Why is ECF full of so many people against subohming?

[Stosh]

I'd like to dispel two common myths I constantly hear reguarding sub-ohm.
(And yes I've tried it, down to 0.4-0.5Ω)

First the myths of "I lowered my nic for 6 mg, and you're still stuck at 18 mg"

Sit down and vape an hour, I use 1 mL of 18 mg juice, so 18 mg nic inhaled, sub-ohm uses 3 mL of 6 mg juice and inhales 18 mg nicotine.... Watering down your beer and drinking 3 times as much, still too drunk to drive....

But, but, but, "The flavor is soooo much better"

Same as above, vape for an hour, juice has 10% flavoring, in the end I've vaped 0.1 mL of the flavoring, sub-ohm 0.3 mL. No surprise if you vape 3 times the flavoring (much like the nicotine) it's 3 times as strong....

 

[PoeDung]

Once again, wrong. Flavor is fantastic and so is the vape. Heat? My answer to that is 'what heat'? I have my helios drilled for increased airflow.

Why go this low? Vapor production. I really only need a 2 second draw. Comparing this to some of my other builds, lets say .8ohms, the flavor is maybe 10% more muted (barely noticeable), and the additional vapor is a plus with this low resistance build.

Throat hit? Perfect. I use exclusively 6mg nicotine juice. Usually 50/50 VGPG.

And as for my batteries venting, someone show me one of my Sony VTC4/5s and where they show signs of stress. Because there aint any.

Sounds like this person is a real winner and just wants to make people jealous.

 

[Ryedan]

My friend Willi (Unsoeld) was one of most experienced and knowledgeable ice climbers in the world. All that knowledge and experience did not prevent his death when the slab of ice he was standing on came crshing down.

Safety is not about when things are going right. Safety is about what happens when something goes wrong.
That's why we discuss things like safer batteries, proper venting, and resistances.

Risk is what happens when we live, when we do things.

The maximum safety we can achieve is what happens when we do a risk assessment, identify all the risk factors, the severity and likelihood of each, figure out how to best minimize that risk and then act on that knowledge. In engineering it's called a failure modes and effects analysis. I've done my fair share of them in my time

Taking on higher risk and dealing with it effectively can be safer than taking on less risk but not dealing with that risk well enough.

In trades or hobbies that incur more than the average amount of risk like wood working or metal machining, people who are new to these activities have the most accidents. People who get past that new stage have the least amount. People who have been dong these activities for a long time get hurt more often than the middle group. Why? Because they become complacent and drift into unsafe habits.

The amount of risk we are willing to take on is personal to each of us. IMO ice climbing is much more risky than sub-ohm vaping. However, if all the bad things in that FMEA come together at the same time vaping can get ugly too. Even with a 650 mAh eGo.

And on that note, time for a vape ...

 

[KenD]

I'd like to dispel two common myths I constantly hear reguarding sub-ohm.
(And yes I've tried it, down to 0.4-0.5Ω)

First the myths of "I lowered my nic for 6 mg, and you're still stuck at 18 mg"

Sit down and vape an hour, I use 1 mL of 18 mg juice, so 18 mg nic inhaled, sub-ohm uses 3 mL of 6 mg juice and inhales 18 mg nicotine.... Watering down your beer and drinking 3 times as much, still too drunk to drive....

But, but, but, "The flavor is soooo much better"

Same as above, vape for an hour, juice has 10% flavoring, in the end I've vaped 0.1 mL of the flavoring, sub-ohm 0.3 mL. No surprise if you vape 3 times the flavoring (much like the nicotine) it's 3 times as strong....

Very true. I subohm (0.5 on my dripper, 0.7-0.8 on my tank RBAs), but don't deny any of that. I simply like (reasonable) subohm coils more, it's more intense (more vapour - that's about what I inhale and not so much about the size of the exhale) I guess, but I really don't know why I prefer it

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[Baditude]

Having had a battery explode in my first mod (mechanical) made me aware of the power lithium ion batteries have, and was the stimulus for me to research and gain knowledge about batteries, mod & battery safety, battery specifications, accuracy of listed battery specs vs practical independent battery tests, etc.

There's a wide range of quality concerning batteries on the market. Placing trust in a manufacturers' specifications (if they list them at all) is kind of like playing Russian Roulette. There is nothing to keep a manufacturer or vendor from overstating their batteries specifications. There are no recognized agencies guaranteeing that a battery's specifications are accurate.

A 0.2 ohm coil is 0.2 ohm from being a dead short. I don't care how good your battery is, a dead short will cause that battery to vent and possibly explode. You are putting A LOT of faith in your ohm reader being accurate in its reading, and there is no safety headroom making coils that low. Pushing a battery hard continuously will over a short time cause that battery to age prematurely and lose its previous specifications.

