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School me a lil bit on Voltage

Mythical_OD

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So Ive only been vaping for about a month, and dove head first into it. Love it, love everything about it, and love learning all I can. I know enough about ohms and battery ratings to be able to safely build, but one thing I dont know much about is voltage. I notice on the battery I have in my mod now, it says 3.7v (IMR 18650), but I notice a lot of the time my mod is reading above 3.7, sometimes well above it, sometimes close to 5. Is this safe or am I asking too much of the battery going above 3.7? Maybe school me a little on voltage and how it pertains to vaping or point me in the right direction?

Id appreciate it.
 

OBDave

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Moving this over to the batteries sub...

For starters, your battery's standard workload (where it will spend most of its time) is around 3.7 volts. Fully charged, you'll be at 4.2 - you don't want to drop much below 3.6 or you risk damaging your cell. If you're using a mechanical mod, draining too low could stress the battery and cause it to vent and/or explode - the same thing happens if you're drawing too many amps out of your battery at once, so make sure you're building within your amp spec and that you know the true amp spec (lots of non-manufacturer "rewrappers" will put outlandishly dangerous fake specs on their cells, see: Efest, MXJO, Imren, et al). I've got a sticky "sick clouds bro" thread in the Help I Have Questions sub where you originally posted that's definitely worth a look (as are the links) if you're interested in battery safety, and you should be. For regulated mods, generally the worst you'll do by discharging too low unless your chipset malfunctions is reduce the overall number of charge cycles you'll get out of your battery.

If your fully charged battery is sitting at close to 5 volts at rest, something is wrong. Very much wrong. But it's not impossible to imagine that a high-wattage build on a regulated device is showing that much total draw between multiple cells to achieve the setting you've selected.
 

Mythical_OD

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Thanks for the info, Ill for sure check out that thread.

I should have said that the readings I mention are while firing. I notice with the RDA I have set up at .46 ohm, when I use it at 35 watts (or maybe its 30) it reads 3.7 dead on while firing, though I usually use it at 40-45watts (50 watt mod).

Im all about safety when it comes to this kind of shit. It kind of defeats the point of switching from cigarettes to a vape if youve got batteries blowing up in your face lol. I do have a regulated mod, and do know when I first started a lot of the time I was below the 3.7 volts. Ill have to read up more on it.
 

OBDave

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Sounds like you're starting from a good place already - what are you using as far as a mod, batteries, and charger?

fat fingered flubs courtesy dumb mobile phone
 

Jim_MDP

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Im all about safety when it comes to this kind of shit. It kind of defeats the point of switching from cigarettes to a vape if youve got batteries blowing up in your face lol.

No truer words, young Padwan... no truer words. :(

The 5.0v is odd, unless as Dave suggests, it was reg mod output based on your res/watt settings. Otherwise... no. Just NO, never. 18650s don't hold that much volt potential.
I've had my RX show one full cell at 4.35 (once) and I was not happy. That's not right.
Check what's what and update us.

On the low end, I disagree with Dave on the 3.7v unless this started in a Mech section and he means it's where most start thinking about swapping out their batt(s) (poor performance I'm afraid, the dears :().

3.7 volts is the mid-point between the full charge 4.2v and the normal mod cut-off around 3.2v. It's the nominal voltage, a standard average if you prefer (mean, median etc. notwithstanding).

But no damage, under normal operating conditions, should occur until much lower.
2.5v is a consensus for that last inviolable measure, but we'll never see even that low a loaded (sagged) voltage, fingers crossed... our regulated mods will shut off long before.
 
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OBDave

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No truer words, young Padwan... no truer words. :(

The 5.0v is odd, unless as Dave suggests, it was reg mod output based on your res/watt settings. Otherwise... no. Just NO, never. 18650s don't hold that much volt potential.
I've had my RX show one full cell at 4.35 (once) and I was not happy. That's not right.
Check what's what and update us.

