Should I be concerned by the battery life of my vaporflask lite?

[PierceB]

It seems that different mods are more or less efficient when it comes to battery life. I have a couple of dual-18650 mods and they seem more or less the same -- I can't quite do an entire day, but I can at least make it through a 10-hour work day without thinking about batteries.

My vaporflask lite is a single 18650 and the battery life is so poor I'm wondering if I should stop using it. This morning I went from full charge to "low battery" going through less than 4ml of juice (60watts on .25 ohm coil).

It's not specific to one battery, all my 18650's perform the same. It seems the "low battery" warning comes on at 3.5v and the thing won't fire at all at around 3.4v.

Occurs to me that mods can put the "low battery" warning wherever they want, and I should check where the batteries are when my other mods read low battery. Maybe vape forward is just conservative?

 

[Continuity]

A 3,5V cutoff is conservative, but not unknown - I think that 3,2-3,3V is a more reasonable cutoff.

Do *all* your 18650 cells perform equally poorly in your 1xcell mod? Which batteries are you using?

You could ensure that the battery contacts are clean (finely scratch them up a bit) and adequately sprung (if applicable), and if you're a bit handy, you could open up the mod and check the quality of the solder joints and that the internal wiring carrying the battery power to the board is suitably thick enough.

 

[Baditude]

I agree with Continuity's comments.

I would have asked the same questions on which batteries you're using (and how old?) and suggested the cleaning of the battery contacts.

 

[IMFire3605]

It seems that different mods are more or less efficient when it comes to battery life. I have a couple of dual-18650 mods and they seem more or less the same -- I can't quite do an entire day, but I can at least make it through a 10-hour work day without thinking about batteries.

My vaporflask lite is a single 18650 and the battery life is so poor I'm wondering if I should stop using it. This morning I went from full charge to "low battery" going through less than 4ml of juice (60watts on .25 ohm coil).

It's not specific to one battery, all my 18650's perform the same. It seems the "low battery" warning comes on at 3.5v and the thing won't fire at all at around 3.4v.

Occurs to me that mods can put the "low battery" warning wherever they want, and I should check where the batteries are when my other mods read low battery. Maybe vape forward is just conservative?

60watts continually on a single 18650 mod, cutting out at 3.4 to 3.5v is a safety measure of the chipset, remember on a regulated mod, the highest amp draw is at the lowest charge state of a battery compared to a mech the highest amp draw is at a fresh charge.

60watts/3.4v=17.6471/90% mod efficiency=19.6079amps <---Less stress and less damaging in the long run on the battery
60watts/3.2v=18.75/90% mod efficiency=20.83333amps <---Higher stress and more damaging to the battery in the long run if the battery is a 20amp CDR battery, 21amps is 1amp over its max CDR, decreasing its life by bleeding it to death 1amp over CDR at a time without active cooling (liquid or cryo-cooling) to keep the internals cool enough to not cook and simmer

60watts on a mod that ranges 60 up to 75watts on a single battery mod, you are redlining the mod at its engine (battery) and engine management system (mod chipset). Which is easier on you energy wise, walking 5miles daily or running those same 5miles daily? I have several, single battery mods in the 50 to 75watts range, all of them barely see 40+ watts regular usage, in fact average mostly 25 to 30watts (25watts per battery on a 50watt mod, 30watts per battery on a 60 to 75watt mod). If you run regularly 60watts plus daily, which is generally the maximum watts suggested per battery if you take them down to 3.2 to 3.0v, you will never get any extended battery life out of a battery charge due to the Watt Hours needed to do so a 2500 to 3000mah battery just can not sustain. 60watts on dual battery mod (60/2=30watts per battery load) and thus why you see better efficiency there.

 

[Eskie]

Exactly what IMFire3605 said. There is a tendency (actually seems more like the standard nowadays) to list equipment as meeting some check off value to make it marketable. Can a single 18650 push 75W? Barely. If you want to run comfortably at 60W, a 2 battery solution is required. It's the same with other equipment from premade coils to the batteries themselves (only get authentic name brand batteries, and no 18650 can deliver 30 or 35A, despite published values).