Ever seen what a battery in thermal runaway can do?



Don't become a Two Face because you believe nothing can go wrong because you "think" you know what you are doing and have absolute trust in your gear and skills. Things can go wrong quickly, and pushing the limits of safety can put you closer to danger than you seem to know.



"I thought I knew what I was doing was safe."

 

[Revelene]

You know what this sounds like to me?

An internet expert.

Obviously, the OP has gained his knowledge in a short amount of time from the internet. He believes that he is knowledgeable more-so than he actually is.

I've been building my own coils for about a year, give or take. I've had prior knowledge about electricity and batteries. A lot of this is closely related to how car audio works... and I'm a car audio lover. So, making my own coils wasn't that hard for me to get into.

You know, there are things you probably don't think about like positive travel, voltage drop, resistance shift, internal resistance, etc. And that is just some of the many technical things... there are also many hands on things to add to the equation... coil size, coil size in relation to leads, length of leads, lead parity, etc.

Basically, you seem to know little what you are doing... and this... this is what worries everyone.

FYI 0.11 is essentially a short.

 

[Revelene]

Having had a battery explode in my first mod (mechanical) made me aware of the power lithium ion batteries have, and was the stimulus for me to research and gain knowledge about batteries, mod & battery safety, battery specifications, accuracy of listed battery specs vs practical independent battery tests, etc.

There's a wide range of quality concerning batteries on the market. Placing trust in a manufacturers' specifications (if they list them at all) is kind of like playing Russian Roulette. There is nothing to keep a manufacturer or vendor from overstating their batteries specifications. There are no recognized agencies guaranteeing that a battery's specifications are accurate.

A 0.2 ohm coil is 0.2 ohm from being a hard short. I don't care how good your battery is, a hard short will cause that battery to vent and possibly explode. You are putting A LOT of faith in your ohm reader being accurate in its reading, and there is no safety headroom making coils that low. Pushing a battery hard continuously will over a short time cause that battery to age prematurely and lose its previous specifications.

Ever seen what a battery in thermal runaway can do?

View attachment 334289View attachment 334290View attachment 334291

Don't become a Two Face because you believe nothing can go wrong because you "think" you know what you are doing and have absolute trust in your gear and skills. Things can go wrong quickly, and pushing the limits of safety can put you closer to danger than you seem to know.

View attachment 334292

"I thought I knew what I was doing was safe."

So THAT is how Two-Face got burned... the movie and comics got it all wrong.

Haha! Still, won't stop me from my favorite 0.24 ohm vape. Though, unlike the OP, I understand this and take all precautions that I possibly can. If something goes wrong... still my fault. I also play with loaded guns and drive faster than the speed limit daily... lol

 

[Nataani]

Small interjection of advocacy.

I am a qualified electronics engineer who abandoned his profession to chase his passion for vaping. [edited]

Not once have i seen an imr battery malfunction. Nor have i ever heard of an imr battery malfunctioning while in use. When the new sony vtc5 batteries came out we load tested 20 of them. They all performed the exact same way. The quality control of these batteries is beyond reproach.

My all day vape, a kayfun on a copper nemesis, runs at 13.5 Watts peak. My drippers run at between 90 and 250 Watts peak. I never build my drippers above 0.2 ohms any more.

Naysayers have a couple of main points against sub ohming:

1) Flavor is muted or better at higher resistance. To this i say you are not only wrong, but dead wrong. I have yet to find a better flavor build than a single strand quad coil at 0.16 ohms built from 24 awg kanthal A-1 at an id of 3mm. Vape a weak apple flavor on that build and it will taste like your biting into a fresh juicy apple. Keep in mind that i have tried hundreds of builds at practically every resistance feasible. If you haven't tried it, which i would assume you haven't if you are so against it, then how would you know?

2) Why do you feel the need to go that low - are you just showing off? When i smoked i used to love hookah, i loved the rush of smoke and large clouds it produced. Dripping sub ohm imitates this experience, and then some. More importantly, i enjoy it - that is reason enough. The competition is fun, but am i going to blow clouds for attention among non sub ohmers? No, put simply, that is just immature.

3) Its dangerous! Wrong. I have done more than write a factory, or listen to a birdy in my ear. I have personally tested my equipment rigorously and can tell you with 100% certainty that what i am doing is perfectly safe.

If i was using batteries which couldn't handle the load, you would be right, but I'm not.

4) Think of the children! I have a 17 year old daughter and can say this with some authority. Kids are going to do whatever they want whether you like it or not. You can preach abstinance all you want but they will still end up doing it in the back of a car somewhere. What makes you think that crying out against sub ohming is going to deter them one iota? The key to these things is the same as it is for all aspects of dealing with young folk - EDUCATE. If they know it can be done, they will attempt to do it, so rather than trying to scare them out of it, which won't work, tell them how to do it safely. Fear tactics without education are a sure fire way to get people to do exactly way your trying to preach against, unsafely.


