It was just 26g Kanthal that I’d been vaping on for a couple days at 30W without a problem; infact it was wicking just fine.
Mostly small guage kanthal to build Clapton coils
There is no doubt that having a good understanding of ohm’s law will help tremendously in building coils. I just recoiled an Lemo Drop with 26g Kanthal at .8 ohms. With my voltage around 5V I was getting a pretty warm vape…too warm for me, but found if I keep the voltage between 4.2V - 4.5V I get a cooler vape more to my liking. So I’m finding that voltage is equally important as wattage, maybe even more so. Any thoughts?
Well, it’s all part of it, isn’t it? The wattage is the one constant that you can use…
Think of voltage as the water pressure in a pipe, the ohms as the pipe size and the current as the rate of which water flows through it - the pipe is then connected to a water wheel, which generates power (wattage)…
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Say what you will about wattage I have all my vv/vw mods set at 4.3V for single coil and 3.5V for dual coil, irregardless of wattage, and I’m enjoying vaping on them once more. What I’m saying is I can control the temperature of the vape much better with voltage settings than I can with wattage.
I’ve got some 28g and 26g stainless steel on the way. Very anxious to wind some coils with it. I’ve noticed on Steam Engine that SS has about 1/2 the resistance of Kanthal.
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Its certainly lower than A1 but its not half. I know for a fact its not.
According to Steam Engine, what they call “resistivity” for 26g A1 Kanthal it’s 11.26 ohm / m, for 26g SS 316 it’s 5.98 ohm / m. 5.63 would be half, so your right, it’s not half, but pretty darn close.
Well gauging from experience when I run 6 wraps of 26g A1 kanthal paralleled on a 3mm bit I ohm out to about 0.36 for single coil.
I take 316L SS 26g wire, 7 wraps on same diameter, dual coils, I ohm out to 0.30
For me its a lot closer to A1 than what SE says it is.
What would the SS ohm out to if it was a single coil built the same as the kanthal coil ? I’m not arguing, I want you to be right because I don’t want to have to build coils with twice as many turns just to use SS.
You wont have to make a super huge coils for the ohms to read the same.
Single coil, 7 wraps on 3mm driver in the lemo II using 26g 316L SS wire is sitting pretty at 0.57 ohm.
I just went back to Steam Engine, and according to their coil wrapping info, a 1 ohm, 3 mm coil of 26g kanthal would require 7 wraps, a 1 ohm, 3 mm coil of 26g SS would require 14 wraps. I guess the answer is that SS is better suited for building sub-ohm coils in the .2 to .6 range.
I’m just speaking from experience and what I’ve built and my findings. I’ve never really fancied that site for accuracy. My trusty ohm meter tells me what I need to know.
OHM’s law appied to coils and thermal dynamics. Less resistance in a coil means more voltage applied across the coil is needed to generate an amount of heat. (difference of potential (+) to (-) is less in a low ohm coil) The result is higher current load on the battery and across the coil. This in and of itself isn’t beneficial in any other way than to reach a desired temperature more quickly.
Electrically, a higher resistance is more efficient. Thermal dynamically less resistance is more efficient.
Think of it as a 50 watt lamp giving off (X) amount of light, a 100 watt bulb gives off more, but draws more current doing so with the same voltage applied resulting in more power being consumed. Also, think of power (wattage) as being more a function as a resultant than something being applied. Even with (wattage) regulated mods, we are still merely changing the voltage applied which results in a quantity of power being consumed or converted to heat energy. A dimmer switch on a lamp reduces voltage to lower the amount of light (power) being consumed.
Now I sound like my advanced electronics teacher from the Navy.
Hope this clarifies something for somebody.
My Twisted Messes RDA loves a .3 ohm dual coil rig running on my iStick 100w set at 57w LOL.
VAPE ON!
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He is right…your coil (resistance) is constant. With less voltage…you get less watts. Increase voltage…you get increase watts. Changing your voltage is like driving a manual transmission car. Changing your watts is like driving an automatic transmission car.
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A belated Thankyou @bradslinux …I’m starting to get it, I think…(I hope). I really dont have an intuitive sense for this stuff, but lets see if some of it has sunk in…
A .3 ohm coil, for example, offers less resistance than a .5 ohm coil… but draws more current from the battery. Right?
You mean more efficient in vaping terms?..more efficient at producing the good stuff… flavor & cloud, yes?
But less efficient in terms of battery life…?
So, you’ve got 2 coils, coming in at .3 ohm. If you ran only 1 of those coils, that would = .6 ohm?
At a given applied voltage yes.
Yes, too a point. Some like warmer vapes. A hot vape just sux for most of us. Less resistance results in more current at a given applied voltage. Think of resistance as resistance to current flow. Remember, power (watts) is what is being used at a given voltage and resistance and power or wattage is the result, not the variable input. Although our devices would have us think otherwise. Changing wattage is a misnomer, albeit a convenient one to represent more finite voltages changes.
Yes. And you are most welcome.
B
Got it!..Its so simple!
Thats great! I feel a lot more confident about it all now. Thx again @bradslinux !