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Basic Understanding of the components of Vaping: Power
(1) Power: Power in personal vaporizers (e-cigs) is provided by batteries. Even though entire books can be written about the batteries we use in vaping, their chemical makeup, and safety, that is a topic for another thread. For my basic understanding purposes here, we are just going to consider a battery (of any type) a power supply. We use this power in one of typically two ways; UNREGULATED and REGULATED. Whether you are using a regulated or unregulated vaping device, power is the first essential element of vaping. It is what heats the element (coil) and vaporizes the liquid in the vaporizer. Again, there are entire books on understanding the physics of how resistance and electrical flow interact to create heat, but we are not discussing that here. What we are discussing is what we typically do with that supplied power. On the basic level, we just want to know how to use that power to vape. There are basically two types of personal vaporizers that are defined by the way they use the supplied power; again: Unregulated and Regulated.
a. Unregulated: These vaporizers are usually called “Mech Mods”. “Mech” refers to the fact that they are mechanical in nature. No wires or electronics are constructed within its’ makeup. “Mech” is just a shortened term for mechanical. And “Mod” refers to a time when people had to “modify” other items (such as flash lights) to make a vaping device/personal vaporizer. The term Mod is a holdover from the early days of vaping; hence the term “Mech Mod”. Since there are no electronics, you get the power output of the battery only. This is usually great when your battery is fresh off the charger, but as your battery uses its’ stored energy, the quality of your vape experience will degrade because there is less power to supply to the coil. Have you ever noticed how your flashlight shines bright when you place new batteries into it, and then becomes dimmer and dimmer as the batteries loose power? Same exact principal here. There are also no protection circuits to protect your battery from over draining, shorting, or other damage it may encounter while being used for vaping. That is the main reason why most new vaporers are advised against using mech mods when they first start out. We all make stupid mistakes when we first start a new experience, but if you make a mistake with a battery, it can lead to catastrophic failure of the battery. Catastrophic failure of a battery is called thermal runaway where it creates hot gasses that can violently expel at a high rate of speed. Place that within a metal tube, and you essentially have a pipe bomb held up to your face. Except for charging, there are no adjustments you can make to the power output. There are some control heads you can attach to, or put into, a mechanical mod, but then you have essentially created a regulated mod.
b. Regulated: We usually call these APV’s or Advanced Personal Vaporizers. These vaporizers take the power output of the battery and modify (regulate) it up or down in power by a series of electrical circuits. There are different ways in which the power output can be regulated (i.e.: pulse width modulation, etc.), but for basic understanding let’s just say that the power is regulated up or down based on how you set the vaporizer. This allows you to apply more or less power to the coils to tailor the vape experience to your wants, needs, or desires. These devices usually have a host of safety features that try to mitigate the dangers batteries and mistakes can subject the vaporer to; such as: short protection, reverse battery protection, accidental fire/timeout protection, over heating protection, etc… There is a lot more to learn about regulated devices, but they basically let you adjust the power coming from the battery up or down; which in turn gives you greater control of the vape experience without having to change coils, wicks, juice, or airflow. Again, the specifics of regulation can fill volumes of books, but we generally regulate the power with one of two ways of looking at the output: (1) Voltage, and (2) Power. These are two different ways of looking at the same thing because the output is still just electricity.
i. Voltage: When we adjust a vaporizer by voltage, we are adjusting the electricity we are applying to the circuit/coils. Which in turn makes the coil heat up hotter or cooler depending on if we choose a higher or lower setting. Adjusting a vaporizer in Voltage mode usually allows for finer tweaking of the vape experience. However, with finer tweaking also comes a little more fiddling as you change coils, toppers, etc…. If I change the resistance of the coil I am using, I have to change the voltage output to compensate.
ii. Power: When we adjust a vaporizer by power, we are adjusting the wattage, or amount of work the electricity is doing. The basic premise of power adjustment is that you can find a preferred vape experience and maintain that same experience with any coil resistance we place on our device; without changing (much) the power setting. Let’s say that I find that I like the vape experience at 10 watts using a 2.0 ohm (standard resistance) coil, but I want to change to a 1.5 ohm coil. The premise is that I will get the same vape experience without having to change the power setting (much!). It is considered more “set it and forget it” adjustment than when adjusting your vaporizer in voltage mode.
