Guide: AEG maintenance and storage

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Guide: AEG maintenance and storage

Post by Moondog »

Guide: AEG maintenance and storage
by Moondog

Here are some Basic Maintance Tips for maintaining your AEG between games.


Decompress your Spring
Every time you fire in full auto your and stop. Even though you've stopped the motor, your gearbox may not have fully cycled the spring. So the spring may be left part-way compressed. So the only way to make sure it's completely unwound is to cycle/fire it twice in semi-auto.

Make sure your mag is out and you have shot the last BB out of the chamber; point the barrel away from yourself and anyone around you. Next shoot the gun twice on "semi"; this will reset the gears and the timing of the moving parts in your aeg. If you don't reset the spring, it could be left in full or partial compression putting unnecessary stress on the gears and tappet plate. A spring left compressed overnight can lose up 50fps-100fps permanently due to a weakened spring.


Lubrication/Barrel Cleaning
Lubing your barrel is the easiest way to reduce jamming. Airsoft silicone spray lube is used to reduce friction in your barrel and to keep your hop-up bucking from drying out and cracking. At a recent chrono, my AEG temporarily gianed 40fps from the liberal use of silicone spray. Unfortunately reducing friction also effectively disables the hop-up effect because hop-up requires friction between the bucking and the BB to work. So avoid excessive spraying of lube. One very, very brief spurt will do. More than a 1-second spray is waaaay too much and it could take a few thousand rounds before you hop-up goes back to normal. To avoid this, I suggest spraying your cleaning cloth strips rather than the barrel itself.

Not all Silicone Spray is the Same
Be sure you are buying airsoft silicone spray or 'food' grade silicone spray. This uses alcohol as the solvent base. Some hardware store silicone sprays (such as Liquid Wrench with silicone) are petroleum based and will end up damaging your AEG.

You can also look for 'dry' lube or teflon lubes used for motor sports and cycling; these are alcohol based. Be sure to look for the words "Safe for O-rings" before using on your AEG.

Never-ever use WD-40
WD-40 is a petroleum based degreaser with some lubricant built in. The solvent base of WD-40 will damage rubber and silicone causing them to dissolve and get sticky/tacky. If you use it on your AEG's this will ruin your o-rings, hop-up bucking and plastic parts over time.

Cleaning the Inner Barrel
To improve FPS, accuracy and reduce the chance or jams, you should regularly clean the (inner) barrel of your AEG. The things you need to clean your AEG's inner barrel are: silicone spray, the barrel cleaner rod that came with your AEG, and lint-free paper towels/swifter.

Step 1
Cut long thin strips out of the paper, then spray the inside of the inner barrel with silicone spray (or spray on the paper as discussed above).
  • Step 2
    Insert strips into the eye of the cleaning rod and rotate it to make it look like a giant Q-Tip.

    Step 3
    Turn your Hop-Up off. This is important as the hop-up is a thin piece or rubber at the base of your barrel and if it is on (pushed down into the barrel), it can be damaged/broken by the cleaning rod.

    Step 4
    Insert cleaning rod while inserting, rotate the rod between your fingers to sweep the walls of the barrel; do the same when pulling out the rod. Do not push the rod too far into the hop-up chamber.

    Repeat Steps 1-4 until your cloth strips come out clean

Lubricating your Gearbox
While opening up your gearbox isn't covered under Basic Airsoft, if you do get an opprotunity to get access to your gearbox you can do basic lubrication of the gears without opening it by spraying silicone lube spray or teflon dry-lube spray onto the gears through the gaps behind the trigger and at the bottom of the gearbox if you remove the motor.

If you have occasion to open up your gearbox and can access the gears directly, it's useful to periodically clean off old grease and then reapply new silicone grease. Pure silicone grease can be purchased from auto or cycling stores as well as some airsoft retailers (inlcuding Evike.com). Many people use white lithium grease but this lube dries up over time and can damage o-rings so I avoid it.

Do not over-lube your gears. Exessive grease acts as a dust and dirt magnet.


Battery Charging and Discharge
Detailed instruction on charging can be found in the Battery Guide. But it is worth reiterating here. Wall/dumb chargers deliver a low-constant charge and require that you monitor the the charge times and battery.

