To Kick, or not to Kick?

[edtexas]

I'll be the first to admit that I know little about 'one button' mechanicals.

I'm slowly trying to understand the advantages.

But, I've seen a lot of press lately about "kicks" to control the wattage
on a mechanical. It's my understanding that by using these, few mechanicals
can accomodate them with an 18650 battery. So, more battery purchases.

My question is this. If you have to start adding a kick, how is this any better
than any simple VV/VW (SVD,Vamo,Provari, etc, that offers all kinds of other advantages?

i.e., variable voltage,ohm reader, safety off features,larger battery capacity, etc?

Thanks for the feedback, greatly appreciated.... Ed

 

[State O' Flux]

A kick regulator simply turns a tube, or or other adjustable, unregulated, 3.7v battery mechanical mech, into a "user setable" fixed wattage output APV. You can use them with any tube battery set-up they will fit into and get a good ground... so pretty much 18mm battery tube, and a few larger devices.

Battery life goes down 10-20% because you're boosting the battery to provide stable output... but you have the benefit of a set wattage. When the battery is too weak to support output, they kick out a rattlesnake sound and feel... then simply shut off. This is why it's recommended to use an 18650 battery... an 18350s mAh is little enough without benefit of a kick to hurry it along. ;-)

Kick devices are typically regulated to 3-6 amps, so running a 30a high drain and a .4Ω atty is a misuse of potential amp output. They also have a minimum resistance limit... just like your typical VV-VW APV.

It boils down to this... got a favorite mech? Want to run a 2.0Ω atty at 9 watts with it? Kick it.

 

[quatro]

Kicks are really suited for pre-built coils (clearos, pro tanks, cartos...) as these have a pretty narrow "sweet spot" and the kick gets you there at the cost of battery life and real estate. Once you get into winding your own coils the attraction of regulated output becomes low as the "sweet spot" gets pretty wide. I am pretty sure some will object but this is my opinion, I used a kick when I was using a carto/boge combo on a mech. Once started coiling, the kick became a light paper weight

 

[State O' Flux]

I am pretty sure some will object - Once started coiling, the kick became a light paper weight

No objection... perfectly logical conclusion for many most wire winders.

 

[Thrasher]

like others said the kick is a way to make a nice mechanical into a vw device, why not buy yet another vw device? get tired of everyone of them looking like a dihldo after a while and they usually stay smaller anyways.

as for mechs and batteries that depends many mechanicals offer kick rings or extensions, the nemesis has a kick ring and i have a kick extension for my roller allowing 18650's and its still shorter then a full size provari with ex cap.