Become a Patron!

Regulated vs Non-regulated and Lowest Resistance

mbg247

Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
Hey guys, I'm trying to learn about vaping safety mostly since I'm trying to get more advanced than just kits that are already setup.
I was wondering if someone could tell me the difference between regulated and non-regulated mods, and what that means in terms of safety.

In addition,
Ohm's law is V=IR
So in terms of I (amps), what "current" spec should I look for? "Max Current"? I recently bought the Uwell crown sub ohm tank and was wondering if i could run that with the .25 ohm coil on either the ijust2 battery or aspire cf sub ohm battery.
I know I'm asking for a lot of information >.< but any info would be helpful, thank you in advice :)
 

Neunerball

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
ECF Refugee
Regulated devices have electronics that (hopefully) protect you from stupid mistakes, like trying to fire a coil build too low for the mod. Mech mods (un-regulated), don't have any protection at all. Therefore you have to do the proper build depending on your battery's specifications.
Regarding the two devices you mentioned, it should be listed, what resistance they support.
 
Last edited:

BigNasty

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
Regulated no news stories.
Mechs.. to many stupid fuckers running stupid sets ups, to many news stories my knuckle dragging window lickers about knuckle shuffling mouth breathers nearly blowing themselves apart.
 

VAPEROXX

Gold Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Unlisted Vendor
Hey guys, I'm trying to learn about vaping safety mostly since I'm trying to get more advanced than just kits that are already setup.
I was wondering if someone could tell me the difference between regulated and non-regulated mods, and what that means in terms of safety.

In addition,
Ohm's law is V=IR
So in terms of I (amps), what "current" spec should I look for? "Max Current"? I recently bought the Uwell crown sub ohm tank and was wondering if i could run that with the .25 ohm coil on either the ijust2 battery or aspire cf sub ohm battery.
I know I'm asking for a lot of information >.< but any info would be helpful, thank you in advice :)
Ohms law help is right here:
http://www.steam-engine.org/ohm.asp
use it and learning ohm's law is a breeze.
 

Slurp812

Bronze Contributor
Member For 4 Years
I also prefer the safety, and adjustablity a regulated mod gives you. 0.25 on a mech would be a bit hot for me. I am a light weight vaper. I like 20-30 watts or so. With a regulated mod, just about any tank/dripper/clearo will be usable. However regulated mods aren't as reliable, or as durable.
 

BigNasty

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
I also prefer the safety, and adjustablity a regulated mod gives you. 0.25 on a mech would be a bit hot for me. I am a light weight vaper. I like 20-30 watts or so. With a regulated mod, just about any tank/dripper/clearo will be usable. However regulated mods aren't as reliable, or as durable.
Since piffing my mutation to a newish vaper I am down to two rda.
One is an insane .14 build that has never gone above 80 watts, max it is just like lip wrapping a hot exhaust pipe.
My go to is .24 and sits at 50-60 watts.
 

mbg247

Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
Regulated devices have electronics that (hopefully) protect you from stupid mistakes, like trying to fire a coil build too low for the mod. Mech mods (un-regulated), don't have any protection at all. Therefore you have to do the proper build depending on your battery's specifications.
Regarding the two devices you mentioned, it should be listed, what resistance they support.
Make sense :p yeah i know the list states that resistance should be around .3-1.0 so would be it stupid to use a .25 ohm coil? :O

Regulated no news stories.
Mechs.. to many stupid fuckers running stupid sets ups, to many news stories my knuckle dragging window lickers about knuckle shuffling mouth breathers nearly blowing themselves apart.
Seems easy enough (x

Ohms law help is right here:
http://www.steam-engine.org/ohm.asp
use it and learning ohm's law is a breeze.
Thank you i understand ohms law i just don't know what information to look for and I also wondering if it would be safe to just go based off of that. Because as mentioned before the company says the lowest is .3 ohms however using ohms law of a 40 max current and 3.8-4.2 voltage the lowest resistance is .1-.11 which is a significant difference :eek:.
 

