Whether you’re thinking about vaping, just picked up your first mod, or trying to learn more about the practice, you’ve probably heard about ohms. While some beginner kits, cigalikes, and pen mods don’t require you know much about the specifics, if you’re using a more advanced mod, it’s important to understand a variety of technical items about your vape. So, let’s take a look at ohms.
When you start researching, understanding the relationship between resistance, voltage, and ohms seems really complicated. There are mathematical equations, and strange looking symbols. Luckily, it’s really not as difficult as it seems at first.
Terminology
To understand Ohm’s Law, first you need to know some basic terminology. The terms used are:
Voltage – Voltage is the difference in electrical potential energy between two points. In vaping, this is the energy between the positive and negative terminals on the battery you use in your mod. Higher voltage means that the same amount of charge gets more energy than low voltage.
Current – The current is the amount of charge going through a surface per second. When talking about current in vaping, it’s generally discussed in terms of the charge going through the wire of your coils. In mathematical formats, current is indicated as I.
Resistance – A good way to think about resistance is how much there is in the way when elecrons are going through the circut. Everything has some amount of resistance. Manufactured atomizers label the amount of resistance they have, but it’s good to remember that each part of the circuit in your vape has some sort of resistance tied to it.
Power – The power for your vape is provided y your battery. Power is what heats the coils and allows you to vape.
Amps – Amps is the measurement of current.
Ohms – Ohms is the measurement of resistance. It is symbolized here: Ω
Watts – Watts is the measurement of power.
Ohm’s Law
Ohm’s Law is explained as “current = voltage/resistance”. You may also see this stated as I=V/R. This equation can be switched around to figure out any of the pieces you need. Resistance is equal to voltage divided by current (R=V/I) and voltage equals current times resistance (V=I*R).
You can also get the power usable by the battery by using the equation power = voltage squared divided by ohms(P=V2/Ω).
Wires
If you’re creating your own coils, you need to know the properties of the wire you’re using. For example, nickel and titanium wire offers very little resistance, meaning that it heats up very quickly. Higher resistance wires, such as kenthal, has higher resistance and can also create smaller coils. Keep in mind that the higher the gauge, the thinner the wire is. This seems a little backward, so it’s important to remember when you’re building your coils.
The thicker the wire is, the more power you need to get it hot. Thick wire offers higher resistance. If you have a low-power battery, you need to have thin coils to keep it running properly.
Batteries
The battery powering your device has limitations. You should never push these limitations or you’re going to be on dangerous ground.
Consider that you have a battery rated for 3.6V and 25A. You need to find out the lowest resistance you can have in a coil, as well as the power you can run through the system. With this setup, you’ll use Ohm’s Law:
Ω=3.6 (voltage)/25 (Amps) = 0.144 ohms
Power=12.96 (voltage squared)/0.144 (ohms) = 90 Watts.
So, with these equations you can see that you can have a coil as low as 0.144 ohms using 90 watts of power for the ultimate output on the battery. Keep in mind that pushing your battery that hard is generally not a good idea – you’ll probably want to go with a lower wattage output when vaping.