A Beginner’s Guide To Vape / E Cig Batteries

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So…from knowing clear zero about electronics, Ohms Law and the nature of Vegetable Glycerine, you’ve gotten to the point of building your own low resistance coils and crafting your own e-liquids to get the most out of your vape.
The logical next step in the process is to get to the point where you know what’s up when someone talks about milliamp hours and battery wraps, when you can go on line and make an educated decision on which battery brand and specs to buy for your new mech or regulated mod.
You need to know about your batteries for vaping, not just so that you can get the most out of your vape but also for your own safety and the safety of your device. It’s just another one of the reasons why we love vaping so much, there’s always just a little more to learn!
While there are a number of battery sizes available, 18650’s are one of the most popular batteries currently used in vape mods.
Replaceable batteries extend the life of our mods because in themselves they’re disposable.
When the batteries lifespan is over, we don’t have to throw away the whole vape mod like we would on, say, a built in 3000mAh mod. That said, how on earth do we choose an 18650 battery? What does the name mean and what on earth are those numbers and letters printed on the side? Well, you’re about to find out.

First Up, Mechanical Mods and Regulated Mods Require Different Battery Setups…Why?
Well, the basic difference between the mechanical and the regulated mod is this:
Mechanical/Unregulated Mods

• The mechanical mod will draw power direct from your battery at a rate dependent on the resistance of your coils and the standard output that that specific battery is able to provide…the power will diminish with the charge of the battery.
  
  
• It’s totally possible, with a low voltage battery, to have a build that your batteries are unable to fire. It’s also possible to have a battery with a voltage too high for your coil’s resistance, which will result in a catastrophic vent and possibly an explosive incident.
  
  
• The mech is operated through direct contact being made between the tank’s 510 pin and the battery connection, via the users inward push of the battery through the mech mod. Mechanical mods require a thorough understanding of battery ins and outs, as well as Ohms Law, to operate. Not for beginners.
  
  
• In the mechanical mod, the voltage translates directly into heat on your coils so…you’re going to need some kick ass batteries, the thing is though, there’s more to it than that. Provided you know the resistance of your coils and the voltage of your battery, you can make use of an Ohm’s Law Calculator to work out the average draw on your batteries.
  Image from zamplebox.com
  

Regulated Mods
The regulated mod, on the other hand, will, via it’s onboard chip or regulator board, regulate and oversee the power draw on the battery, all dependent on how you set the watts/volts: keeping amperage (power draw) constant until the battery drains and so on.
In other words…a whole different story!
The gist of it is that mechanical mods require a far higher voltage battery to operate efficiently, while the regulating influence of your standard mod’s chip will do exactly as the name says and regulate your power through!!


Your Battery’s Amperage
When it comes to an 18650, only so much overall capacity can be squeezed in…thats why:

• Batteries with higher Milliamp Hours (battery life) tend to have a lower discharge rate (lower Amperage, or how much power they can put out at once), making them more suitable for lower wattage devices.
  
  
• While batteries with lower milliamp hours will tend to have a higher discharge rating (higher Amperage), making them more suitable for higher wattage devices.
  

Weird but true…although many of us might have thought it the other way around!! In other words, a higher mAh battery won’t necessarily mean the best battery for your high wattage device…what matters is the amperage rating or power/current capacity (at any given time) of your battery.
Discharge Rate / Continuous Discharge Rating / Current Rating
Think of the amperage (The discharge rate, which will be between 5 and 30 or so Amps) as how far the tap can open, how much current (or water…in the metaphor) it’s able to run at any given time.Your Amp Rating and your mAh are two very different things!

Battery Capacity / mAh
The milliamp hours, on the other hand, dictate how long the batteries can run in one sitting, before they’re spent: 3000mAh can run 3 Amps for 1 Hour before dying. So, in the metaphor, the milliamp hours are the capacity of your water tank.

• In a mechanical mod, the resistance of your coil will require or pull a certain number of amps from your battery. What you need to do is find out the voltage of your battery (this might be written on your battery, it might display on your external charger or you’ll need to use a multimeter).
  
  
• Then You’ll divide your battery voltage by the resistance of your coils: the answer must not exceed the amperage rating of your battery, otherwise your battery won’t be sufficient to run your coils…a problem I struggled with for a few days when I bought my first mechanical mod!!
  