Sub ohming is the least of my concerns in the vaping community. I am far more concerned with people who throw carries in their pocket with a bunch of change or keys.

 

[Revelene]

Small interjection of advocacy.

I am a qualified electronics engineer who abandoned his profession to chase his passion for vaping. [edit] I can honestly say i have built thousands of coils, have watched thousands of coils be built, have educated at least a hundred people on sub ohming and have rigorously tested all products sold in my store.

Not once have i seen an imr battery malfunction. Nor have i ever heard of an imr battery malfunctioning while in use. When the new sony vtc5 batteries came out we load tested 20 of them. They all performed the exact same way. The quality control of these batteries is beyond reproach.

My all day vape, a kayfun on a copper nemesis, runs at 13.5 Watts peak. My drippers run at between 90 and 250 Watts peak. I never build my drippers above 0.2 ohms any more.

Naysayers have a couple of main points against sub ohming:

1) Flavor is muted or better at higher resistance. To this i say you are not only wrong, but dead wrong. I have yet to find a better flavor build than a single strand quad coil at 0.16 ohms built from 24 awg kanthal A-1 at an id of 3mm. Vape a weak apple flavor on that build and it will taste like your biting into a fresh juicy apple. Keep in mind that i have tried hundreds of builds at practically every resistance feasible. If you haven't tried it, which i would assume you haven't if you are so against it, then how would you know?

2) Why do you feel the need to go that low - are you just showing off? When i smoked i used to love hookah, i loved the rush of smoke and large clouds it produced. Dripping sub ohm imitates this experience, and then some. More importantly, i enjoy it - that is reason enough. The competition is fun, but am i going to blow clouds for attention among non sub ohmers? No, put simply, that is just immature.

3) Its dangerous! Wrong. I have done more than write a factory, or listen to a birdy in my ear. I have personally tested my equipment rigorously and can tell you with 100% certainty that what i am doing is perfectly safe.

If i was using batteries which couldn't handle the load, you would be right, but I'm not.

4) Think of the children! I have a 17 year old daughter and can say this with some authority. Kids are going to do whatever they want whether you like it or not. You can preach abstinance all you want but they will still end up doing it in the back of a car somewhere. What makes you think that crying out against sub ohming is going to deter them one iota? The key to these things is the same as it is for all aspects of dealing with young folk - EDUCATE. If they know it can be done, they will attempt to do it, so rather than trying to scare them out of it, which won't work, tell them how to do it safely. Fear tactics without education are a sure fire way to get people to do exactly way your trying to preach against, unsafely.


Sub ohming is the least of my concerns in the vaping community. I am far more concerned with people who throw carries in their pocket with a bunch of change or keys.

I get your point... but what perplexes me is that you've never seen or heard about an IMR battery fail... I have a friend that had his genuine AW 18650 go thermal with a coil build that was not even sub-ohm (it happened in my car... it was kinda funny watching him freak out as he fumbled with it and eventually tossing it out the window... tried to find it after traffic calmed down but it was gone. We think it may have exploded). IMR batteries, no matter how well they are manufactured, they can still fail. Going sub-ohm only increases the likely-hood of thermal runaway. After all, we are using batteries that were designed for flashlights...

 

[tj99959]

Not once have i seen an imr battery malfunction. Nor have i ever heard of an imr battery malfunctioning while in use

You need to get out more often.

In fact GrimGreen had not one, but two AW IMR batteries vent on him before he figured out that his Vivi Nova had pushed the center pin down in his SB shorting the switch. He even did a video about it. There is no shuch thing as a battery that can't be made to vent. So first we look for ways to prevent venting, and then we asses how they will vent if they vent.

Just ask Bad about what happens when your pocket pushes the button for you.

 

[PoeDung]

And the bad publicity angle is null, as I know my builds like the back of my hand. I won't be showing up in the news with my jaw blown off.

And with this cocky attitude is the reason you will show up on the news.

 

[Fizzpop]

About everything that needs to be said has been said, but I'll toss in my

It seems to me that most people on ECF don't outright decry sub-ohm vaping. They do, however, express measured concern about it. Those who have a good understanding of their battery's limits, the limits of their mech, and the limits of their ohm measurements are probably going to be perfectly safe. Personally, I stay above 1 Ohm and get all the vapor, flavor, and dense clouds I could want, and yes, I own both protected and mechanical devices.

