A newbies second go at drippers
Panter continues his journey into the world of RDAs and sub-ohming
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by Toby Kilroy
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So.. what is it? well, I'd suggest a good read of the excellent sticky on here if you're tempted to have a go.
But, *serious face on for a second* please, please make sure you heed all the safety warnings, have a good understanding of the basics of ohms law etc, etc.
Li-ion batteries can, and do, take extremely deep offence to being shorted or overloaded and they will bite back* if abused.
There's a very good reason the Duracell bunny doesn't use 'em...
Drippers. A dripper is an RDA (rebuildable dripping atomiser, something like that) Which means that you put your own coil in it and you drip your juice into it rather than it being held in a tank. Simples, eh? well it wasn't to me just a couple of weeks back trying to make sense of all the terms!
Technically, sub-ohming means running the resistance of your coil at under one ohm, hence the name. But, on here, it seems to be mainly very low resistance coils which means you need batteries that don't mind a very rapid discharge.
Because, low resistance, there is of course little to hold back the flow of current (amps) so you can get your coil really hot. More heat + more air = more vapour, gotta be a good thing?
What's the point?
Dunno really, that's why I thought I'd give it a go!
The claim is better flavour and more vapour. Which, sounds good to me, anyway.
So... enough waffle.
My favourite build is 6 turns around a small screwdriver (it's probably about 1.5mm, something like that) which gives me a resistance of 1.4ohms.
I didn't want to go too low for this, my decent batteries are still on the slow boat from China (quite literally) so I didn't want to go below 0.5 ohms.
Doubling the wire up on the same 6 turns should give me 0.7 ohms and, wadda ya know, it does!
Not my neatest coil by any means, in fact it's a bit of a train wreck. But, in my defence, I don't have my drill handy so couldn't twist the wire together very easily. And, I was lazy and rushed it. There, feels so much better being honest!
However, after lots of cycles and keep squeezing the thing together, it glowed evenly and generally just worked
If you haven't built a coil before, there are hundreds of tutorials on youtube. I can recommend "rip trippers" and "Todds reviews" as a good starting point.
I must admit I was out of my comfort zone at this point. My fluffy little MVP generally protects me from any shorts or battery nastiness at this point. But, of course, it won't fire a coil at this resistance so it's straight onto the mech mod (basically just a battery holder with a switch. No circuit protection, no limits and... no safety margins!)
Stuffed a bit of cotton in, a good soak in custard, and a quick test fire.
Well, she's certainly making some vapour!
Cap on, deep exhale, airflow set to max and a long deep inhale with my pinky finger keeping the fire button jammed in.
Halfway through the draw, I'm starting to feel it in my chest. A tickling, a frantic tickling getting stronger and stronger and...
There it was... the coughing fit. Staggering around the front room coughing out clouds of vapour I must've looked like a pissed dragon staggering back from the pub on a Friday night.
Hmmmm, bit harsh this.
Few more drips, and repeat. This time I almost managed a lungful before blowing it out in another coughing fit that left my eyes watering and a new found love for the little iClear clearomisers.
Third try, a few more drips on the cotton, and I finally managed it. Slightly pop eyed, I managed to blow a vast cloud across the front room without a single cough! well, near enough.
Few more tries and I seem to have got it. Just seems to be a case of getting used to it really, once the old lungs have got over the shock of being filled with custard, they don't seem to want to reject it quite so enthusiastically.
Flavour. Yup, I have to admit, the flavour is good. It seems to be vapourising the juice so quickly that it throws it up in a dense, hot steam, so you do get very good flavour.
Worth the faff? I'm really not sure.
Obviously, I'm very new at this, so need to play a bit more but it's interesting stuff. I'm not convinced it's for me, I know a lot of people do nothing else, but I suspect I'll always be more of a clearomiser type of guy.
Gotta say though, I don't know how you guys do it with the real low resistance stuff. I found it harsh with my very tame set-up.
If I'd gone for a really low one, I think I'd still be leaking vapour from my eye balls right now.
Hope this helps someone and, please remember, know your batteries before you have a go!
Any comments or questions...don't ask me ffs. I haven't got a clue!
But, direct them to the experienced guys on the forum, and they'll see you straight
* The batteries can "bite back." In what way? Do they give you their best Paddington stare? call you names? insult your family? what?
Well, no. They take offence by exploding, or by burning. And they burn hot, very hot... whilst venting toxic gases that will give you a very bad day.
The moral of this slightly depressing little paragraph is to do your research. Make sure you're working comfortably within the limits of your batteries, refer to the posts in the sub ohming section, ask people if you have any doubts and make ABSOLUTELY sure that you're working comfortably within the discharge limits of your batteries. And if you're not, then don't do it!
Toby Kilroy
Writer at POTVToby has been vaping since early 2012 and has used an array of devices and kit in that time. He sometimes writes up reviews but is often found with his head stuck in pages of code with a confused smile on his face. Toby also helps run his wife's site gethistory.co.uk and has two children. He sometimes fondly remembers having free time and occasionally manages to sneak away to put his head into a good book!
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