You’ve probably heard about cloud chasing or at least you’ve seen YouTube videos of people blowing out massive clouds of vapor out of a similar mod to yours and you’re wondering how it’s done. Well, today we are going to talk a bit about sub-ohm vaping and some good practices associated with this phenomenon.
Want thick, flavorful clouds? Sub Ohm is the way to achieve this
First of all to be able to create those thick clouds you need more than a regular cig-a-like or vape pen. There are plenty of mechanical mods out there or Advanced Personal Vaporizers that allow you to use rebuildable atomizers and to create your own coils. You can get big clouds out of regular tanks too, but you need a very powerful device to do so and we will talk about this in a future article.
As the name tells it, sub-ohm vaping refers to puffing on an e-cigarette that has an atomizer resistance lower that 1 ohm. In order to get to this part you need to acquire some understanding about electrical engineering and basic circuitry knowledge because sub-ohm vaping can be even more dangerous than it is fun.
How Sub Ohms works
The current that normally flows through a resistor can be found by the simple formula I = V / R, where V the voltage applied on the load and R its resistance value. Knowing the current, it is possible to calculate the total power requirements of the load with the formula: P = V x I. The resistor is your atomizer, the voltage is that of your freshly charged battery (usually around 3.7V), I represents the amps required from the battery and P is the total power output.
Continuous discharge rating
After building you coils, it is imperative that you use a good quality multimeter or ohmmeter to check out the resistance. Some advanced AVPs come with a built in ohmmeter that give a clear reading of your atomizer resistance. After you know your atomizer resistance, you can quickly calculate the amount of power required and if your batteries can sustain the load.
When you’re not using a Sub Ohm tank, the fairly high resistances mean that battery limitation aren’t much of a concern at all, but once you start building your own coils, particularly at the below 1-ohm limit resistances, the continuous discharge rating of the battery becomes very important.
Battery for SubOhm vaping
In regular situations, you will work with an 18650 battery, and the usual 10 A rating will be more than enough for your necessities. Using ohm’s law tells you that even for sub-ohm builds of 0.7 Ohms, the 4.2 Volts of the battery would lead to 6 amps of current, which is still within the capabilities of most good quality batteries. The Sony US18650VCT provides a maximum continuous discharge of 30 A, making them an ideal option for modders and sub-ohm builds. The AW IMRs are also widely recommended, and the 1600 mAh option is has a very high discharge rate, making it suitable for vapers looking for a large amp draw over maximum capacity.
