A mech mod, or mechanical mod, is a device without any circuitry. Traditionally, mechs were a simple metal tube with a firing button. A battery in placed inside the mech and an atomiser (RDA/RTA/RDTA) is attached to the top. When the button is pressed, the firing pin makes contact with the battery and creates a circuit with the atomiser, causing the coil(s) to heat up and vaporise the juice. They are basic, simple, and potentially harmful.

These days, Mechs come in all shapes and sizes. The traditional tube mechs are still very popular, particularly with vapers who appreciate their sleek lines and minimal look. Mech box mods run on two batteries in either parallel or series configuration, providing the user with either longer running time or more power. Squonking has recently taken the vaping world by storm and mech squonkers generally run on a single battery, with a similar form to a small mech box mod allowing room for the squonk bottle to sit inside next to the battery.

Some mech mods have what is known as a hybrid connector, these have a 510 connection without a positive centre pin. Using a hybrid connector safely requires an atomiser with an extended positive centre pin connection. The extended positive contact on the atomiser touches the positive end of the battery, completing the circuit. Using an improper atomiser can have disastrous consequences by creating a hard short. If in doubt, please ask if your atomiser is suitable for use with a hybrid connector.

No lithium battery powered device is 100% safe given the amount of energy stored in what is a comparatively small battery. Regulated mods are generally safer than mechanical mods due to their inbuilt safety features that protect against faults such as short circuits.

Short circuits and other faults can cause batteries to discharge at speed, resulting in them heating up so much that they vent and ignite. If the vent gases can’t escape, explosion is also a possibility.

Choose the right type of battery. Good quality IMR (Lithium Manganese Oxide) battery or INR (Lithium Manganese Nickel) batteries are the best choices, due to the battery chemistry being less volatile than ICR (Lithium Cobalt Oxide) batteries.

Don't buy cheap when it comes to batteries - it's not worth the risk to the safety of you and those around you, to save a relatively small amount of money. You will also need to keep a close eye on the wraps and insulators on your batteries. If these get damaged, they will need replacing. Re-wrapping batteries is a very easy job and can prevent shorts. If your battery wraps are damaged, stop using them until you are able to re-wrap them.

A good quality battery charger is crucial. A poor quality charger can over-charge a battery, making it unstable and greatly increasing the chance of batteries overheating or venting when they are used.

A fully charged IMR battery should be somewhere between 4.15 and 4.20 volts. Much above that (4.25V) and its life will be shortened and instability becomes a concern.

Regulated mods have built in protection that will prevent your device from working if your batteries are too flat. A mech does not have this protection and will run the battery until it is absolutely flat, which is very bad for lithium batteries. You will be able to tell when your battery voltage is running low due to a substantial decrease in vapour production. For the best experience, recharging at, or above, 3.6V is advised. It is always a good idea to err on the side of caution, particularly until you are used to judging your batteries charge by the loss of power, so removing the battery and checking it’s voltage in your battery charger regularly is advised.

Please note, the above table does not take into account dual battery mods with the batteries in series configuration. If you have a dual battery series mech, we would recommend that you make yourself very familiar with both ohm’s law and calculator tools like http://www.steam-engine.org/

A resistance tester or a good quality regulated mod is essential for testing the resistance of your build before you use it with your mech mod to ensure that; not only is the resistance suitable for your battery, but also that there are no shorts (usually due to part of the coil touching part of the atomiser. Always check once the atomiser is fully assembled.