How to increase battery life

[mr carl]

Hi all,

I have a 9.6v 1400mAh battery. I don't use it often. How can I increase its battery life?

[Eeyore]

You can increase your battery life by taking care of it. Get a good charger that will not cook it. A charger that can discharge your battery as well as charge is a good thing. Also avoid beating the hell out of it, I've seen folks throw batteries around and in general treating them poorly.

[mr carl]

Is keeping your battery charged a good thing or bad? Like when I'm not using it, I usually keep it charged just lying around the house. Thanks

[Slow]

Your battery will use power slowly as well so its not a huge concern. But if your going to charge it again you will want to use up all of whats left first. If not, you will cause Battery memory and that will decrease the life of your battery.

[Styrak]

Originally Posted by Slow

Your battery will use power slowly as well so its not a huge concern. But if your going to charge it again you will want to use up all of whats left first. If not, you will cause Battery memory and that will decrease the life of your battery.

Only for NiCAD batteries, and still....not much effect on today's NiCAD's.

You should leave NiMH's charged.

[Wrath144]

Cell memory only applies to nicad batteries. Simply, the best way to increase your battery's life is to use it.

[mr carl]

oh yeah, forgot to mention my battery is NiMH

[Crunchmeister]

Don't confuse NiCad and NiMH. Both are very different. Suggesting to discharge batteries as a blanket statement is incorrect.

Discharghing NiCad is recommended before recharging. Charging partially charged batteries will cause cell "memory". On the next charge, that low level will be 'remembered' by the battery as the 0 mark, meaning you won't be able to hold as much as a charge. Once that's repeated over and over, the battery basically doesn't hold a charge anymore. Although if you buy newer, quality NiCad, memory shouldn't be an issue even without fully discharging. This is not as much of an issue, but discharging is still recommended as it will extend the lifetime of your battery.

NiMH have a very difference chemistry, and fully discharging them is detrimental to the battery. They're actually better left partially to fully charged. Letting one discharge completely can ruin it over time just like not discharging an NiCad. It doesn't have to be kept at full charge, although that's its happy zone and doing so will prolong its life.

A quality charger is key to keeping your batteries in good condition. Those "wall wart" chargers that come with cheaper guns are best tossed in the trash upon opening the box. They're unreliable, and will cook your batteries if left plugged in too long. A good smart charger with charge detection (that will stop charging once the battery is fully charged) is recommended. Good ones cost more, but good batteries cost a lot too. I would rather pay $100 for a good charger and have my $50 battery last several years than use a cheap charger and have to replace batteries every year.

[xaMdaM]

Nicad, NiMh and Lipo batteries are very commonly used in model aircraft, model boats and model cars.

Of the 3, model aircraft are most critical because the average weight of a model aircraft is about 4 pounds and the average cost is about $500. Given that it flies in the air and can have a potentially disastrous crash should the flight system fail, many numerous articles have been written about battery care and maintenance.

Here are some links to some battery information already out on the web. Please have a read and see what you can learn. what you learn form these sites can be directly applied to your battery for your AEG, there really is no difference in terms of application and performance.

http://loke.as.arizona.edu/~ckulesa/nicads.html

and

http://www.hangtimes.com/redsbatteryclinic.html


The best advice I can give you is to get a good smart charger that can both charge and discharge your batteries.

A B6 type Charger can be had for about 30 bucks on the net or about $60 at your local model hobby shop
Ie:

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/s...idProduct=7028

This can charge, discharge and cycle your batteries for you, and will display your batteries performance on an LCD screen so you can SEE what is going on with your battery.

[ThunderCactus]

Buy a mosfet switch and upgrade your gun's wiring, makes a huge difference in power consumption

[Styrak]

Originally Posted by ThunderCactus

Buy a mosfet switch and upgrade your gun's wiring, makes a huge difference in power consumption

Yup. Change to deans plugs.

[Deadpool]

Originally Posted by Styrak

Yup. Change to deans plugs.

+1

That's the most basic and surefire way to increase your batterie life!

[ScooterVauto]

Originally Posted by ThunderCactus

Buy a mosfet switch and upgrade your gun's wiring, makes a huge difference in power consumption

++1
I just rewired my M4 with teflon coated milspec 16g and on full auto the
wiring doesn't even get warm (heat = wasted energy)