not buying a tank, honestly

[Perpetua]

It's the circuitry as Chrissie has said that isn't as robust on the Riva as the Ego from what I've read as well . . . although in essence, they're the same, but different.

As to the other stuff, I don't have a technical bone in my bod, so can be very little help to you . . . . but one of the brainy ladz will be on to explain it I'm sure.

[dave]

A "real" eGo is regulated to about 3.5 volts or less i.e it doesn't vary from that. Usually they actually have "eGo-T" inscribed on them. Rivas start at 4.2 volts and gradually reduce to about 3.5, so when freshly charged a 1.5 ohm carto is going to take a bigger current drain from them. Just to confuse things there are batteries that look exactly like eGos but actually behave the same as the Riva.

An real eGo is therefore a better bet (also note Chrissie's point).

Personally, I think the best bet for 1.5 ohm stuff is to get a simple mechanical battery mod, then there is virtually nothing that can go wrong.

[DiscoDes]

Atomiser & Cartomiser build quality and juice delivery to the coil has improved in the last 12 months. I am now of the opinion you don't need very low resistance coil devices. They burn hotter and other than in a tank I beleive this causes them to gunk up quicker and in addition whichever device you use you will drain it quicker using a low resistance atomiser. Look at the SD keyring, it uses 2.7 ohm cartomisers and has very good battery life for such a tiny device.

I get a great vape out of the Kanger cartomiser (2.7 - 3.1 ohm) with decent batter life on a standard Riva battery. And the Boges are almost identacal in performance (I prefer the warmer vape from a bottom coil). I feel you no longer have to use low resistance coil devices on standard Ego/Riva batteries.

I have some 901 Riva batteries here which still hold a good charge and I have used EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING on them (bar a rewireable) and never had a problem they are 2 years old now.

The Higher the resistance coil you can use on a non VV device will give you the longest run time, it's trial and error to find out what is right or acceptable to you.

[Gordy]

Daves right the eGo battery is regulated to output a constant power so even if you use a low resistant atty / carto it wont care and just give you what it allows

where as the riva and ego copies just output whatever charge the battery has. usually this starts at 4.2 for a fully charged and drops down to 3.5. so when you use a low resistant atty / carto (lower that 2ohms) it will allow the atty / carto what ever it wants which can over stress the circuitry and cause the battery to fail.

to test which you have pop a multimeter on the battery connector of a fully charged battery and take a reading of the voltage output

Now with DCC (dual coil cartos) they have two coils inside each at double the resistance of what they are rated. ie
a 1.5ohm dcc will have two 3 ohm coils.
a 2.0 ohm dcc will have two 4 ohm coils
a regular boge 3 ohm will have one 3 ohm coil

so a 1.5 ohm DCC would be like connecting two boge 3 ohm cartos to your device