Introduction

The next series of articles is going to be quite a bit more extensive than anything I’ve written for you up to this point. This is simply because unregulated devices require the most experience to use in a safe and satisfying manner.

I’d like to point out, from the outset, that I’ve used them in the past but no longer do so. While they are satisfying in their own right, it’s my firm belief that in 2017, they performance gap between a regulated device outfitted with a sub-ohm tank and an unregulated device outfitted with a rebuildable dripping atomizer or rebuildable tank atomizer is no longer sufficiently wide that the latter is worth the time or effort involved.

However, with that said, it remains that unregulated devices remain popular with those for whom vaping has transcended a tobacco harm reduction strategy and become a hobby. It also remains that there are serious physical risks involved for vapers who approach this hobby without a proper prior understanding of those risks and how to mitigate them.

If vaping is about tobacco harm reduction, consider the following articles to be about risk mitigation.

What Is Unregulated Vaping?

It’s simply the use of an unregulated mod — meaning, a mod which has no power control board or chipset regulating the flow of electricity from the battery to the atomizer. An unregulated mod is as bare-bones as a vape gets: typically as simple as a metal tube into which the user inserts an 18650 or 26650 battery, the tube features a 510 connection at one end and a firing button at the other — the button is pressed, which causes the battery to make connection with contacts at both ends, closing the circuit and sending electricity from the battery to the connected atomizer.

Why It’s Attractive

Unregulated vaping appeals to vapers because it’s not only the ultimate expression of choice — when you create your own atomizer coils, you exercise the ultimate level of control over your vaping experience — but also a kind of art. A coil built by your own hand can be as simple as a single strand of wire or as complex as some of the most intricate jewelry produced. Indeed, there are some truly mind-blowingly advanced coils which a non-vaper would assume are high-end art pieces.

For a significant portion of the vaping community, producing these artisanal builds is equally as important, perhaps in some ways more so, than simply vaping for flavor and nicotine. For some, it’s about “cloud chasing” — pairing the most refined hand-built coil with the right unregulated mod and eliquid to produce the biggest, thickest, densest clouds of vapor possible. For others, it’s about the art. For still others, it’s simply about pride in having achieved the state of this art.

Disclaimer

While I’m able to provide you with basic principles about unregulated vaping, my articles on the subject will for the most part be precautionary. As with vaping itself, I urge you to start simple and be safe.

Your best guides as you step into this new, vast part of vaping are people you will, and ought to, meet in person, preferably a veteran of unregulated vaping, and more preferably still, more than just one.

But I can tell you what to look for, and what to avoid. In the next post, we’ll get started.