# Good (or bad) battery life ???



## Puff the Magic Dragon (10/6/17)

I have been confused for some time. Perhaps I'm confused in life generally, but at the moment my confusion is focused on regular statements about battery life.

"...mod x has fantastic battery life....mod y is rubbish, it's battery life is the worst I have experienced...." etc. ...etc. I have never experienced this problem. Or perhaps never noticed it.

I assume when people make such claims they are comparing apples to apples. That is, the same battery/batteries in mods x and y.

To end my confusion can we limit input to regulated mods only. In mech mods, according to Steam Engine... " *The voltage hitting the atomizer is the voltage from the battery (minus the tiny voltage drop in the switch and conductors." *There is therefore little difference in battery life.

With regulated mods it is slightly more complex. In more simple terms the significant difference in battery life between mods is the amount of power used to run the internal circuits and screen plus the tiny voltage drop in the switch and conductors (as in mech mods).

According to Steam Engine, in a regulated mod "...*regulator circuits typically boast an efficiency between 80–95%. In practice this means that the regulator "steals" about a tenth of the power from the battery*."

In other words (everything else being equal) the world's worst regulated mod would have a battery life around 15 % shorter than the world's best mod. (The use of the terms "world's best/worst" only done for emphasis, and is not intended to create heated debate and the tearing of clothing).

An average mod would therefore lose around 7ish %.

I know we all differ, but to me, even an extreme loss of 15% would not seriously impact on my vaping life. I have more than ten regulated mods. On any given day I would say I use around three. When needed, I put the batteries in a four bay charger and forget about them...until charged. I don't have the willpower to monitor the mods for a possible worst case 15 % better battery life.

All I would like to learn from my highly esteemed forum friends is this. Is there a mod out there which would give me around 50% better battery life. If this is possible, I will consider buying one. If not, I will forget about mods which have alleged fantastic battery life, and continue on liking most of my mods, and forgiving those which may fall slightly short in the battery life compartment (pun intended).

Reactions: Like 2 | Winner 3


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## RichJB (10/6/17)

I suppose mods may have different cut-off points as well, which impacts the perception of battery life.

Reactions: Agree 6


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## Silver (10/6/17)

Interesting thread @Puff the Magic Dragon

I dont know the answer to your question but i have not been able to notice a big difference in regulated mods that use the same battery configuration

For quite a while I used to track how many mls of juice i got from my mech batteries (mainly in Reos). I learnt a lot about how my batteries performed in my Reos and how much juice i could go through with different coils. I stopped doing that in September last year after VapeCon. But this exercise mainly involved my mech Reos. There were small differences between the different batteries i had at the time but nothing too big - at least not at the power levels i was at - around 0.6 to 1 ohms at the time. So about 15-30W

My observations nowadays on my regulated mods are just observations and gut feels, not proper measurements. I feel the minikin v1.5 has good battery life. And i feel my RX200 (3 batts) has poorish batt life. The other regulated mods i have are not noticeably good or bad, relatively speaking. 

I have also found that my batteries last longer than many of my vaping friends because i tend to use lower power and higher nicotine juices.

Battery life is a fascinating topic indeed.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Raindance (10/6/17)

Nicely put @Puff the Magic Dragon. When comparing battery life one must indeed compare apples to apples, or more specifically like builds with like builds. I imagine (do that a lot by the way...) that a person running a RX300 would have bought it to push some serious wattage's by running some heavy metal coils. Comparing battery life in such cases with a 75W device running coils us ordinary mortals consider normal would be doing the RX an injustice.

Then there is the increase in internal resistances that will also occur at higher wattage's which could also impact on mod efficiency. In theory a 200W device will be more efficient at 75W than a 100W device. Theoretically.

In closing, battery life also does not cause me much of an issue. As long as I can cover the 12 to 14 hours I am away from home at work with the two mods I carry, I am happy. These two, a Skar (26650) and a Therion (2x18650) do that with ease even having recently upgraded to .5 ohm coils on 24AWG SS316L wire. With three sets of batteries for each and a couple of chargers permanently plugged in, battery life becomes a complete non issue.