(1) Power: Power in personal vaporizers (e-cigs) is provided by batteries. Even though entire books can be written about the batteries we use in vaping, their chemical makeup, and safety, that is a topic for another thread. For my basic understanding purposes here, we are just going to consider a battery (of any type) a power supply. We use this power in one of typically two ways; UNREGULATED and REGULATED. Whether you are using a regulated or unregulated vaping device, power is the first essential element of vaping. It is what heats the element (coil) and vaporizes the liquid in the vaporizer. Again, there are entire books on understanding the physics of how resistance and electrical flow interact to create heat, but we are not discussing that here. What we are discussing is what we typically do with that supplied power. On the basic level, we just want to know how to use that power to vape. There are basically two types of personal vaporizers that are defined by the way they use the supplied power; again: Unregulated and Regulated.
a. Unregulated: These vaporizers are usually called “Mech Mods”. “Mech” refers to the fact that they are mechanical in nature. No wires or electronics are constructed within its’ makeup. “Mech” is just a shortened term for mechanical. And “Mod” refers to a time when people had to “modify” other items (such as flash lights) to make a vaping device/personal vaporizer. The term Mod is a holdover from the early days of vaping; hence the term “Mech Mod”. Since there are no electronics, you get the power output of the battery only. This is usually great when your battery is fresh off the charger, but as your battery uses its’ stored energy, the quality of your vape experience will degrade because there is less power to supply to the coil. Have you ever noticed how your flashlight shines bright when you place new batteries into it, and then becomes dimmer and dimmer as the batteries loose power? Same exact principal here. There are also no protection circuits to protect your battery from over draining, shorting, or other damage it may encounter while being used for vaping. That is the main reason why most new vaporers are advised against using mech mods when they first start out. We all make stupid mistakes when we first start a new experience, but if you make a mistake with a battery, it can lead to catastrophic failure of the battery. Catastrophic failure of a battery is called thermal runaway where it creates hot gasses that can violently expel at a high rate of speed. Place that within a metal tube, and you essentially have a pipe bomb held up to your face. Except for charging, there are no adjustments you can make to the power output. There are some control heads you can attach to, or put into, a mechanical mod, but then you have essentially created a regulated mod.
b. Regulated: We usually call these APV’s or Advanced Personal Vaporizers. These vaporizers take the power output of the battery and modify (regulate) it up or down in power by a series of electrical circuits. There are different ways in which the power output can be regulated (i.e.: pulse width modulation, etc.), but for basic understanding let’s just say that the power is regulated up or down based on how you set the vaporizer. This allows you to apply more or less power to the coils to tailor the vape experience to your wants, needs, or desires. These devices usually have a host of safety features that try to mitigate the dangers batteries and mistakes can subject the vaporer to; such as: short protection, reverse battery protection, accidental fire/timeout protection, over heating protection, etc… There is a lot more to learn about regulated devices, but they basically let you adjust the power coming from the battery up or down; which in turn gives you greater control of the vape experience without having to change coils, wicks, juice, or airflow. Again, the specifics of regulation can fill volumes of books, but we generally regulate the power with one of two ways of looking at the output: (1) Voltage, and (2) Power. These are two different ways of looking at the same thing because the output is still just electricity.
i. Voltage: When we adjust a vaporizer by voltage, we are adjusting the electricity we are applying to the circuit/coils. Which in turn makes the coil heat up hotter or cooler depending on if we choose a higher or lower setting. Adjusting a vaporizer in Voltage mode usually allows for finer tweaking of the vape experience. However, with finer tweaking also comes a little more fiddling as you change coils, toppers, etc…. If I change the resistance of the coil I am using, I have to change the voltage output to compensate.
ii. Power: When we adjust a vaporizer by power, we are adjusting the wattage, or amount of work the electricity is doing. The basic premise of power adjustment is that you can find a preferred vape experience and maintain that same experience with any coil resistance we place on our device; without changing (much) the power setting. Let’s say that I find that I like the vape experience at 10 watts using a 2.0 ohm (standard resistance) coil, but I want to change to a 1.5 ohm coil. The premise is that I will get the same vape experience without having to change the power setting (much!). It is considered more “set it and forget it” adjustment than when adjusting your vaporizer in voltage mode.
If you continue with this format of writing through the other categories such as atomizers and coils, you'll end up with a fine tutorial for those folks about to fly the Blu nest into the vaping skies.