BigNasty

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
OK the regulated keeps the amps from over draining the battery, think of it as a stupidity buffer.
For a mech you build off the amp drain constant not the pulse to be safe. Unless it is a VTC or the new LGs nothing is above 20 amp.

For most batteries .20 will hit your 20 amp range.
Steamengine is what you are looking for.
 

VAPEROXX

Gold Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Unlisted Vendor
Make sense :p yeah i know the list states that resistance should be around .3-1.0 so would be it stupid to use a .25 ohm coil? :O


Seems easy enough (x


Thank you i understand ohms law i just don't know what information to look for and I also wondering if it would be safe to just go based off of that. Because as mentioned before the company says the lowest is .3 ohms however using ohms law of a 40 max current and 3.8-4.2 voltage the lowest resistance is .1-.11 which is a significant difference :eek:.
That's what the steam engine tools do. You can figure out what coils are safe based upon your batteries, mod and etc. Just plug in your known values and Steam engine does the rest.
 

robot zombie

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
You asked one hell of a question. I'm not sure I can give you a simple answer. I apologize in advance for my lack of brevity.

Both of those mods have a .3-ohm minimum, so they will not fire a .25-ohm coil. I'm not sure what the actual continuous discharge limit of the internal batteries are, but I'm assuming they are designed not to let you run them past it.

The "Max Current" spec on those devices refers to the maximum output current, not the maximum current it can pull from the battery. There's a big difference there, which I will get into a bit later. The main thing to know here is that you needn't worry about it on devices with built-in batteries. They are designed and configured to run within the limitations of the battery.

When we talk about current in terms of safety, we are referring to the max continuous discharge rate of the batteries. This only comes into play with devices that have removable batteries, regulated or not. That's when you need to be aware of the CDR of your batteries and check to make sure that your device isn't exceeding that number.

Use steam engine. It really covers everything. Now, for some stuff you don't need to know yet but should know anyway if you wish to take things further...

...for unregulated devices, coil resistance is everything when it comes to performance and safety. The voltage is fixed at whatever the battery naturally puts out, so the amount of current and thus wattage always depends on the resistance of the coil.

Because you're running straight off of the battery, there's nothing stopping you from building a coil that can pop a battery, as the battery will give as much current as the coil will pull from it, even if it shouldn't. A dead short in the atty or within the device itself will vent a battery. It is also possible to drain a battery too low, which can cause your batteries to vent and catch fire when you charge them.

When you read about vaping devices exploding, a mechanical mod and an ill-informed user are usually involved. They are not newbie-friendly and require a lot of knowledge and experience to use properly. They do not have safety nets. You need to be up on your ohm's law, always use an ohmmeter, be able to recognize a short BEFORE firing it, and have a good grasp of what your batteries can and cannot handle, as well as the ability to recognize the signs of an over-stressed/over-discharged battery.


Regulated devices generally do not care about ohms. There's no resistance involved in how one gets its power. The battery drain is dictated by the wattage setting. If you set it at 100w, then it will pull as much current as it needs to hit that at the batteries' voltage under load.

So, if you build a stupid-low, .1 coil that pulls 38 amps at 150w, that doesn't mean it will take 38 amps from your battery (which is far more than any battery on the market can handle, btw.) If you're running a dual battery box (something like the Sigelei 150w,) then it will pull 20 amps from your batteries, as that is all that is needed to achieve 150w with fresh batteries kicking at 8.4v. It uses something called a buck converter, which trades the excess voltage coming from the batteries for current.

This, along with their many built-in protection features, makes these types of devices much safer and more power-efficient. What unregulated devices do with current, they can do with voltage. The more current that is needed from the batteries, the more taxed they are, and the higher the likelihood of catastrophic failure is.

