weak to me and a really cool vape

if you want dual coils try two 8 wrapped coils on a 5/64 drillbit micro coil style. it should be better and come in around .5-.6


if you go single just 6 wraps on the 5/64 micro style gives a good vape and comes out to .7

 

[aruga]

Thanks for the post everyone. Your comments help provide me with a better understandling of the ohm' law.

Just to provide an update since I started this thread I recieved my new sony VC5's last night along with the Atomic RDA. Used 28g, 7 wraps around a syringe tip (not sure the size but its micro) to make a .57 ohm coil. A little lower than I wanted, but I felt better having these new Sony's.
Vaping is a entirely different world now and I actually woke up with a sore throat. Hits like a train.
Before I was probally wrapping more of a macro coil which would not heat up as quickly. I guess this is an issue using mechanical mods right? The larger the wraps the more time they take to heat up. I see videos of guys wrappng 1.5-1.8 ohm coils using mechs and they seem to be getting great vapor though so I guess I still have alot to learn on coild building.

One question.. usng the short stop is worthless on anything below .87 correct?

And is there a mechanical MOD that blows away the M16 or are we just talking slight improvements?

 

[vapo jam]

congrats on the new gear! can you post a pic of the atomic on the m16? i've been considering getting one (an atomic, that is), so it would be nice to see how the two go together.

one of the "benefits" of sub-ohming is the quick response of the coils. typically, a higher-resistance coil will take noticeably longer to heat up, although there are some other factors besides the resistance.

it looks like the shortstop fuse is designed to trip at 5 amps, so yes, it would just get in your way if you go much below 0.9 ohms. i personally don't use a fuse - i use batteries that i trust. i don't know the chemistry of the new sony's, but i do know that my mnke's and my aw 1600's are both rated for higher than 20 amps, i know that they're both full imr (not hybrid, which is why the mah rating is so low), and i know that, if an imr battery fails, it's a lot more likely to "fizzle" whereas a lot of other chemistries would "pop."

from what i've heard and from my own experience, the m16 is pretty good as far as voltage drop. i don't know if there's anything that "blows it away," but the following guidelines might help:

materials - full brass (or better yet, copper) mods will have less voltage drop than mods with a lot of stainless steel

contacts - hard to improve on silver-plated copper, only thing better is solid silver

threading - if/where necessary, finer threads have more surface area in contact than bigger threads, and thus have lower voltage drop. in general, the less parts that need to be threaded on the better (ideal would be a completely solid tube)

spring - this is the weak point of most mech mods, and is the reason that a lot of people complain about their buttons heating up. if there is a spring, you want a big, beefy one. some people will make their own springs by taking the wire out of an rg6 cable and coiling it up to minimize the voltage drop.

there are other things as well, but these are the main things to look for.

 

[Heavyrocker]

Mechs work best under 1.0 ohm,hence the term''sub ohm'',without the kick device installed that is.