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What does step down in wattage mode mean?

Adam Paseman

Bronze Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Just like title stares, what dies step down in wattage mode mean?


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Vapin4Joy

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
It means your mod can lower the voltage applied to the coil BELOW the voltage currently held in the batt.

ie... Freshly charged batt.
32 watts pushed through .3 ohms = ~3 volts. But w/o stepdown, you get 4.2 volts, like it or not.

Don't buy any regulated mod without stepdown.
Yep!
 
I still don't get it.... so the regulated mod will send more volts than the wattage you set it for dictates? Whereas it only needs to send 3.1 volts to achieve the 32 watts you set your mod at (for a 0.3 coil); but the board ends up sucking 4.2 volts from you battery? What happens to the left over power?
 

Wingsfan0310

Gold Contributor
Member For 4 Years
I still don't get it.... so the regulated mod will send more volts than the wattage you set it for dictates? Whereas it only needs to send 3.1 volts to achieve the 32 watts you set your mod at (for a 0.3 coil); but the board ends up sucking 4.2 volts from you battery? What happens to the left over power?

What happens is the board converts the extra voltage into current (amps) so less amps are needed to be drawn from the battery. The board steps down the voltage and steps up the current in that situation. Hope that's clear.

Cheers,
Steve

Edit To try and be more clear. The board always get the present voltage of the batteries. It draws the amount of current required. Just like in your house. When you plug something in, it always gets 120 volts and draws the amount of amps it needs. A refrigerator will draw a lot more amps than a cfl light bulb, they both however get the 120 volts

Edit 2. That's what the bricks do in your phone charger (step down the voltage). Without stepping down the 120V to 5V your phone or your mod would release the magic smoke (my way of saying it would be ruined)
 
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MrScaryZ

VU Donator
Platinum Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Just like title stares, what dies step down in wattage mode mean?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is the concept of Buck and Boost some boards only do boost only some can buck meaning to limit some DC converters do both
do a quick search you will learn more
 
What happens is the board converts the extra voltage into current (amps) so less amps are needed to be drawn from the battery. The board steps down the voltage and steps up the current in that situation. Hope that's clear.

Cheers,
Steve

Edit To try and be more clear. The board always get the present voltage of the batteries. It draws the amount of current required. Just like in your house. When you plug something in, it always gets 120 volts and draws the amount of amps it needs. A refrigerator will draw a lot more amps than a cfl light bulb, they both however get the 120 volts

Edit 2. That's what the bricks do in your phone charger (step down the voltage). Without stepping down the 120V to 5V your phone or your mod would release the magic smoke (my way of saying it would be ruined)

So I'm assuming the end result of step down on a regulated mod is longer battery life? If not, what's the advantage?

Edit: sorry to sound dumb, but I've been vaping for like 4 years or so. I'm a mech subohm guy by heart and come from a time were 15 watts on a regulated mod was "amazing" at the time, but still didn't get the job done. When all the super high wattage box mods and TC mods came out, I held off a while as most of them were nothing but trouble and either didn't work as advertised, broke within a week, or started smoking and melting circuits. I waited for a while until the tech was better. So where as I own 20+ mech mods and unregulated box mods, I only own like 3 regulated box mods. My first one with step down is in the mail now (IPV D3). So I'm kinda wondering what the hype is about in this area as it seems that one of if not the only major change from the D2.


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Superjeep

Bronze Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Lets say you like to vape at a certian wattage with a certian low ohm coil. For example my current xcube 2 im vaping at 44 watts with a .22 ohm coil ans the actual voltage its feeding the coil is around 3.1 volts. On my old piece of shit IPV mini's(which I bought 2 of before knowing better) it would not vape at 3.1 volt unless thats where the battery is currently at. With out step down it will only fire as low as the natural voltage of the battery is so its going to be a really hot vape.

It gives you constant flexibility no matter what ohm coil you have unlike having to build in a specific range like a mech. With no step down you really only get that full flexibility from the battery voltage up if that makes sense.

It seems like its something that is not that big of deal but man you find out pretty quick that it does. Its just one more option that frankly every regulated mod in 2015 should have and wouldnt touch something without it.
 

Wingsfan0310

Gold Contributor
Member For 4 Years
So I'm assuming the end result of step down on a regulated mod is longer battery life? If not, what's the advantage?

Edit: sorry to sound dumb, but I've been vaping for like 4 years or so. I'm a mech subohm guy by heart and come from a time were 15 watts on a regulated mod was "amazing" at the time, but still didn't get the job done. When all the super high wattage box mods and TC mods came out, I held off a while as most of them were nothing but trouble and either didn't work as advertised, broke within a week, or started smoking and melting circuits. I waited for a while until the tech was better. So where as I own 20+ mech mods and unregulated box mods, I only own like 3 regulated box mods. My first one with step down is in the mail now (IPV D3). So I'm kinda wondering what the hype is about in this area as it seems that one of if not the only major change from the D2.


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As superjeep said without step down it's going to operate like a mech in the regards your coil won't ever get a voltage lower than the current battery voltage. So if you have a fully charged battery, your coil will get 4.2v even if it was supposed to get 2v with the wattage you dial up combined with the resistance of the coil.
Ohms-Law-Formula-Wheel_zpscjcwg7p5.png


Example. You have a fully charged battery 4.2v, a .2 ohm coil, and you want it to fire at 20 watts. The formula for voltage tells you it should be 2v (square root of 20w x .2ohms = 2v). With no step down you would have 4.2 instead of 2v so in reality you would fire said coil at 88.2 watts (4.2v squared / .2 ohms = 88.2 watts). That's an extreme example but you see what I'm getting at.
 

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