The only trade-off is that unlike mechs, which pull a declining amount of current as the batteries are depleted, VW devices need to pull more current from your batteries as they deplete and their natural voltage drops. This is where you need to be careful. What is a safe wattage for fresh batteries may not be so safe on half-dead ones.

I'm oversimplifying it a bit, as there are parallel regulated boxes which use boost circuitry to hit higher wattages, but those are uncommon. You will be much more likely to encounter single or dual-series boxes that work as I described.
 
Last edited:

BigNasty

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
You asked one hell of a question. I'm not sure I can give you a simple answer. I apologize in advance for my lack of brevity.

Both of those mods have a .3-ohm minimum, so they will not fire a .25-ohm coil. I'm not sure what the actual continuous discharge limit of the internal batteries are, but I'm assuming they are designed not to let you run them past it.

The "Max Current" spec on those devices refers to the maximum output current, not the maximum current it can pull from the battery. There's a big difference there, which I will get into a bit later. The main thing to know here is that you needn't worry about it on devices with built-in batteries. They are designed and configured to run within the limitations of the battery.

When we talk about current in terms of safety, we are referring to the max continuous discharge rate of the batteries. This only comes into play with devices that have removable batteries, regulated or not. That's when you need to be aware of the CDR of your batteries and check to make sure that your device isn't exceeding that number.

Use steam engine. It really covers everything. Now, for some stuff you don't need to know yet but should know anyway if you wish to take things further...

...for unregulated devices, coil resistance is everything when it comes to performance and safety. The voltage is fixed at whatever the battery naturally puts out, so the amount of current and thus wattage always depends on the resistance of the coil.

Because you're running straight off of the battery, there's nothing stopping you from building a coil that can pop a battery, as the battery will give as much current as the coil will pull from it, even if it shouldn't. A dead short in the atty or within the device itself will vent a battery. It is also possible to drain a battery too low, which can cause your batteries to vent and catch fire when you charge them.

When you read about vaping devices exploding, a mechanical mod and an ill-informed user are usually involved. They are not newbie-friendly and require a lot of knowledge and experience to use properly. They do not have safety nets. You need to be up on your ohm's law, always use an ohmmeter, be able to recognize a short BEFORE firing it, and have a good grasp of what your batteries can and cannot handle, as well as the ability to recognize the signs of an over-stressed/over-discharged battery.


Regulated devices generally do not care about ohms. There's no resistance involved in how one gets its power. The battery drain is dictated by the wattage setting. If you set it at 100w, then it will pull as much current as it needs to hit that at the batteries' voltage under load.

So, if you build a stupid-low, .1 coil that pulls 38 amps at 150w, that doesn't mean it will take 38 amps from your battery (which is far more than any battery on the market can handle, btw.) If you're running a dual battery box (something like the Sigelei 150w,) then it will pull 20 amps from your batteries, as that is all that is needed to achieve 150w with fresh batteries kicking at 8.4v. It uses something called a buck converter, which trades the excess voltage coming from the batteries for current.

This, along with their many built-in protection features, makes these types of devices much safer and more power-efficient. What unregulated devices do with current, they can do with voltage. The more current is needed from the batteries, the more taxed they are, and the higher the likelihood of catastrophic failure is.

The only trade-off is that unlike mechs, which pull a declining amount of current as the batteries are depleted, VW devices need to pull more current for your batteries as they deplete and their natural voltage drops. This is where you need to be careful. What is a safe wattage for fresh batteries may not be so safe on half-dead ones.

I'm oversimplifying it a bit, as there are parallel regulated boxes which use boost circuitry to hit higher wattages, but those are uncommon. You will be much more likely to encounter single or dual-series boxes that work as I described.
+1.
Years of knowledge laid down as simply as it can be put.
Will add once you get your bearings the info is easy to pick up and becomes ingrained.
 

Neunerball

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
ECF Refugee
...I'm not sure I can give you a simple answer. I apologize in advance for my lack of brevity....
No offense, you never give a short answer! As informative as it might be, keeping it shorter, assures that it will be read and digested. Otherwise, you run the risk of people just skimming over your post, and missing the important part(s).
 

