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Mesh Coils: What Are Their Benefits?
2024-10-18
Every few years, a new technology appears and rocks the vaping industry to its core – and recently, the biggest technology in the vaping industry has undoubtedly been the mesh vape coil. Whether you’re shopping for a new vape tank or just reading reviews of the latest vape gear, there’s no escaping the fact that you’re going to see mesh coils referenced constantly online. So, what are mesh coils, and what are their benefits? Should your next vape tank or pod system have a mesh coil?
What Are Mesh Coils?
A mesh coil uses a metal grid as its heating surface. Viewed up close, a mesh coil looks a bit like a window screen or a chain-link fence.
To understand what a mesh coil is, it’s important to have a basic understanding of how traditional vape coils work. Before mesh coils were developed, all vape coils worked in essentially the same way. In a traditional vape coil, the component that vaporized the e-liquid was a heating wire that was wound into a spiral shape. People used the term “atomizer coil” because the heating wire actually was a coil.
Mesh coils are different because they’re not made from wires at all. Instead, a mesh coil uses a mesh strip that looks a bit like a window screen. The strip is usually wound into a tight cylinder and installed vertically to provide for smooth airflow. In some cases, a high-end mesh vape coil may use multiple mesh strips working in tandem to provide for greater vapor production. That’s the only difference between a mesh coil and a traditional vape coil: The heating surface is made from a strip of mesh rather than a length of twisted wire.
The difference for you as a user, though, is likely to be quite profound.
Why Were Mesh Vape Coils Invented?
Mesh coils were invented to counteract the problems with traditional wire-based vape coils, which are fine for smaller vaping devices but tend to exhibit problems like popping and spitting in larger vape tanks.
Mesh coils were invented because traditional vape coils had reached a point at which they could no longer improve in performance without causing serious drawbacks. People who buy high-end vape tanks want huge vapor clouds and bold flavors, and the way to make a vape coil that delivers those things is by increasing the coil’s surface area. With traditional vape coils, you can increase the surface area by using larger wire gauges and by adding additional wires. The industry had reached a point, though, where the best vape coils required around 100 watts of power to operate efficiently and didn’t deliver a great experience because they tended to pop loudly or spit e-liquid into the mouth during use. It was clear that a completely different type of vape coil was going to be necessary in order to keep the cloud chasers of the world happy. The mesh coil turned out to be the technological revolution that the vaping industry needed.
What Are the Benefits of Mesh Coils?
A mesh coil has less mass than a traditional coil that offers similar vapor production. As a result, it heats up more quickly and requires less battery power. In addition, a mesh coil has a flat profile that helps to prevent popping and spitting.
Compared to traditional vape coils, mesh coils have two important benefits. They offer better wick-to-wire contact, and they offer a greater surface area for the mass. Let’s examine how those two benefits affect your vaping experience in practice.
- Compared to a traditional wound vape coil, a mesh coil has a much flatter profile. That allows it to make firm and even contact with the wick, leaving no areas where e-liquid can condense and form pools. Mesh coils are nearly silent during operation and do not tend to pop or spit as traditional vape coils sometimes can. Because mesh coils heat so evenly, they also often last longer than traditional coils.
- A mesh coil has a high surface area – which is exactly what you want for cloud production – but it’s also extremely thin and light. The low mass allows a mesh coil to produce huge vapor clouds despite having very reasonable wattage requirements. Using a mesh coil tank makes it possible for a single-battery vape mod to have the same vapor production that would have previously required a dual-battery mod. Switching to a tank with a mesh coil will also usually improve your mod’s battery life.
Do Mesh Coils Have Any Drawbacks?
For most people, mesh coils have no drawbacks whatsoever. If you’re currently using a vaping device with a traditional coil and are happy with the experience, though, there’s no need to switch to a tank or device with a mesh coil.
Most people who try mesh vape coils are going to find that they’re unquestionably better than traditional coils and that they effectively render the old style of coils obsolete. There are two potential reasons, though, why some vapers may continue to prefer traditional vape coils.
- A mesh coil produces vapor with very small and consistent droplet size, so the vapor will feel somewhat “dry” in your mouth compared to the vapor produced by a high-end traditional coil. If you enjoy vapor with larger droplet size and a “wetter” character, you may prefer traditional wound vape coils.
- Because mesh coils produce such large vapor clouds, you may find the experience overwhelming if you use a mesh coil with an e-liquid that has a very high nicotine strength. You can counteract that effect by using a lower-nicotine e-liquid – but if you’re happy with the higher strength you’re currently using, a mesh coil may not be right for you.