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Battery Care....


FUmiYAsu

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What could explaing when battery "explodes" from behind making alot of smoke as my friend said. We just did change deans connectors for it and the wires didnt touch each other (taped the other wire away from other wire and cutted it 1 wire at a time. Dont know was it charged a bit the battery.

But when my friend tried it at his place (i werent at that moment there) first he could shoot like couple of rounds on different gun he said and then other gun it just like "exploded" from the end ( Stick type battery), making alot of smoke even maybe little fire, dont know, he maybe can over exaggiraite(Dont how to type that word only pronounce, sorry) the happening.

 

EDIT: My friend said that he first shot with his gun few semis then short burst (6-9shots), then he changed the same battery to other gun and shot on it but the fuse was off, he connected it shot and then next thing he saw was smoke everywhere and managed to watch the battery and the end of the stick type battery was glowing red as he said.

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Hmm, that sounds either like a dead-short, or massive current drain- since an aeg only pulls about 15-20amps at most, I'd say its a deadshort. I managed to blow the end off a nimh cell once, but that was through overgearing in a truck, pulling something like 80-100amps almost constantly for several minutes...

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Short circuit, either caused by a stray wire or loose solder joint, or inside a cell itself- needs the positive + and negative - ends of the cell to join together somehow; if one end of a cell blew off and has glowing, then it sounds like that cell shorted out somehow.

 

Whatever the cause, a new battery pack is required...

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  • 4 months later...

Voltage under load and storage voltage are two totally different things. The LVC setting should be no lower than 3.0v per cell; it you store them at that voltage they will puff in next to no time- they should be stored at ~50% charge; half way between the general LVC setting of 3.2v & fully charged settign of 4.2v per cell = ooh, 3.7v per cell, funny that ;)

 

If you'd like some reading material on lipo care:

 

http://www.maxamps.com/lipo-care.php

http://barnson.org/node/1154

 

 

They should never be charged higher than 4.2v per cell, they should never be discharged below 3.0v per cell- they should never excede 140*F ( 120*F ideally ). Voltage sag underload is due simply to having a low C rating- the voltage will rebound once you remove the load, but you dont want it sagging too low otherwise the pack will become overdrawn and puff. The more the voltage sags, the worse the quality/ spec is- avoid cheapo packs, go for something with the highest C rating and mah capacity that will fit, this will result in longer life span and better fps/ rps when you're really hammering it.

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  • 1 year later...

So I got this new Turnigy Quad-charger in today and I have been playing about with it. This is where I get a bit stuck because, although I have been airsofting for yonks, the charger asks me loads of ‘questions’ which my old NiMH charger and even my regular Lipo charger has never asked of me.

 

It’s asking me for the ‘discharge current’ and ‘final voltage’. I think I am right in saying that, in simpler terms, this means the discharge rate and how low do I want it to discharge the battery?. So my question is what should I enter for these values? Is there a rule I can use to tell what will be best? What would be the best values using the example of a VP Tech NiMH 1500mAh 8.4v mini-type battery?

 

Many thanks in advance.

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So I got this new Turnigy Quad-charger in today and I have been playing about with it. This is where I get a bit stuck because, although I have been airsofting for yonks, the charger asks me loads of ‘questions’ which my old NiMH charger and even my regular Lipo charger has never asked of me.

 

It’s asking me for the ‘discharge current’ and ‘final voltage’. I think I am right in saying that, in simpler terms, this means the discharge rate and how low do I want it to discharge the battery?. So my question is what should I enter for these values? Is there a rule I can use to tell what will be best? What would be the best values using the example of a VP Tech NiMH 1500mAh 8.4v mini-type battery?

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

OK so discharge current is fairly easy, depends how quickly you want to discharge. There is no value that is too low (it'll just take ages) but for NiCD/NiMH batteries I wouldn't go over 10C - that is, 10 times the capacity of the battery. So for a 1500mAh battery I wouldn't discharge at more than 15 amps. That's an upper limit though, I doubt your charger will go that high. A few amps is fine.

 

With regard to final voltage, for NiCD/NiMH cells 1V per cell is about right. An 8.4V battery has 7 cells, so the final voltage would be 7V. At this voltage the cells will be getting close to completely flat.

 

Hope this helps!