BigNasty

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
Regulated has the stupid cushion.
Mechs require common sense and knowledge + a whole lot of luck. Batteries will fail, will it be a glorious flash bang of darwin getting his due to a cell collapsing and the protection doing it's job. But the batteries will fail.

While regulated has gotten the masses more into vaping, it has woken the vape tards into not giving a shit about their own life and limbs.
 

robot zombie

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
No offense, you never give a short answer! As informative as it might be, keeping it shorter, assures that it will be read and digested. Otherwise, you run the risk of people just skimming over your post, and missing the important part(s).
I know, I know. I can't help myself sometimes. Believe it or not, I trimmed that one down quite a bit. o_O

I tend not to worry much about being long-winded since this place has people who are already very good at explaining things with brevity. I simply offer more detailed explanations for people who care to know.
 

BigNasty

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
I know, I know. I can't help myself sometimes. Believe it or not, I trimmed that one down quite a bit. o_O

I tend not to worry much about being long-winded since this place has people who are already very good at explaining things with brevity. I simply offer more detailed explanations for people who care to know.
I just need copy of dragon, laptop keyboards and big hands do not mix well.
I just end up editing ham finger typos.
 

mbg247

Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
You asked one hell of a question. I'm not sure I can give you a simple answer. I apologize in advance for my lack of brevity.

Both of those mods have a .3-ohm minimum, so they will not fire a .25-ohm coil. I'm not sure what the actual continuous discharge limit of the internal batteries are, but I'm assuming they are designed not to let you run them past it.

The "Max Current" spec on those devices refers to the maximum output current, not the maximum current it can pull from the battery. There's a big difference there, which I will get into a bit later. The main thing to know here is that you needn't worry about it on devices with built-in batteries. They are designed and configured to run within the limitations of the battery.

When we talk about current in terms of safety, we are referring to the max continuous discharge rate of the batteries. This only comes into play with devices that have removable batteries, regulated or not. That's when you need to be aware of the CDR of your batteries and check to make sure that your device isn't exceeding that number.

Use steam engine. It really covers everything. Now, for some stuff you don't need to know yet but should know anyway if you wish to take things further...

...for unregulated devices, coil resistance is everything when it comes to performance and safety. The voltage is fixed at whatever the battery naturally puts out, so the amount of current and thus wattage always depends on the resistance of the coil.

Because you're running straight off of the battery, there's nothing stopping you from building a coil that can pop a battery, as the battery will give as much current as the coil will pull from it, even if it shouldn't. A dead short in the atty or within the device itself will vent a battery. It is also possible to drain a battery too low, which can cause your batteries to vent and catch fire when you charge them.

When you read about vaping devices exploding, a mechanical mod and an ill-informed user are usually involved. They are not newbie-friendly and require a lot of knowledge and experience to use properly. They do not have safety nets. You need to be up on your ohm's law, always use an ohmmeter, be able to recognize a short BEFORE firing it, and have a good grasp of what your batteries can and cannot handle, as well as the ability to recognize the signs of an over-stressed/over-discharged battery.


Regulated devices generally do not care about ohms. There's no resistance involved in how one gets its power. The battery drain is dictated by the wattage setting. If you set it at 100w, then it will pull as much current as it needs to hit that at the batteries' voltage under load.

So, if you build a stupid-low, .1 coil that pulls 38 amps at 150w, that doesn't mean it will take 38 amps from your battery (which is far more than any battery on the market can handle, btw.) If you're running a dual battery box (something like the Sigelei 150w,) then it will pull 20 amps from your batteries, as that is all that is needed to achieve 150w with fresh batteries kicking at 8.4v. It uses something called a buck converter, which trades the excess voltage coming from the batteries for current.

