chargeing problems

[NATEDOGG]

just got my a4 today. I went to charge it and ran into my first problem. with the charger plugged into the car and into the gun w/ the gun off, the lcd backlight comes on, and you can hear the "hum" that i've read about. but when i switch the gun on, the lcd and hum turn off about 5 seconds after that, and no display on the lcd.thinking car voltage too low..... any ideas?

[Jethro]

Try turning the gun on before you plug the charger into it. Or you can try a different car to make sure it is not the car itself.

-Walter
Cobra Paintball
760.630.4698

[lcplwan]

Are you charging from your car or do you have a adapter at home? I use a adapter i got from radioshack where you plug it in a 110 vlt outlet , they cost about 20$ or when on sale about 14$.
One problem I had charging was when i pluged the tip in the gun it didnt charge, I had to readjust the board in the grip so the tip can go in, its still kinda hard sometimes because the board is not a perfect fit to the grip.

[NATEDOGG]

thanks guys, i'm waiting for a co-worker to come to work so i can try charging w/ my car on, and also to try his car. I also race r/c cars so i have a 12v inverter at home that puts out 14.4v, so that should work. i appreciate the responses, and Walter, if I have anymore problems i'll give ya a call, my biggest concern is that the lcd isn't showing ANYTHING.

[vap0r]

I tried a little experiment with my A4 yesterday. I left the gun on overnight and completely drained the battery just to see what would happen when I tried to recharge it.

First I plugged the marker in the car charger while in the car (which has charged it before). The LCD would come on with every LCD image displayed with the backlight and screen flashing. Not good. I left it ion the car for 2 hrs thinking that eventually the battery would have enough charge to power up the board correctly. It never did and the battery received no charge at all.

I began thinking, maybe the board has to be able to be powered up correctly from the battery first so that it can then regulate the charge?

I tried the same thing again, puting the car charger on my 12v converter in the house. Still same LCD flickering with all images displayed. If I turned the marker off and back on without the charger plugged in it displayed nothing as if it were dead. This should not be happening! Its just a drained battery for gods sake! The board is obviously needing a little power to boot up and then regulate the charge it seems.

I too am a former RC racer, and have a good NiMh charger.
I wanted to just charge the battery a little directly by bypassing the board as the control for the charge. I disonnected the battery wired from the board and plugged some leads directly into the female connector. I turned on the charger and watched the battery analysys. The battery is only a 1000 mah NiMh. Piece o' cake. I set the charger output to 700 mah and watched the fun. Thirty minutes later after about 400 ma were applied, I plugged the battery back into the board and powered it up.
WORKED LIKE A CHAMP! It booted up fine and was showing half full. I then put the car charger back onto the marker, and the CHARG cycle started with the bars cascading like normal.

Maybe there is something to the board needing to have enough power to boot up correctly before it can regulate the charging cycle.

Anybody can make the mistake of leaving the marker on and draining it completely. Batteries are batteries. Just get a good NiMh chager and bypass the board to jump start it!


Side Note: Hey you Cali RC guys, I moved to NJ from San Jose last year ( for work). I raced RC big time out there mostly at Delta RC 1/8 scale expert offroad. Nitro baby! Salinas has a pretty good club down there.

Get out your charger and charge that battery directly. Remember to turn the switch on to complete the circuit!

[lcplwan]

Cool, I have a Nitro Rustler, and 2 other rc battery cars, a nsx and a toyota prerunner truck
the rusty freakin rips at 47 MPH!!
anyways I have a intellipeak charger but it says only charge C cells etc.. but it works for other cells too, just turn the MAH down a bit.

[Panzerr]

I think your board needs to be reset. The same thing happened to my ir3 when i first got it.

[NATEDOGG]

Guys, thanks for the help. Vapor, what kind of charger do you have? I figured I'd set my pulsar to charge a 1 amp, maybe .5 amps, set it up for a four cell and set the peak detection at 1000mah. how does that sound to you, basically, charge it like a reciever pack.

[vap0r]

Nate, thats exactly what I did. I just set it up to charge it like a receiver pack. No big deal! :smile:

[Sparco]

What was your battery showing that it would drain in one night? I was under the impression that you could leave your marker on for several days off a full charge as it goes into "sleep" mode if left idle for too long.

[vap0r]

I think it was on about 2 bars before I left it on. It was completely drained the next morning. There was nothing left to discharge by my "real" battery charger.

Oh, I have an Integy charger and a MAHA Nimh charger.