All that being said, I still think you are a fool to try to vape a 0.11 Ohm coil. In the sub-ohm race to the bottom, you get progressively less room for error as you approach zero. What many who sub-Ohm seem to miss is that every measurement has error. How accurate is your multimeter? Can it reliably measure such low resistances? As others have pointed out, when measuring low resistances, it is important to take into account the resistance of the leads themselves. Additionally, your build is not static. A slight shift somewhere in the works might have your resistance drop 0.1 Ohms. Well then, my friend, you are in a dead short situation. If a 1.4Ohm coil experiences the same, well, then it is a 1.3Ohm coil. Above 1 Ohm, you have more room for these kinds of errors.

The physics of the situation is only exacerbated by those who latch on to "Sub Ohming" as some sort of sport and who dive head-long into something for which they lack the knowledge to pursue. Just two days ago, I answered a question on this very forum where someone was asking the most basic of questions about measuring the resistance of their dual coil setup. The scary part? They were only asking after making a build and having their coils literally catch on fire.

Is it possible to sub-Ohm with reasonable safety? Yes, but it takes a good working knowledge of electric circuits and the error inherit in any measurement. Is it easy to put yourself in danger sub-Ohming if you don't have that knowledge? Unfortunately, yes.

 

[edyle]

You know what this sounds like to me?

An internet expert.

Obviously, the OP has gained his knowledge in a short amount of time from the internet. He believes that he is knowledgeable more-so than he actually is.

I've been building my own coils for about a year, give or take. I've had prior knowledge about electricity and batteries. A lot of this is closely related to how car audio works... and I'm a car audio lover. So, making my own coils wasn't that hard for me to get into.

You know, there are things you probably don't think about like positive travel, voltage drop, resistance shift, internal resistance, etc. And that is just some of the many technical things... there are also many hands on things to add to the equation... coil size, coil size in relation to leads, length of leads, lead parity, etc.

Basically, you seem to know little what you are doing... and this... this is what worries everyone.

FYI 0.11 is essentially a short.

"positive travel"?
What's that supposed to be?

 

[Revelene]

"positive travel"?
What's that supposed to be?

The distance the positive charge takes to get to the coil.

 

[edyle]

And with this cocky attitude is the reason you will show up on the news.

Which is what this thread is REALLY about.
It's not about subohming, and contrary to the title of the thread, ECF is not full of so many people against subohming evidenced by the number of subohmers responding to the thread.

 

[ScandaLeX]

A large part of the subΩ concern is for new vapers as well. More times than many of us can count a new vaper ask a question NOT AT ALL RELATED to subΩ'g & some genius will immediately point them in that direction.

It appears more & more people seem to have forgotten that in order to help someone you're not helping if your reply has nothing at all to do with what they asked .
Chances are extremely high for the vast majority of NEW vapers, their first device is somewhere along the lines of an eGo.

ECF is fully aware this is the first place new vapers click links for ecig related things they've Googled. For what these forums are all about sub Ω'ers keep wanting to be the majority--they're not.

Sent from a BIG phone.....Galaxy Note 3

 

[B1sh0p]

Having had a battery explode in my first mod (mechanical) made me aware of the power lithium ion batteries have, and was the stimulus for me to research and gain knowledge about batteries, mod & battery safety, battery specifications, accuracy of listed battery specs vs practical independent battery tests, etc.

There's a wide range of quality concerning batteries on the market. Placing trust in a manufacturers' specifications (if they list them at all) is kind of like playing Russian Roulette. There is nothing to keep a manufacturer or vendor from overstating their batteries specifications. There are no recognized agencies guaranteeing that a battery's specifications are accurate.

A 0.2 ohm coil is 0.2 ohm from being a hard short. I don't care how good your battery is, a hard short will cause that battery to vent and possibly explode. You are putting A LOT of faith in your ohm reader being accurate in its reading, and there is no safety headroom making coils that low. Pushing a battery hard continuously will over a short time cause that battery to age prematurely and lose its previous specifications.

Ever seen what a battery in thermal runaway can do?

View attachment 334289View attachment 334290View attachment 334291

Don't become a Two Face because you believe nothing can go wrong because you "think" you know what you are doing and have absolute trust in your gear and skills. Things can go wrong quickly, and pushing the limits of safety can put you closer to danger than you seem to know.

View attachment 334292

"I thought I knew what I was doing was safe."

You had a battery vent because you left a battery unattended in an unlocked mod. The battery didn't explode and it vented because of your negligence.

 

[tj99959]

The distance the positive charge takes to get to the coil.

Oh you mean that hot spot between the post and the coil

 

[Revelene]

Oh you mean that hot spot between the post and the coil

Uh oh...

 

[Dconnor]

I believe there is a difference between a .7 or .8 ohm coil and a .11 ohm coil. Both are sub-ohm, but the .11ohm is at best playing with the line on safety.
Bigger concern for me is not two weeks ago the OP posted about .1-.2 ohm drift every time they check the resistance on a coil. As stated earlier, most of the equipment used is not manufactured to standards with tight enough quality standards to ensure these tight of tolerances.