What is an issue to me however is the rate these two drain their OBS Engine Nano's at. 

Regards

Reactions: Like 1 | Agree 1


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## shaunnadan (11/6/17)

So apples and apples and oranges and lemons..... 

One SUPER important thing to remember is battery configuration in your mods when you compare them. 

You get single battery, parallel and series configurations. 

In a series mod the volts from each battery are added together. The available amperage and life (mAH) are the same as single single cell.

In a parallel mod the batteries share the current load with voltage remaining the same as a single cell.

So the "simple" measure of battery life is mAH. 

Example: 

Single battery - 1 x mAH
Parallel - 2 x mAH
Series - 1 x mAH

But wait there is more ! 

Batteries in parallel split the current draw. If you're drawing 30 amps from dual batteries in parallel, you're theoretically drawing 15 amps from each. (Not necessarily if their internal resistance is different) The voltage remains the same for both because one will charge the other if there is a voltage difference. (They remain in a closed circuit with each other whether the switch is open or not)

For mechanical devices, parallel batteries reduces the drain on each so you get longer battery life and can fire at lower resistance. Batteries in series provide more voltage and thus hits harder.

Here's the kicker ! 

This isn't true for regulated devices, which either use voltage step up, voltage step down, or both. Voltage step up delivers more voltage to the atomizer than it can get from the battery, but does so by drawing more current from the battery. Likewise, voltage step down delivers more current to the atomizer than the battery is providing, but at the cost of lower voltage output. 

Regulated devices with batteries in series tend to use voltage step down because their input voltage is so high, 12V in the case of the rx200! This reduces the current draw from the batteries, effectively providing the same benefit as a parallel mechanical mod. 

In fact they tend to get better battery life than regulated parallel mods, like the Vapor Flask, because voltage step down trends to be more efficient and results in less voltage sag compared to voltage step up.

Reactions: Like 7 | Winner 1 | Informative 5 | Optimistic 1


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## daniel craig (11/6/17)

shaunnadan said:


> So apples and apples and oranges and lemons.....
> 
> One SUPER important thing to remember is battery configuration in your mods when you compare them.
> 
> ...


Very informative

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Silver (11/6/17)

Thanks for that @shaunnadan 

All i know is that I am not very impressed with the battery life on my RX200
It takes three batteries 
And i have to change those three batteries more often than the two batteries on my minkin v1.5
Even when running similar sorts of builds and powers


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## shaunnadan (11/6/17)

Silver said:


> Thanks for that @shaunnadan
> 
> All i know is that I am not very impressed with the battery life on my RX200
> It takes three batteries
> ...



So this is a possible reason. 

@Silver is vaping at a rather low wattage.

Minikin and rx200 both have the same mAH (series mods) but There are limits to voltage step down.

12v needs to basically step down to 4.18v (single cell voltage) to output 35w - based on a 0.5ohm coil

its not that efficient. Minikin has better battery life. 

But if you were vaping in the 75w and up range the you will see the rx200 outlasts the minikin

Reactions: Like 1 | Thanks 1


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## Silver (11/6/17)

shaunnadan said:


> So this is a possible reason.
> 
> @Silver is vaping at a rather low wattage.
> 
> ...



Thanks @shaunnadan 
That makes perfect sense! I think you are spot on
So big step downs may not be ideal for battery life. Hmmm...... 
Or said alternatively, triple series mods are better suited for higher power applications

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Raindance (11/6/17)

shaunnadan said:


> So this is a possible reason.
> 
> @Silver is vaping at a rather low wattage.
> 
> ...


Kind of turns my theory regarding high wattage mod efficiency at low draw upside down. Does make sense however as the "volts to amps conversion efficiency" may decrease with the magnitude of the conversion. Same thing happens running a big turbo diesel at low revs like you would drive a 1300 petrol in town. The diesel is build to run efficiently at revs where the turbo is engaged, drive below that and it sucks juice and lacks performance.

Regards


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