 

One more tip, don't unneccessarily discharge your batteries, it'll shorten their life for no reason.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

OK so discharge current is fairly easy, depends how quickly you want to discharge. There is no value that is too low (it'll just take ages) but for NiCD/NiMH batteries I wouldn't go over 10C - that is, 10 times the capacity of the battery. So for a 1500mAh battery I wouldn't discharge at more than 15 amps. That's an upper limit though, I doubt your charger will go that high. A few amps is fine.

 

With regard to final voltage, for NiCD/NiMH cells 1V per cell is about right. An 8.4V battery has 7 cells, so the final voltage would be 7V. At this voltage the cells will be getting close to completely flat.

 

Hope this helps!

 

One more tip, don't unneccessarily discharge your batteries, it'll shorten their life for no reason.

 

Does once a month DISC/CH a battery do any harm? I help run a field and have about 100 packs of NiCd that I need to look after. Any other advice would be appreciated. I use the AC6 type smart charger. Thanks.

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Does once a month DISC/CH a battery do any harm? I help run a field and have about 100 packs of NiCd that I need to look after. Any other advice would be appreciated. I use the AC6 type smart charger. Thanks.

 

Actually, fully discharging then recharging NiCDs about once a month will help keep them in good shape. The rest of the time, just charge them up as necessary and they'll be fine.

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  • 1 year later...

I am a bit daft with electronics, so please bear with me.

 

I have had one of these for awhile:  http://www.airsoftoutletnw.com/products/airsoft-battery-chargers/nimh-nicd-chargers/ac-dc-universal-smart-charger-for-nimh-or-nicd-airsoft-batteries

 

Always worked well, no problems with my stick nimhs, save for today.  I haven't used it in quite some time, so I decided to try and charge up a battery so I could fire a few of my guns today.  Went to plug in the battery and noticed a "zap" occurring.  Looked at the indicator on the charger, and it kept flashing red and green.  Naturally I assume that something is burnt out, but it seems odd to have happened so quickly for something that I've seen other run for years with (before everyone went to lipos).

 

Bit of a sad panda, since it was my only decent charger.

 

 

EDIT:  Might have to facepalm myself, it might be that I haven't yet charged the battery before with it, hence it needs to build up a correct charge.  I swear I have done so before though.

 

 

EDIT:  Nope, occurs still with older battery, so guess I'm out of luck.

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If you haven't used the NiMH batteries for say half a year then it could likely be dead (1 or more cells have drained too much and reversed polarity). Ideally you should give them a deep cycle every couple months or so. But even with a cell dead it should still register on the charger and try to charge it when you hook it up, just that the performance of the battery will be next to nothing even when fully charged. With that it does sound like you fried the charger.

 

edit:

From the looks of it that charger has fuses for surge protection. You could check to see if they've tripped, but don't try to bridge it without a new fuse as whatever shorted it (bugs, crossed wires, moisture etc) could still be there and permanently fry it if you do.

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Took me a min to realize where the bloody fuse is, lulz.

 

I will see if I have a spare (doubt it), and see if that works.

 

EDIT:  Well, it still flashed when I plugged it in with a new fuse, but when I connected the older of the two batteries, it turned to the red charge light and has stayed that way so far.  Thanks RC, I may just get to fire a rew rounds off today.

 

 

EDIT:  Well, I think I found out the problem.  When I tried just now to swap the charger to the new battery (exact same make and model), it sparked again and the charge light when dead.  Sure enough, the fuse broke.  So, either I need better fuses, or something with the newer battery just fries the fuse instantly...

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All looks fine, but compared to the other older battery, the new one has the colors reversed.  Length wise, the long wire that extends down the pack on the original is red, shorter wire is black, while the newer one runs long black, short red.

 

Just good to know I guess that I wouldn't have a spare if I went anywhere.

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Red is live/ positive , black is negative . Are you trying to charge the battery with reverse polarity . That will blow a fuse .. Check which wire goes to which terminal on the connector .rc spec / wired battery's are usually wired different way around to Airsoft spec battery's . You will have to rewire the connector / Tamiya if this is the case .

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http://eliteairsoftbatteries.com/products/103-elite-airsoft-1500-mah-23a-96v-stick-battery-pack.aspx

 

That is what my two batteries are.  The original one has the red longer wire as shown, but the newer one is a reverse of that and the shorter wire juts from the center instead of the side.  Despite that, it still matches up the same Timiya connector wise (red to circle terminal, black to square terminal).

 

It is quite likely the case you have pointed out though.

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