As batteries reach full charge (or full discharge) they heat up due to increased chemical resistance. Overcharging the battery can cause some of the chemicals to boil off (leaking), decreasing battery life, damaging the battery and could cause the wiring to melt!

I know sometimes we forget to unplug them when we are charging before a game. If you do forget, unplug it right away, touch the battery; if its extremely hot let it cool off for a few minutes before using it in you AEG. Battery amp output is effected by the battery temperature, so a hot and fully charged battery can output enough amps to burn out a fuse or even burn out your wiring.


Battery Storage
Overall, keep your batteries in a cool, dry place. Moisture wreaks havoc on batteries and will corrode the electrodes and can cause them to fail. Keep them dry in a zip-loc baggie (in humid regions, throw in a few uncooked rice grains, in the baggie to absorb moisture.)

NiCad batteries require more attention. You would also have to fully discharge before you recharge them or else they develope a 'memory effect' which causes the battery and charger to think it's fully charged, even when it isn't. Evike sells battery discharge units or you can make your own using a computer fan or a small lightbulb. So long as you drain all the juice out of your battery.

NiMh batteries are very easy to store. Most clone AEG's sold today come with NiHh batteries. They don't have a 'memory effect' because NiMh self-discharge in storage. They lose 10% after a day and 1% every day after. So after 30 days in storage you will have lost almost half of your juice. Before a game you should give them a top-off charge the night before. You can reduce the discharge rate by storing them your fridge (again keep them dry.)

LiPoly batteries are the newest battery type and the most fussy. They must be stored half-empty. Due to their unique chemistry if stored full or empty, they start to heat up and over time, have been known to catch fire! LiPolys thus require specialized chargers and cell-balancers be used and stored.


Barrel Condoms and Storage
When not in use, store you AEG with the mags out and buy a good barrel condom. This will prevent injury due to accidental misfires when putting your gun away or taking it out of its gun bag. Check to make sure your gun's safety is on (as this can be accidentally moved during storage and transport). AK's are notorious for this. And for some reason we all seem to instinctively 'test' the trigger to see if the safety is engaged properly. This is why it's important to have a condom on your barrel. :shock:
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Re: Guide: AEG maintenance and storage

Post by phridum »

BBs

Managing your BBs is essential to keeping your airsoft equipment organized. When I decide what BBs I need to buy, I do a "group buy" by finding friends who want the same BBs and get a large order. This brings down the overall cost per shot. Once they come in the mail, disseminate the packages to the buyers. Usually, the BBs are pre-separated into 5000 round bags. I put mine into plastic bottles.

I use small-mouth Nalgene bottles because these are easy to pour into speed loaders and hi-cap mags. I use a piece of tape on the bottle to mark each bottle with the weight of the BBs inside. Many gear companies make MOLLE pouches for Nalgene-style bottles, if that's your style.

Keeping the BBs in these, or similar, bottles also keeps them dry and out of the humidity. All BBs are made of styrene and therefore are technically biodegradable, a process sped up by high humidity or damp air. Older BBs will become brittle or deformed and may cause malfunctions or damage to your AEG system. If you are buying BIG bulk orders and long storage (more than one season), consider adding in a package of desiccant to keep the bottle interior more dry.

Magazines

I never keep magazines loaded. This is the major failure point in many AEG guns. It's common to forget to maintain the spring. If springs in magazines are kept under tension, they will feed slower over time, and bind up, causing misfeeds and skipped shots. I find this happens more frequently with pistol magazines due to their double-stack design.

There is a catch that holds the BBs in the magazine. There is a little button that can be slid to the side that will release all the BBs. Tip the magazine into the bottle mouth before releasing the tension and these BBs will be available for later use. Don't bother reusing the ones that spill or bounce out. BBs are too cheap to risk getting a dirty, linty, BB gunked up into your gun.

On hicap mags, I release the wound-up BBs in this same manner. Then I slowly wind up more until they barely reach the top. Due to a hicap's design, there is no tension on the spring or winding mechanism until it starts getting resistance. Then I top off the mag reservoir for a fully loaded mag. I do the same thing with any speed loaders.

After a game, if you know you got particularly dirty, don't hesitate to clean out the magazine feeding mechanism however you can. Put a drop of silicone into the spring and compress it a few times just to keep it sliding smooth. Especially important with pistol magazines.

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