This, along with their many built-in protection features, makes these types of devices much safer and more power-efficient. What unregulated devices do with current, they can do with voltage. The more current that is needed from the batteries, the more taxed they are, and the higher the likelihood of catastrophic failure is.

The only trade-off is that unlike mechs, which pull a declining amount of current as the batteries are depleted, VW devices need to pull more current from your batteries as they deplete and their natural voltage drops. This is where you need to be careful. What is a safe wattage for fresh batteries may not be so safe on half-dead ones.

I'm oversimplifying it a bit, as there are parallel regulated boxes which use boost circuitry to hit higher wattages, but those are uncommon. You will be much more likely to encounter single or dual-series boxes that work as I described.

Thank you very much, I actually prefer a well detailed explanation that a brief one :) Still trying to understand so sorry if I say something dumb hahah So from what i understand, if I wanted to be a regulated device such as the Sigelei 150w TC I would need batteries that have a higher max continuous discharge than 25A considering the max wattage is 150 and the range of voltage is 6.4V-8.4V? (I'm not planning to continuously run it at 150W obviously but hypothetically speaking) Because with fresh batteries the device would need about 20A at 8.4V but after it depletes the voltage can drop as low as 6.4V at which it will pull about 25A at 150W? So something like two Sony VTC5 18650 batteries would work good with this device? Since they have a max continuous discharge of 30A? Or am I looking at this wrong ;o
 

robot zombie

Silver Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Thank you very much, I actually prefer a well detailed explanation that a brief one :) Still trying to understand so sorry if I say something dumb hahah So from what i understand, if I wanted to be a regulated device such as the Sigelei 150w TC I would need batteries that have a higher max continuous discharge than 25A considering the max wattage is 150 and the range of voltage is 6.4V-8.4V? (I'm not planning to continuously run it at 150W obviously but hypothetically speaking) Because with fresh batteries the device would need about 20A at 8.4V but after it depletes the voltage can drop as low as 6.4V at which it will pull about 25A at 150W? So something like two Sony VTC5 18650 batteries would work good with this device? Since they have a max continuous discharge of 30A? Or am I looking at this wrong ;o
Nah, you've pretty much got it! The only correction I would have to make is that 30-amp batteries are really more suited towards mechs, as those tend to favor low resistances (remember, that's how they get their power.) For instance, one of my favorite mech builds is a .15, so I tend to use 30-amp LG HB6's with it. But for that same 100 or so watts I'm left with after internal sag and voltage drop, I could pull a lot less current to power the same build on a regulated device. For that power level, 20-amp batteries are sufficient and yield a better capacity.

Honestly, I find myself using considerably less power all around on regulated devices. The power levels needed for an intense regulated vape are lower than those needed for a mech. For my workhorse dual 24g, I only run between 60 and 70 watts and so I tend to use 15-amp Samsung 30Q's for their 3000mah capacity.

Most people would be fine with 20-amp batteries on a 150w box. They perform better within their current limits than 30-amp batteries do at the same drain levels, so you will actually get worse performance with 30-amp batteries most of the time. Additionally, you can run 20-amp batteries at 150w if it's not your usual vape. It's not going to pop a battery, though it might shorten their lifespans a bit if you run them down too low at super-high wattages. Obviously, 30-amp batteries would be ideal (and wise to pick up if your ADV is significantly above 100w,) but most people sacrifice a bit of the extra headroom for longer battery life. Unless you're going to be making full use of that headroom, it's kind of a waste to run 30-amp batteries in a regulated device.

