If you’re a serious connoisseur of herbal concentrates, you’ve probably learned from experience that you’re not going to have the best possible experience with an oil cartridge or wax coil unless you have a vape pen battery that’s designed for the task. The blister-packed 510 batteries that you see in many gas stations, convenience stores, and dispensaries can certainly get the job done, but most of them don’t offer any advanced features. You’re going to find a basic 510 battery extremely limiting if you want to use a wax coil or connect your device to a water pipe.
When you start to feel limited by your first vape pen battery, it’s time for an upgrade – but before you buy a new device, you need to make sure you’re getting one that’s going to keep you satisfied for a long time. If you’re going to buy a new vape pen battery and want to have the best possible experience, these are the 3 advanced features the battery should have.
Variable Power
Have you ever used a vape cartridge and found the experience a bit underwhelming? There’s a huge variety of cartridges on the market today, and they all have slightly different designs. Some cartridges have extremely efficient heating coils and produce impressive plumes of vapor at relatively low power levels. With too much power, though, a cartridge that’s capable of producing big clouds might give you a harsh burnt flavor.
On the other hand, you may also encounter certain cartridges that are designed to operate at cooler temperatures – and with those cartridges, you might find it difficult to get a satisfying puff if you’re using a cheap 510 battery that only operates at one power level.
Different brands and types of vape cartridges operate best within different power ranges. If you want to try a wide variety of pre-filled and refillable vape carts, you need a battery that can operate at the ideal power level for whatever cartridge you’re using. While a typical regulated 510 battery can only operate at a constant power level of 3.6-3.7 volts, a variable-voltage vape pen battery will allow you to select from a range of about 3.4-4.2 volts. Having the ability to vape at different power levels means that you can always get the best flavor with any vape cart.
Automatic Coil Preheating
Have you ever thought about connecting a wax coil to your vape pen battery? If you have, you need to know that wax vaping isn’t always quite as straightforward as oil vaping. Most of the world’s oil cartridges are pre-filled by the manufacturers, and all that you need to do with a pre-filled oil cartridge is connect it to your device and start vaping.
Wax concentrates have the potential to be even more potent than oils, but they’re not quite as simple to use as oils are. Pre-filled wax cartridges don’t exist, so you need to buy – or make – the wax and load it yourself into a wax coil. You can’t just load the wax into the coil and take a big rip, though; you have to heat the coil gently to soften the wax first. The wax needs to melt and cover the coil’s heating surface, and then you can take a deep puff.
Although it’s certainly possible to soften a wax concentrate manually by pressing your vape pen’s fire button a few times briefly – or by taking a few quick puffs without inhaling, if you’re using a battery with an automatic puff sensor – it’s not the most convenient process. It can also be wasteful because some of the active compounds in the wax will almost certainly vaporize and dissipate into the air.
If you want to get the most out of your wax vaping experience, you need to use a vape pen battery with an automatic preheating function. When you enable your battery’s preheating mode, it turns on and operates at a lower voltage for several seconds. At the lower voltage, the wax coil will become hot enough to melt the wax, but it won’t get hot enough to vaporize the active compounds. That way, you can take a big rip without experiencing any harsh flavors – and none of the active compounds in the wax will be wasted.
Dual Firing Modes
In the previous section of this article, we discussed how to warm and soften a wax concentrate with an automatic-firing or manual-firing battery. Most 510 vape batteries use one firing style or the other, and they both have their own benefits and drawbacks.
- An automatic vape pen battery produces vapor when you puff on it, and many people find that firing style enjoyable because the experience feels very similar to smoking. When you puff on an automatic battery, though, it takes a moment to trigger the puff sensor. In that brief moment, you’re inhaling air rather than vapor, which will tend to reduce the overall intensity a little.
- A manual vape pen battery produces vapor when you hold the button. Since you can hold the button before you start inhaling, a manual battery will tend to produce bigger and more intense vapor clouds. Some people may find, though, that a manual battery can be a little awkward to hold compared to an automatic battery.
Although most vape pen batteries use only one firing style, it’s worth your while to seek out a device that offers dual firing modes because you’ll get the best of both worlds that way. When you’re using the device normally, you can use the manual fire button when you want your device to produce a bigger and more intense cloud. At some point, though, you may decide to connect your vape pen to a water pipe to enjoy the smoothness of water filtration. If you’re going to use a water pipe, however, you’ll find that it can be pretty inconvenient to reach around to the other side of the bong and press your device’s fire button. If your device offers both automatic and manual firing, there’s no problem – when you connect the device to a water pipe, you can simply vape by inhaling.
