Storing My Emag

[rmhawk]

When storing my E mag for the winter :( should i uncharge by battery completely and leave it dead, or keep it charged for the winter. I will not be playing now until April :(

[ß?µ£ §mµ®ƒ]

i would go with either uncharge it or drain it till its dead, you dont want battery cells draining them selves because a battery is a chemical reation, a bunch of oxidation and reduction to make the volts , over time the chemicals get used and arnt as effective,(some of the chemicals are lost during the phases of the flow < laymans terms)

[1ofkind]

If I ever had a emag, I'ed never stop playing, even in the winter!

[PyRo]

You would if you lived here, all the fields close :(
And your not allowed to have a paintball gun in the dorm, although that may be remided by keeping the valve in my car :)

[rmhawk]

ya it sucks. we have one field where i live (30 miles away) and it basically shuts down the end of October. Its not that the guy thats runs it wants to shut it down, it is because it gets to cold and no one shows up to play, therefore, he is forced to close for the winter. But, snowboard season opens and that takes up my time until paintball re-opens. :D

[BajaBoy]

i dont think you Ever want the battery completely dead.

thats just what i understand.. aka its bad if you run it all the way down, so i would think storing it dead isnt the best idea;)

[rmhawk]

now i have two conflicting suggestions, any others? Perhaps some from AGD?

[Killaman]

There would b no problems with storing the battery dead, It would be best because the ions in the battery will not lose their affinite (ability to gain electrons)...C'mon i kno u had chem in high skool!

[deadeye9]

Definately remove the battery. I would also remove the valve so the spring would not be under tension the whole time. I would also unscrew the velocity adjuster, there's a spring in there too.

During long time storage battery deactivation may tend to occur, and for this reason charging may stop early during recharging after storage. This problem can be solved by charging and discharging the battery several times.

[robertjuric]

I dunno but from what Ive heard its best to do both of what they said. Ive always heard its best to keep em dead, but to keep a trickle charge in them, really small so they don't completely die.

[VR4SL]

definitely store it dead. However, in spring, recharge it fully, hook up a low-wattage light bulb to it until its dead again, and recharge a second time, fully. make sure you do this before use!!!

[rmhawk]

Now the next question, do i turn the gun on to drain the battery, or should i use another method??

[VR4SL]

Low Wattage Light Bulb...

[1ofkind]

Hmm

[SeeK]

6. Are there any points to be careful of when storing Ni-MH batteries and Ni-Cd batteries?
The properties of Ni-MH batteries and Ni-Cd batteries are different. To get the best use and logest life from your batteries, you should store Ni-MH batteries fully charged and should store Ni-Cd batteries fully discharged.

http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/wwwconsumer/customersupport/faq_nimhbatteries.jsp?storeId=11251&modelNo=#2

This explains why everybody has a different opinion on how to store. I got this from the Panasonic site. They make a lot of rechargeable batteries for all uses.

[VR4SL]

Oh geeze! I didnt even look to see if they were NiMH! I just assumed they were NiCd. Yep, the panasonic website is exactly correct.

However, I still would recommend draining the batteries FULLY, and then charging to 100 percent, then storing. it will give it a full complete charge, and allow all the redox reactions to occur.

[SeeK]

As long as what you mean by fully is until the low battery signal trips. If you use a light bulb or other resistive method you may get cell polarity inversion which would destroy the pack because you took the voltage too low. I think it's .8 or .9 VDC per cell.

[VR4SL]

Seek-yes, I mean until the low bat light trips. though, that still may not be fully. only a voltmeter will tell.