The VTC5's are great, but they are not true 30-amp batteries - they're only 20's. That being said, I use them in my Sigelei all of the time. Those and Samsung 25r's.
 

yaba_dabado

Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
Regulated devices have electronics that (hopefully) protect you from stupid mistakes, like trying to fire a coil build too low for the mod. Mech mods (un-regulated), don't have any protection at all. Therefore you have to do the proper build depending on your battery's specifications.
Regarding the two devices you mentioned, it should be listed, what resistance they support.
Hey so I have samsung 18650 batteries in my sigelei 150 an I do builds....to be quite honest I'm don't have that much knowledge on ohm's law but my question is with a 18650 battery almost any normal build is safe am I right? Lol sorry if I sound weird but I'm about 2 months new to rebuilding my coils.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N915A using Tapatalk
 

Neunerball

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
ECF Refugee
Hey so I have samsung 18650 batteries in my sigelei 150 an I do builds....to be quite honest I'm don't have that much knowledge on ohm's law but my question is with a 18650 battery almost any normal build is safe am I right? Lol sorry if I sound weird but I'm about 2 months new to rebuilding my coils.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N915A using Tapatalk
Yes, your Sigelei would "complain", if something is wrong, e.g. "Check Atomizer".
 

mbg247

Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
Member For 2 Years
Member For 1 Year
Nah, you've pretty much got it! The only correction I would have to make is that 30-amp batteries are really more suited towards mechs, as those tend to favor low resistances (remember, that's how they get their power.) For instance, one of my favorite mech builds is a .15, so I tend to use 30-amp LG HB6's with it. But for that same 100 or so watts I'm left with after internal sag and voltage drop, I could pull a lot less current to power the same build on a regulated device. For that power level, 20-amp batteries are sufficient and yield a better capacity.

Honestly, I find myself using considerably less power all around on regulated devices. The power levels needed for an intense regulated vape are lower than those needed for a mech. For my workhorse dual 24g, I only run between 60 and 70 watts and so I tend to use 15-amp Samsung 30Q's for their 3000mah capacity.

Most people would be fine with 20-amp batteries on a 150w box. They perform better within their current limits than 30-amp batteries do at the same drain levels, so you will actually get worse performance with 30-amp batteries most of the time. Additionally, you can run 20-amp batteries at 150w if it's not your usual vape. It's not going to pop a battery, though it might shorten their lifespans a bit if you run them down too low at super-high wattages. Obviously, 30-amp batteries would be ideal (and wise to pick up if your ADV is significantly above 100w,) but most people sacrifice a bit of the extra headroom for longer battery life. Unless you're going to be making full use of that headroom, it's kind of a waste to run 30-amp batteries in a regulated device.

The VTC5's are great, but they are not true 30-amp batteries - they're only 20's. That being said, I use them in my Sigelei all of the time. Those and Samsung 25r's.
Oh okay that makes sense, so would you recommend more the VTC5's or samsung 25r's because I have heard good thing about the 25r's too :eek:. and one other question do you have any battery chargers you would recommend? I'm currently thinking about purchasing this off of VaporDNA considering they are pretty reliable with their stuff, but I do not really recognize any of the chargers they offer and aren't really well informed about any charger.
Btw thank you for all the help :D
 

Neunerball

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Member For 3 Years
ECF Refugee
Oh okay that makes sense, so would you recommend more the VTC5's or samsung 25r's because I have heard good thing about the 25r's too :eek:. and one other question do you have any battery chargers you would recommend? I'm currently thinking about purchasing this off of VaporDNA considering they are pretty reliable with their stuff, but I do not really recognize any of the chargers they offer and aren't really well informed about any charger.
Btw thank you for all the help :D
I'm buying my batteries from http://liionwholesale.com, they're definitely cheaper than VaporDNA, and as trustworthy.
In addition, I personally use two Xtar chargers the SP2, and the VC4 (w/ optional wall adapter). They have a restore feature. They try to restore overly discharged batteries. I'm very happy with these. Definitely better than the Nitecore chargers I used before. Bought them at http://www.xtardirect.com.
 

lordmage

The Sky has Fallen. the End is Here.
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Gold Contributor
ECF Refugee
Member For 5 Years
the only advice i can give is to avoid going to low on your builds with Mechs.
avoid using NR wire unless you're using a regulated TEmp limiting or Temp control mod. in which case your NR builds with be low say 0.15 range
 

VU Sponsors

Top