Tips To Help You Through Wintertime Vaping
Vaping Tips To Get You Through The Wintertime
Not everyone lives in an area of the world where the weather stays sunny and warm year round. In fact, most of you reading this most likely live in a part of the country that is covered in snow, or at least in the middle of a pretty cold winter chill.
So we thought it would be a great idea to give you all a quick refresher on proper vaping tips during the chilly days of the year. Take a look at our guide to wintertime vaping.
Cold Batteries = Less Power
Low temperatures can seriously reduce the life of your battery, so it is best to take a few precautions with your precious batteries. Batteries are energy storehouses that rely on chemical reactions to release and take in energy.
When winter comes along, temperatures fall which makes these chemical reactions less efficient. Electricity is made up by a flow of electrons and these electrons move more efficiently at a higher energy level. When the weather is cold and makes your battery cold, the energy levels drop.
In colder weather, more energy is needed to get the electrons moving inside your battery before they reach your coil. For example, lithium ion batteries work more efficiently between 32°F – 140°F, if you go below this range, you will have decreased performance from the battery.
At 14°F or below, a fully charged battery will only have about 70% of its normal power capacity, but its performance will be noticeable worse. You may even find that batteries which are too cold will have a maximum voltage dropping off to as low as 3.7 volts when fully charged. Yikes!
Don’t let your batteries get too cold by leaving them in your car overnight. Though using cold batteries shouldn’t cause any permanent damage, you may find yourself needing to charge them more often. But when you do recharge, wait until they have reached room temperature first before popping them onto your charger. As charging cold batteries can permanently reduce their energy capacity.
Learn more about how the cold affects your batteries in this post.
Cold E-liquid = Slower Wicking
It probably hasn’t crossed your mind at all that your e-liquids could be affected by the cold, but they can. You’ve heard in the past that propylene glycol is used in a lot of antifreeze brands and yes this is a true fact. But it is because PG is non-toxic (Do E-liquids Contain Antifreeze?). So if your e-juice is made from an ingredient that doesn’t get affected by cold weather, then why do you need to worry about the cold affecting it?
E-liquids have enough ingredients packed in it that it would take a really extreme temperature for it to freeze. But freezing isn’t the problem you need to worry about. Liquids that are colder tend to get thicker or more viscous, meaning it won’t wick very well. If your e-liquid doesn’t wick properly you can end up with dry hits or burnt wicks that need replacing.
To avoid the slower wicking, consider using a dripper instead of a tank system when you know you’ll be spending a lot of time with your device exposed to chilly temperatures, as RDAs are virtually cold weather proof.
If you do prefer using a tank system, maybe upgrade to a newer version as newly released tanks are now built to handle e-liquids with higher VG content, which are thicker than e-juices that have more PG in it. This should keep your e-liquid wicking better even if it does get a little thicker due to lower temperatures.
When it comes to refilling, if you find that your e-juice bottle is a little cold, take some time to warm it up a in your hands before pouring into your tank. This extra step should help get your e-liquid more fluidic before pouring it into your tank.
How do extreme temperatures affect e-liquids? Find out in this post.
Warm Mod, Frozen Drip Tip
You are well aware of how warm your device can get, particularly after an extended vaping session. Your device will take a much longer time to become cold, even after you’ve given it some time to rest due to its size.
But that is not the case for your metal drip tip, which is much smaller and will pretty much immediately drop in temperature as soon as it leaves your mouth, especially when you are outdoors standing around in the cold weather.
Avoid getting your lips stuck to a cold metal drip tip by switching it up with a drip tip made of another material. Inexpensive and plentiful, you can never really have too many drip tips on hand in your vaping collection so expand your horizons for a few that aren’t made of metal.
Acrylic, rubber, plastic and delrin drip tips are perfect for the chill of wintertime. These materials, neither get too hot and definitely do not get cold enough that your mouth may get stuck to it the way it can when using a metal drip tip.
Winter vaping isn’t all that bad, just as long as you are aware of what cold temperatures can do to your equipment and you take the proper precautions to avoid the situations listed above. As an added bonus fact, did you know that the colder weather will make the vapor clouds that you exhale more dense?
You will certainly big a cloud churning machine during the wintertime if you vape outdoors. Just don’t forget your vaping etiquette if you do decide to vape in public.