  
• In a regulated mod the pull on your batteries will be regulated by the mod settings, based on the wattage or voltage you choose to use, you need to ensure that the wattage you choose isn’t demanding a higher discharge than your battery’s discharge rating can provide!
  

Batteries in Series and Parallel: What’s The Difference? (all examples are as for 2 x 18650’s)
Okay, first just a word of advice, always use the same brand and model batteries in any 1+ battery device, it will ensure correct device functioning, ease calculations and it’s just the sensible thing to do!
Plus, make sure they are fully and equally charged when you insert them into any device. Best practice, if your mod uses more than one battery, is to buy new batteries together for your mod.
You may have heard it said that batteries either run in series or parallel…now you’ll find out what that means!

• In a dual 18650 series configuration the voltage is doubled, while the milliamp hours and amperage remain the same as if for one battery. (3 x 18650 setup in series will triple the voltage and so on, you get the point!)
  
  
• In a parallel configuration both the milliamp hours and the amperage are doubled (for dual 18650s) while the voltage remains the same as if for one battery.
  
  
• Parallel boxes tend to have the positive terminals facing in the same direction and vice versa. Inserting batteries the wrong way around in an unregulated device or a regulated device without the correct safety features can lead to an explosion!
  

What this means for your vape is that series accommodates more power with less battery life and parallel accommodates less power with more battery life. Parallel unregulated mods are essentially safer than series unregulated mods, especially if you’re delving into low resistance builds.

Ohms Law Calculator
Once you’ve worked out how much power your coil setup and mod settings will be demanding from your batteries using an ohms law calculator (the calculator only requires a 2 value input, so you could enter your coil resistance in Ohms and your expected power in Watts, which will depend on your mod and coil setup), you can use a battery life calculator like this one to work out the battery life you can expect from the device, based on your battery’s mAh as well as your inhalation time.
Keep in mind that because all of these calculators are based on Ohms Law principle equations, the best thing you can do for your vaping self is learn Ohms Law by heart, so that you don’t need a special calculation app and just a normal calculator.
You also need to know the difference between series and parallel battery format and when calculating for series, for example, you’ll need to adjust your voltage accordingly.
So…I opened the Ohms Law Calculator To Work Out Power Demand / Discharge Requirements for 2 x Samsung IMR 2500mAh /3.7 volt /20 A batteries in series on the Smok Alien 220W…running a 0.5 Ohm coil at 80W.

• Resistance = 0.5 Ohm
  
  
• Wattage = 80 Watts
  
  
• Power Draw in Amps (Obtained From Calculator) =12.64 A
  
  
• Required Voltage (Also From Calculator) = 6.32 V
  

Now…you can also see that if I divide my voltage by my resistance: I’ll end up with my Amps figure. That is an Ohms Law equation in action.
You might note that the necessary voltage exceeds the voltage for one of my batteries (3.7V) but luckily the SMOK Alien Mod operates batteries in series…effectively doubling my voltage, because there are two batteries.
I can also see that the Amp draw is well inside the 20A  Continuous Discharge Rating or CDR limit of my Samsung IMR batteries so I know I’m good to go.
Knowing this, that 2 batteries in series doubles only the battery voltage…I move on to this calculator, being careful to enter a doubled voltage (for two batteries n series) as well as a 6 second draw time.
I get an answer of a 97 inhale battery life at 80W on these batteries, which is to be expected and seems pretty close to the truth for me. You’ll notice that the variable mod calculator doesn’t require a resistance setting…that’s because the mod is regulating the resistance based on my wattage setting.
This is the equation and it forms an integral part of Ohms Law, a must-know for all sub-ohm and mechanical mod vapers:
Voltage / Resistance = Amps
or
Battery Voltage / Coil Resistance = Amps pulled from battery
Once again, the Amps pulled may by no means exceed the Amp rating of your battery if you want any joy!
Here’s a super handy calculator that provides a few different entry options.

Recommended 18650 Batteries

• I like to stick with well known brands, with products that are heavily regulated and manufactured to an extremely high standard.
  
  
• Remember, when it comes to choosing batteries for your mechanical mod, you need to use a calculator to work out your desired power draw and then purchase your batteries according to their amperage rating…once again, use only the recommended brands.
  

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[abir318]

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I am using vladdin products. There are many models in these vladdin products. I have used all the new ones in this vladdin product. The reason is. My new vladdin was more attracted to the product.

That was the main reason. Their battery backup was incomparable.
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