 

[PierceB]

Thanks all.

The insight from IMFire3605 and Eskie is something I probably should have thought of myself. Using a dual 18650 mod doesn't just double the battery power linearly, it also means that (assuming the mod's designed the way I'd guess it is) neither battery is being taxed to its near-maximum.

I've been on a steady diet of .25 ohm coils lately, in both of my preferred tanks, but maybe I need to keep the vaporflask for less demanding coils. Or get the bigger vaporflask.

Sidenote 1: All my 18650's are samsung 25R's, bought from reputable vendors (but not all at once), and they all perform the same.

Sidenote 2: I really like the look & form of the stainless vaporflask lite. The dual battery one is more than twice as big, and I can't find it in stainless. Will look around for a small-ish, stainless finish dual 18650.

Thanks again.

 

[BrotherBob]

Might like to read:
18650 Battery Buying Guide for Vapor Users – Wake and Vape Blog
(9) Battery Basics for Mods; the Ultimate Battery Guide | E-Cigarette Forum
(12) Deeper Understanding of Mod Batteries - Part I | E-Cigarette Forum

 

[sonicbomb]

Thanks all.
I've been on a steady diet of .25 ohm coils lately, in both of my preferred tanks, but maybe I need to keep the vaporflask for less demanding coils. Or get the bigger vaporflask.

On a regulated mod the coil resistance is of no relevance in terms of the amp load on the battery/s, only the wattage.
More (safe) power use means a bigger power supply, that's a generally inescapable engineering fact.

 

[PierceB]

There is something I don't understand, relating to resistance and watts & volts. Higher resistance coils seem to need less watts to fire, and of course with a given wattage & resistance the voltage will always be the same. I don't know if this universally true. Are there higher resistance coils that can use higher wattage? Looking at something like the provape 2.5, its rating for wattage is quite low, but it's rated for something like 6 volts (just from memory). If it can read a .5 ohm coil, 6 volts will produce over 70 watts. There's something I must be missing.

 

[sonicbomb]

Higher resistance coils usually utilize thinner higher resistance wire. So often the final mass of the coil is quite low, meaning it may require less wattage to bring up to heat. You can apply any wattage you like to a coil high or low resistance, what is more important is the coil surface area and the heat flux generated by the wattage.
High resistance coils will require more voltage and less amperage. The Provari is designed for high resistance coils, I do not think it would fire a 0.5 ohm coil.

 

[Continuity]

AFAICR, the Provari 2/2.5 has a limit of 15 Watts and 3.5A, but also the lesser known 'Provari Number' of 50 which means that the product of multiplying the watts times the amps cannot exceed 50.

Both the amp limit and watt limit can, under certain conditions, be exceeded but the "Provari number" cannot.*

The optimal coil build for the Provari is around 1.3 Ohms - I think the 'LO' error is generated at 0.9 Ohms or below.

Thinner wire resists the passage of electricity more aggressively, and thus gets hotter because it has to radiate the electricity that it's resisting. Therefore, one tends to use less power through higher resitance coils (and vice versa of course).

* - Kudos to jasl90

 

[PierceB]

Forgive me for going to the rabbit hole with this (particularly strange since I don't have a provari or any mod rated below 50 watts).

The P3 says it can do 6 volts and handle coils to 0.50 ohms. That would produce 72 watts, so the "provari number" must be coming into play. Current x watts in this scenario would be a whopping 864.

6 volts at 20 watts (the max listed for P3) would produce a "provari number" of 66, so if they've throttled the thing to a multiplier of 50, it won't work. Looks like you'd need resistance above 2 ohms to fire 6 volts and stay within the "provari number."

I didn't start vaping until sub-ohm was the norm. I guess there was a time when having 6 volts on tap was useful, even if amps were throttled that hard.

 

[Continuity]

AFAICR, high-resistance 'HR' coils (found in quite a few cartos etc) of 2-3 Ohms were the main reason to own a 6 Volt device back then - those devices certainly weren't designed for SubOhming.

That's why that crowd swore by mechs back then.