Ohms - up or down

What changes between say 1.5 ohms and 2.9 ohms?

 

the amount of resistance ...

 

Of course! But what changes with the vape? Why doesn't everyone vape at 1.8. or 2.5?

 

Given that you use the same battery, lets say 4.0 Volts.

The 2.5 ohm coil gets 6.4 W, 1.6A
The 1.8 ohm coil gets 8.9W, 2.22A

So the lower ohm coil produces more heat to the coil -- more vapor, warmer vape due to the higher Wattage BUT drains battery faster due to the higher Amp.

hope this helps

 

So cloud chasers are going to prefer the lower ohms and flavor vapers are going to enjoy they higher?

 

not really, RDA's are usually built sub-Ohm and provide a better cloud and flavour in general ... heats the juice up hotter/better, maybe think of it that way ... but eats your batteries up faster too

 

The ohms aren't all that important if you're using a vv or vw mod. Those who use mech mods adjust their ohms in order to control how many watts they're vaping at.

Wire gauge also plays a big part because it all comes down to the temperature of the coil when firing. For example:

2 ohm coil...
- with 28 gauge kanthal will require about 13 wraps (thicker wire, lots of wraps)
- with 32 gauge kanthal will require about 6 wraps. (thinner wire, less wraps)

^ assumes 2mm coil diameter

Both coils have the same ohms, but the vape experience of each is very different.

When vaping on a low wattage mod, that 28 gauge coil would take far longer to heat up than the 32 gauge wire. The 32g coil wold be a better vape, if you can only put out 10 watts (for example), because it can heat that gauge of wire adequately. And the 28 gauge wire would provide a better vape if you can put out 20 watts (example) because that coil has more surface area which means more vapour (and probably flavour too). Not to mention the higher watts will produce that vapour more quickly as well.

So, there are a few different things at play. It's not just a straight up matter of ohms. Consider this:

- a 9 wrap 28g coil comes out at about 1.5 ohms
- a 15 wrap 28g coil comes out at about 2.4 ohms. The ohms are higher and this one takes longer to heat up.
- dual 9 wrap 28g coils comes out at 0.7 ohms. This also takes longer to heat, but in this case the ohms are lower.

So you also gotta factor in your wire gauge and the wattage/voltage you're using.

On my Vision Spinner, I need to use thinner wire because that battery is weak. I don't care how many ohms my coil is, as long as it's above about 0.9 (where the vision spinner cuts off and won't fire). I'm only concerned with not having too many wraps because that makes the spinner heat the coil too slowly.

On my Hana clone, there is lots of power available, so I'm free to use more wraps and thicker wire (more surface area).

After you play around with it awhile, you find your preferences. Hope all that sheds some light on it for you, and didn't confuse you.

 

I think your first paragraph tells me everything I need to know. Thanks for taking the time to explain this in such detail.

 

I re-read my post and thought jeez what a shitty explanation. Probably left you more confused than before you read it. I don't have a full understanding of it all myself either so I'm probably not the best one to be explaining it.

Either way, the more you play around with this stuff, the more clear it becomes. In the end, it's all about getting the coil to the temperature that it needs to be to vaporize the juice.

 

I started building coils this past weekend on an APO RDA. My first coil was 8 wraps around 2 mm with 28 gauge wire. This produced a nice 1.6 ohms and, used on a mech mod with a 18650 battery, produced very satisfying vapor.

Then I thought: If 1 is good, 2 must be better. So, I built 2 3 ohm coils in parallel for 1.5 ohms. But these coils took a long time to warm up with only a slight glow on test firing. But I wicked it anyway. Very disappointing vape. It almost made me grab a stinky. Good thing I had another device on standby.

What do you recommend smithereens? I don't really want to go sub-ohm just yet but I would like to use dual coils. Perhaps 32 gauge wire? But then the coils will become very long on a 2 mm wrap or could I use a larger diameter wrap? The length of wire will be the same.

 

Sorry, but I don't have any experience with mech mods, and don't really know what to recommend. That explanation I tried to provide a few posts up applies to regulated mods.

But from what I can gather, the reason your coils are not heating up quickly enough is because the resistance might be high for a mech, when combined with the fact that you now have 2 coils which is more surface area to heat.

I think that's why mech users combine large coil surface area with low ohms. I believe the low resistance allows the mech to draw more power which is then adequate to heat all that surface area fast enough. That would likely explain why mech users seem to like their twisted wire coils, and parallel wire coils, and other fancy builds. It keeps lots of surface area, but lowers the resistance to sub ohms. I think it's those sub ohms that allows the mech to draw lots of watts from the battery to heat those big coils quickly. I think those builds draw like 50 watts, 100 watts, and more sometimes. That's also where battery safety comes in. The battery needs to be able to pull that off or it gets dangerous.

Hopefully Ryan comes across your post. I'm pretty sure he's got a good grasp on, and experience with, all that stuff.

- - - Updated - - -

Hmmm... so maybe if you liked the vape of a single 1.6ohm coil, you should probably aim for 0.8 ohms for your dual coils. That might be a start.... But again, make sure your battery can handle that before going down into the sub ohm territory (look in the battery amperage).

 

OK, thanks. Yes, it's a learning experience. In the meantime, I'll go back to a single coil but I won't stop experimenting. This is fun! Need more wire now.

 

Yeah, I love tinkering with this stuff too. Gonna pick up a mech soon also. I'm hoping you get some good answers to the question (in another thread) about light-weight mechs, as that's what I prefer as well. I met up with debatedude one day and he showed me his copper (or brass) nemesis. I was surprised at how heavy it was without a battery inside.

 

All of my batteries are VV VW and what I have noticed, between 1.8, 2.1 and 2.3 coils is the 1.8 almost instantly vapes, while the 2.1 and 2.3 take some time to produce results. This example is with my battery set at 8 watts, although I'm not sure that matters.

The quality of the vape does not seem to change. All I notice is a difference in time for the vape to kick in. It is no surprise that the lower the ohm, the faster the coil heats up.

That said, I'm comparing the experience between different tank/coils. The Aspire is at 1.8 and the the iclear is at 2.1 and th Kayfun is at 2.3. I guess the only way for me to appreciate the true difference is to test 2 different ohms on the same tank. The only tank I can do this with is the Kayfun.

Until I do that test I am sitting here asking myself why would I want to vape at 2.3 when 1.8 delivers the same quality vape but quicker.

 

Actually, I found your explanation really clear. I suppose I understood some of it before, but that clears a lot up for me.

- - - Updated - - -

Agree. Pity the Kanthal is marked up so high here. I think its time I ordered one of those 100 feet rolls of 28AWG Kanthal off e-bay. (costs about $7 but about $15 postage from memory)