Guide to Watts for Vaping | Voltages & Ohms and Batteries

What Are Ohms?

An ohm is a unit of resistance. Basically, the lower the resistance of your atomizer, the more electrical energy will flow through it. Increase the amount of resistance and less electrical energy will flow through.

So when you use a lower resistance atomizer, and more electrical energy flows through, you will discover the following:

• higher temperature is produced at the coil
• more vapour is produced
• you might experience a more concentrated flavour (however, flavours perform differently with different resistance coils)
• vapour will be warmer

Depending on your tastes, the above may all be positives! On the negative side:

• your battery will be drained rapidly
• battery lifespan may be reduced
• e-juice will be consumed more quickly
• coil lifetime will be reduced (very low ohm atomisers may only last 2-3 days)
• you are more likely to experience a dry hit (although recent innovations such as mesh coils and plexus coils help address this)

Obviously, when you use a high resistance coil the opposite will happen:

• less electricity flow
• Generating reduced coil heat
• Reduced volume of vapour
• Cooler vapour
• You may experience a less intense flavour

But on the plus side:

• battery life will be extended
• less e-liquid will be consumed
• you will be less likely to get a dry hit

Variable Voltage vs Variable Wattage Vapes

Basically, the difference between variable voltage and variable wattage is a bit like the difference between an automatic and a manual car. With a variable voltage device, you manually switch the volume of power (voltage) going through your device.

The amount of energy that is actually output will depend on how the resistance of your atomiser cooperates with that power flowing through it. With a variable wattage device, however, rather than telling the device how much power you want to flow through your atomiser, you tell it how much power (wattage) you want it to output. The variable wattage device will then automatically adjust the power going through the atomiser (the voltage) to produce the power output you need (the wattage).

What Does mAh in Vape Batteries Mean?

You’ve perhaps seen mAh used to label vape. mAh is vital as it measures how long a battery last.

Going back to our car similarity, if voltage is the gas then mAh is the dimension of the gas tank – the bigger the tank the longer the car will go before it needs refuelling. mAh stands for Milliamps per hour.

What Is Sub Ohm Vaping?

So, we’ve seen that by lowering the resistance and increasing the voltage we get more vapour production, extra throat hit and occasionally additional flavour.

Sub-ohming takes this to excesses by vaping at a resistance of lower than 1 ohm. Though this can produce huge volumes of vapour, it also puts strain on both the battery and the coil in your tank.

It’s frequently done on a mechanical mod, which has no electrical protection switch, it may increase the risk of an exploding battery if not used appropriately. Formerly, sub-ohm vaping was kept for skilled vapers who want to push the limitations with rebuildable coils, but the outline of mass market mods has changed all that.

Advanced Explanation of Voltage, Watts and Ohms for Vapers

Vaping Mods use very simple circuits that hold a battery, a switch and a heating system coil. The circuit is efficiently measured short, with the power being produced from the battery being used to generate heat.

mAh

A milliampere hour (mAh) is 1000th of an ampere hour (Ah). Together they are used as a measure of battery size, a higher mAh score means more capacity. mAh only measures capacity and should not be confused with power.

Amps

The Amp (short for ampere) is a amount of current. An ampere is defined as 6.241*10 18 electrons (1 Coulomb) per second passing through a point in a circuit.

Voltage

Voltage is the total of potential energy amongst two points in a circuit. One point will have more charge than the other. This difference in electrical charge between the two points is called voltage.

Watts

Watt is a measure of the amount of power consumed by an electrical device.

The Ultimate Vaper’s Guide to Voltage, Watts & Ohms

A common thing people are confused about.