Posted by Pure E-Liquids on 21st Feb 2019

Blowing clouds with the Smok AlienIf you regularly vape with a Smok Alien vaporiser, you can likely confidently vouch for the reliability of this little machine and the quality of the vaping sensation that it delivers. After all, Smok is one of the biggest names in vaping equipment, including vaporisers and mods.

However, if something doesn't seem quite right with your vaping experience, or even if your vaping seems to have gone without any hitches so far, you need to be careful how many ohms your Alien reaches. Here is a guide to how ohms can come into play and how you can adjust them.

What are ohms, anyway?

When you have a Smok Alien in your hands, you can easily look at its OLED screen to check various facets of the vaporiser - including its wattage and resistance, as well as what type of coil is fitted in the device. It is ohms in which the resistance is measured.

So, what exactly does the resistance affect? Here, it would be helpful to know what the vaporiser comprises. The three main components of a "vape", as a vaporiser can be colloquially called, are the battery, the atomiser and the cartridge or tank.

The vape is - unsurprisingly - powered by the battery, though the atomiser's electrical resistance determines exactly how much power the battery contributes. For "atomiser", read "coil", as that is how we will often refer to it throughout this article.

The atomiser is, to be more specific, a metal coil - the metal itself will typically be nickel, stainless steel, aluminium or Kanthal. Once you have placed e-liquid in the tank, that liquid will be turned into vapour through being absorbed by cotton or another wicking material touching the atomiser.

What does the resistance affect?

In short: the type of vaping. Standard vaping - the most rudimentary and familiar way to vape - relies on a coil of more than one ohm in resistance. With standard vaping, you vape "mouth to lung", or MTL, where the vapour is inhaled first in the mouth and then, shortly after, in the lungs.

Not only is standard vaping relatively easy to try, it also allows you to taste more of the e-liquid's flavour. That wouldn't be so much the case with what is known as sub-ohm vaping, simply defined as vaping where the coil's resistant level is below a single ohm.

With sub-ohm vaping, the emphasis would be on generating huge clouds of vapour rather than so much satiating a thirst for flavour. It's very much a subjective judgement whether standard vaping or the sub-ohm approach delivers the more satisfying sensation - just choose the one that you prefer!

However, the number of ohms to a coil doesn't necessarily just influence the vaping itself. Keeping an eye on those ohms is imperative for your personal safety - as, otherwise, your vaporiser could explode. Unfortunately, that is a risk with a device that has variable settings.

To avoid running this risk, you need to be clued up on Ohms Law. This comprises a formula for determining the vaporiser's current, voltage and resistance. That formula is I=V/R, where ‘I’ means the current measured in amperes, ‘V’ refers to the voltage and ‘R’ is resistance.

The formula is basically saying that the current - how much electricity flows through the device - is equal to the voltage - a measurement of the potential difference in energy between two points in a circuit - divided by the resistance. So, why do vapers need to take this formula into close account?

Choose carefully when buying something new for your vaporiser

Does your vaporiser need a new battery? Then be careful how high you crank up your machine's current once that battery is in place. Don't just assume that a vaporiser the battery of which has a maximum ampere allowance of 80 can be safely cranked up to that amount.

That's because the device's coil plays a major part in how safely the vaporiser can be used. This particularly bears emphasis if you make your own coils and, therefore, might not be certain about the ohm count of each coil. If you are in this situation, pick up a device called an ohms meter.

This ohms meter will indicate the coil's resistance - and, thus, can assist you in verifying that the overall setup of your vaporiser will not pose a risk. If that setup would add more amps than what the battery is rated for, you can ensure your safety through adjusting the coil's ohms.

Change the coil, change the resistance

Of course, if you create your own coils, you could make them in such a way that they will deliver just the right kind of resistance to ensure both an enjoyable and safe vaping experience for you. However, another way of altering a vaporiser's resistance is swapping the fitted coil for another.

If you are an experienced vaper who is interested in experimenting with using different coils for the same Smok Alien vaporiser, you could pick up the Smok Alien 220W Mod from our online store. This product is a complete Smok Alien 220W kit featuring a TFV8 Baby Beast Tank.

Especially relevant for the subject at hand, this kit also includes coils; 0.4-ohm and 0.15-ohm coils, to be more exact. Therefore, you can start sampling varying coils as soon as this Smok Alien kit is in your hands - but remember the advice that we have given earlier in this article.

You also shouldn't forget that it would be possible for you to buy further coils for your device. If you are unsure what the precise process is for changing a vaporiser's coil, you should check the devices user manual.

Reassuringly, you don't have to spend more than a few minutes replacing the coil - it's largely a matter of emptying the tank if there is still liquid in it, unscrewing the existing coil and then screwing in the new one. Just remember once the coil is installed and your device refilled, allow 4-5 minutes before using it to ensure the coil is saturated well with e-Liquid.