Originally Posted by
OliverLove
Hi y'all. I've been playing with tanks on and off for 10 years. My godsons want tanks, so I'm building them tanks!
In an attempt to keep this easier for their dad i want to install remote battery charging ports. I know Taigen sells one, but I can't find it in stock stateside. Does anyone have a simple wiring diagram i could follow? No other electrical mods are happening so I want to try and keep it simple.
Thanks!
I personally have all internal chargers removed before they are shipped to the US. Other vendors may carry them, but you will not find them on our tanks. As mentioned here by many tankers it is a very poor idea for many reasons. Plus, a 5000mAh battery will get you about an hour of runtime for the tanks depending on model, I would think that is an acceptable trade off for opening the tank once. I do have some extension cables coming soon that the tanks will be shipping with that goes from the 5pin plug to a 2pin plug pigtail that will make opening the tanks a bit easier and will also be available in the store too. I tested a small run of about 250ish and had no issues so in the next few months expect them to be on all the airsoft tanks (the IR doesn't need it) and show up in the store.
Originally Posted by
Crius
My Jagdpanther has a remote charging port built in, but I never use it as it's a very, very bad idea to charge batteries in the tank. If something goes wrong you not only lose the battery but the whole tank as well. That's why you can't find them stateside, they don't sell tanks with remote charging capabilities over here.
But, if you insist on doing this, bad idea that it is, the charging port on my JP is simply wired in parallel to the battery input.
Hope that helps.
Crius is absolutely right here, charging internally just isn't a good idea. IMO it just isn't worth it to risk your whole model for a cheap battery. Don't get me wrong, for those of us who work with batteries or use them daily then yea issues are few and far between. HOWEVER as a whole most customers have absolutely no clue at all about battery technology and consider leaving a NIMH battery on the charger overnight or while they go to work is an acceptable practice. Heck I know of 2 hobby shops personally that burned down last year for charging incorrect settings on a battery (one overcharged a NIMH while the other guy thought it was a good idea to try and revive a lipo on a NIMH setting and walked off for a few minutes). Fires can and do happen, though with the NIMH batteries it is much less than other batteries could like Lipos.
NIMH batteries actually get particularly hot while charging and one of the things I hate about them is the lack of a good way to tell the condition of the battery versus something like a lithium based battery with set characteristics and such. It is suggested to put your batteries in a battery bag while charging too, that way in case something does happen it gives you a bit more time to react versus just exploding on your desk/table.
If you want you can PM me or email me and I'll be happy to help with a solution, but internal charging is not something we support or suggest. I would rather invest in either a few batteries, better charger, or as suggested below a different way to open the tanks such as the lift system first developed by Daryl Turner (which is actually VERY cool and used on our upcoming JS2). These will be not only much more effective but safer at the same time.