Batteries driving me nuts.

Alvin T. Grey

I must be doing something wrong. And being both a Noobie and a guy, I've let it go for waaayyyy too long before asking for assistance.

Picture this;
Yours truely picked up an absolutely honey of a CA MP5A5. It's funkey, it's more then funkey, it defines the very essence of 'Funkeyness'.

So I got my latest obsession home, and terrorized the hell out of some paper targets for a while. Until the weapon ran out of juice.
No Problemo, I'd whack it on charge for a bit and take the time to intimidate the paper targets a little before delivering the coup de gras.

What can I say? I'm a well rounded warrior. Psyops is another thing I'm learning.

So I wait for 40 odd minutes (no charge time specified anywhere) hoping that I have a fast charger.
Nada.
The charger is warm, the light is on, the battery is warm too.
Still no joy.

So, Ok, it looks like I have a trickle charger.

Then I bang it back on charge, go away, read War an Peace (a singularly boring book, give it a miss. Good for killing insects though) Then four hours later, I try the battery again........

Nope, no good.

Now I'm worried. I couldn't help thinking to myself that I just killed the gun.

So I pack the kit up, bring it back to the shop. Where, fair play, it was looked at, and replaced without quibble. (Thanks guys if you ever read this) She works fine with a charged battery. So with a huge sigh of releif, I return home to finish off the rest of the paper targets.

Wash, rinse and repeat. Only this time I left it for a full 24 hours.

No. 2 battery is dead now too.

So what to do now? - HELP!

The battery is an ASG 8.4V 1250mAh NiMh Small Tamyia connector. The charger is an ANMANN AC 48T.

Harekin

Buy a computer charger, they're about $70 delivered from HK. You can set the current from 0.5A to 5.5A, will work on NiMH or NiCD, will work from 7.2V to 10V, some have an LCD display which shows how full it is, it will discharge your battery fully before it charges it and stop charging it automatically when its done!

EDIT:
http://cgi.ebay.com/TLP-TL15-Fuzzy-Logic-1-15-CELL-NiCD-NiMH-BATT-CHARGER_W0QQitemZ270157609793QQihZ017QQcategoryZ34063QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

Sorry its $100 (about €60) delivered from there, but truely is amazing! You'll NEVER look back, honestly.
AND thats the model that doesnt beep excessively!

kdouglas

sounds a bit odd alright, is the charger a standard 3-pin wall plug yea? or is it a two-pin with an adapter? make sure the charger voltage is 220v, not 110v

is there any switches/dials or anything on the charger itself?

you can check the mah rating on both the charger and battery and put it into this program and it will tell you how long it needs to charge for.

buying an intelligent/computer charger would help, but personally i think that's a bit excessive for what could be a small problem

CrazyRabbit

I would guess the that the voltage on the charger is set wrong (110v). Either that or the charger itself is faulty. I doubt the AEG or battery is the cause based on the info you provided.

Alvin T. Grey

Thanks for the info guys.

So, I might have a toasted battery on my hands. If it wasn't when I got it, it most likely is now.
So first up, get a new battery. Second get a good charger.

The battery for the CA MP5 seems very specific, I've given the specs up above.
So for the win............Who can tell me what I should look for in a charger for that battery?

Sorry to be such a pain, but I want to get this right.

In the mean time, I'll plink away with the Hi-CAPA 1911, so life 'aint all bad.

CrazyRabbit

Alvin T. Grey wrote:

Thanks for the info guys.

So, I might have a toasted battery on my hands. If it wasn't when I got it, it most likely is now.
So first up, get a new battery. Second get a good charger.

The battery for the CA MP5 seems very specific, I've given the specs up above.
So for the win............Who can tell me what I should look for in a charger for that battery?

Sorry to be such a pain, but I want to get this right.

In the mean time, I'll plink away with the Hi-CAPA 1911, so life 'aint all bad.

Some chargers auto-cutoff when the battery is charged. Others, you have to work out the timing yourself.

There are fast chargers that can charge most batteries in 25-40 mins, but they generally don't fully charge the batteries. Trickle charge chargers are much slower (3-4hours), but will fully charge the battery. Some intelligent chargers are able to switch automatically between those. They fast charge until the battery is at about 80% charge, then switching to trickle charge for the rest.

And of course, there are some with built in dischargers which is useful for some battery types.

Which is best, depends on what type of charger you want. At the end of the day, they all do pretty much the same thing.

Oh, and there is nothing special about the MP5 battery.

8.4V = 'normal' voltage for most AEG's. Most can take 9.6v batteries which increase the rate of fire, but potentially wear out the gearbox parts quicker and increase the risk of damage.

1250mAh = The capacity of the battery, The higher this number, the longer the battery will last. 1250mAh is fine, but you might want to consider getting a spare as batteries sometimes don't last a full day. Some batteries have 3800mAh capacity, but are slightly larger then their lower capacity cousins and may not fit in your AEG. Anything under 2200mAH should be the same size though.

NiMh = Pretty much standard battery type these days. There are also NiCad batteries, but they suffer from the dreaded 'memory effect' which can prevent them from holding a full charge. Best to avoid them.