An Introduction to Dripping for Beginners

What is dripping?

Many vapers are ingenious types who are always looking for ways to improve their vaping experience and one of the methods that has developed in recent years is dripping. This uses specialised equipment with the goal of getting the best flavours possible as well as thick, billowing clouds of vapour.

Cloud chasers, who enter competitions to see who can create the most vapour, are aficionados of vaping. People who spend extra money to buy gourmet e-liquids also tend to gravitate towards dripping. If you’ve spent a lot of money on a connoisseur e-juice, you want to get the most accurate flavour definition you can. Many people swear by dripping as the best way to do that.

What equipment do you need for dripping?

Any modern box mod with variable temperature and wattage as well as settings for different types of coils such as stainless steel, nickel or titanium will do the trick. There are a number of different wires you can use that have different effects on your vaping experience so it’s worth doing some research. As long as your set-up is suitable for sub ohm vaping you’re good to go. Sub ohm vaping means vaping with coils that have a resistance of 1 ohm or less, another method designed to produce excellent flavour and vapour production.

The key bit of equipment is the dripping atomiser. You can choose from either an RDA or RTA. Note that most atomisers have a coil that heats e-juice inside a tank. But a dripping atomiser has no tank. Instead, it has a deck, sometimes called a table, where a wire coil is mounted. The coil is surrounded by cotton, which acts as a wick to soak up the juice so that it comes into contact with the heated wire, turning it into vapour. Many drippers build their own coils, but you can also buy them off the shelf.

How does dripping work?

In the absence of a tank, where does the e-liquid go? Underneath the coil is a small reservoir that can hold a limited amount of e-liquid. These reservoirs vary in size, some can hold up to a ml or two of e-liquid but most are very shallow. Because it’s small, it needs frequent refilling. You do this by dripping e-liquid into the reservoir and directly onto the cotton.

The coil deck is covered with a tubular shell that has a mouthpiece, called a drip tip. You remove the cover to expose the deck and the juice reservoir in order to drip into it. Some dripping atomisers have extra wide drip tips so that you can simply drip your e-liquid straight through the top.