On the low end, I disagree with Dave on the 3.7v unless this started in a Mech section and he means it's where most start thinking about swapping out their batt(s) (poor performance I'm afraid, the dears :().

3.7 volts is the mid-point between the full charge 4.2v and the normal mod cut-off around 3.2v. It's the nominal voltage, a standard average if you prefer (mean, median etc. notwithstanding).

But no damage, under normal operating conditions, should occur until much lower.
2.5v is a consensus for that last inviolable measure, but we'll never see even that low a loaded (sagged) voltage, fingers crossed... our regulated mods will shut off long before.
I'm going to add on a bit more to Jim's statement on regulated mod use and dropping cells down to 3.2v before charging - yes, this is when most mods will show your battery life remaining at around 10-15% and they'll refuse to fire. However, in my experience with driving my batteries until they've got no life left in them (according to my regulated mods), I'm getting about 150 charge cycles out of them before noticing enough drop in their ability to hold a charge that I'm ready to chuck them.

Most battery specs say to expect closer to 300 charge cycles in a cell's life, and I've been told that in order to get all these charges, you should stop using your cells when they fall below 50%, or about 3.6v (which is natural with a mech because your vape starts to suck). So if I implied you're going to do serious damage to your cells just because you're letting them fall below 3.6v one time I'm wrong - like Jim says the mark for this level of abuse is closer to 2.5v. But you might get a few fewer charges overall...
 

Angrygod50

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You still haven't said what mod it is so I'm assuming it's like most regulated mods. The voltage on the screen is not the battery voltage but the voltage the mod thinks it needs to fire the settings you have. That is likely to change when you hit the fire button. That's the output voltage not the input voltage from the batteries.

It's best to charge the batteries when they get to 3.5 volts or above as you will get the most charge cycles out of them and they won't be stressed. But you need to check the voltage at the battery with a multi meter not the mods meter. That said I charge mine when the mods meter shows about half way or a bit less. Others may do it differently. As long as you don't take them to 2.5 volts your ok. A fully charged battery is 4.2 volts.
 

Mythical_OD

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Sorry, the mod is a Kanger Kbox Mini 50w and I use either the Kanger Subtank Mini tank, or a Royal Hunter or Freakshow RDA on top of it, usually built around 0.5 ohm. Usually I vape between 35 and 45 watts (Kbox has wattage control with fixed voltage). Right this second Im vaping at 40 watts on a 0.46 ohm build and when I fire the voltage on the screen reads an even 4 volts.
 

Model_A_Ford

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It's a regulated mod. right now I'm using a regulated mod at 15 watts and the screen shows 5.21 volts when it fires.
 

OBDave

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It's a regulated mod. right now I'm using a regulated mod at 15 watts and the screen shows 5.21 volts when it fires.
That seems like a lot of volts to fire at 15 watts - what kind of resistance is that coil at?
 

OBDave

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Okay, makes sense - it's easy to forget people still use super-ohm in this brave new world of sub...
 

Model_A_Ford

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Okay, makes sense - it's easy to forget people still use super-ohm in this brave new world of sub...

I'm new to vaping, when I ordered the mini pegasus/triton mini kit I didn't know what an ohm was, I just ordered all the different coils.
 

OBDave

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I'm new to vaping, when I ordered the mini pegasus/triton mini kit I didn't know what an ohm was, I just ordered all the different coils.
Hey, no worries - if it's working for you that's great, and by vaping at higher ohms and lower watts you're saving a lot of liquid!

Out of curiosity, are you changing your settings with every post to have your text show up tiny and in a different font, or is that something that's happening automatically?
 

Model_A_Ford

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I'm trying a bit of everything. I use a Crown tank most of the time, but I have other stuff that I bought before I really understood anything that I use now and then.

getting a RDA on monday, so that should be fun.

My keyboard and computer are messed up, so my posts sometimes have weird or mixed fonts. I actually have to cut and paste certain letters into the message window because those letters are broken on my keyboard. Then after I post I have to edit all sorts of font labeling out that somehow gets added.
 

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