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a5 egrip battery voltage problem.

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KhitSicker View Drop Down
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    Posted: 25 March 2017 at 11:12am
I have am having a weird issue with an old (not hal) a5 egrip. all the modes and firing is working however it seems to be draining the battery very quickly. Testing with a multimeter it took a brand new energizer lithium from 9.6v to 8.4v in less than a minute of full auto firing. left to sit for a couple hours not plugged in and the battery did gain some voltage back but i still can not get more than a minute or 2 of firing before the battery voltage drops below what will make the egrip work properly.

I tried it with several brands of battery including a powerex true 9.6v. that one fares better and regains voltage quicker but still in under 5 minutes the e-grip no longer fires due to low battery voltage.

any ideas?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tallen702 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 March 2017 at 1:43pm
Is this 2-5 minutes of continuous firing on full auto? Or is it draining down when not in use?

IIRC, the older e-grips really gobbled up batteries. I used to keep extra 9v batteries in my kit and swap out about mid-way through a full day of playing. Not sure if it was resistance from the way the circuit was built, or just that the old microprocessors that were used in them ate up that much more power, but they'd chew through batteries fairly quickly. Mind you,d 2 minutes of sustained full-auto fire is a pretty significant amount of power, you are basically powering an electromagnet every time it cycles.

Edited by tallen702 - 27 March 2017 at 1:45pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KhitSicker Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 March 2017 at 10:37am
the first test was 2 minutes of constant full auto. but over the last couple days i have been testing with short bursts then maybe comming back in an hour and firing another burst. it did better. But i didnt ever get more than 10 minutes of "firing time"

Would replaceing the board with an APE board be advised? My a5 has been modified to fit in a p90 shell and I don't think the way I have it setup a HE e-grip board would work properly.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tallen702 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 March 2017 at 11:47am
APE boards work pretty well and should give you slightly better battery life, especially given the programming parameters that allow you to adjust rates of fire more finely. That said, the inherent drawback to a "sear tripper" system like e-grips vs a true electropneumatic firing system (ie, FASR or Spool valve setups) is that the electromagnetic armature that actuates the sear eats up a LOT of power. It's not the board draining your battery, it's the armature. That's the "engine" of the e-grip system.

10 minutes of firing time with burst and full auto is a lot of rounds down range BTW. 7,800 rounds if you're capped and feeding at 13bps which is the top end of what most fields allow. That's $155.80 worth of Empire Hot Box (their cheapest paint) per battery charge. The only time I ever went through that much paint in a day was during high level tournament play and even then, it was just barely and I expected to fill my tank and change my batteries multiple times throughout the day (between every match actually). The max most people carry on them into the field is 1000 rounds (8ea 150 round pods in a pack), so even with a 2 minute full-auto-all-the-time lifespan, you're still talking over 1500 rounds. You literally couldn't fill your hopper fast enough to achieve dumping everything in 2 minutes. Quite honestly, 10 minutes of actual firing is a LOT of firing for a day of play.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KhitSicker Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 March 2017 at 1:13pm
i will run it again when i get home from work and record an exact time. I do have a couple batteries I can hook up in parallel as well. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote KhitSicker Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 March 2017 at 9:30pm
2 true 9.6v rechargeable batteries in parallel got 17 minutes of sustained full auto. battery voltage at the start was closer to 10.4v and got down to about 8.8v before the firing became erratic. bps is low though. started at like 8-10 and ended up closer to 5 or 6 ... I suppose it might be cheaper just to get a high capacity airsoft battery or hook up 3 or 4 9v's in parallel.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pasapaca Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 June 2017 at 2:08pm
I Have exactly the same problem, I even found a uTube video of a guy with the same issue. Called Tippmann parts and some other 1800 number they gave me, but no one seems to heard about it. From my point of view this must be the motherboard, but they donīt manufacture it any longer. any ideas?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tallen702 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 June 2017 at 8:47am
Originally posted by pasapaca pasapaca wrote:

I Have exactly the same problem, I even found a uTube video of a guy with the same issue. Called Tippmann parts and some other 1800 number they gave me, but no one seems to heard about it. From my point of view this must be the motherboard, but they donīt manufacture it any longer. any ideas?


I'd go with an aftermarket MoBo from APE or similar in that instance.
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