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How is the chainsword powered?

Prometheum i'd imagine...

tears from little childrens?

Pure hate.

Its the fury of the righteous,
the undiminished hatred for the xenos scum,
the focused rage against heresy.

ha alright tears from lil chillens it is

corpsesarefun wrote:Prometheum i'd imagine...

It varies,some are connected to a power source like a backpack in the case of power armor in other cases it is connected to a bulky power source on the back(this is how non-backpack users power them) and some are powered by a battery IIRC.

my faith in the Emperor and my ignorace of my inevitable doom

Or if are a powerful psyker your power powers it.

Promethium...NAWW it's powered by cocaine!!!

Pretty sure they dont have chain-force weapons...

Also batteries are rarely used outside of the IG due to them being so ineffective, everything else gets promethium.

Burritos power everything. MORE POWER BURRITOS!!!

They work because my orks believe they do.

They run on prayer and incense!

corpsesarefun wrote:Pretty sure they dont have chain-force weapons...

Also batteries are rarely used outside of the IG due to them being so ineffective, everything else gets promethium.

Pre-Heresy Chainswords were powered by a gas supply of some sort. However, now, they are charged by the backpack's power supply.

So pretty much a current goes from the backpack through the armor to the chainsword and that's how its powered?

If I recall correctly, it's charged when not in use. Most weaponry can be stored in the backpack, though I'm sure the chainsword hangs by the backpack. I know for sure that the bolter can be put inside the pack, in the fluff. Though the model says otherwise.

1hadhq wrote:Pure hate.

Its the fury of the righteous,
the undiminished hatred for the xenos scum,
the focused rage against heresy.

Love it

corpsesarefun wrote:Pretty sure they dont have chain-force weapons...

Also batteries are rarely used outside of the IG due to them being so ineffective, everything else gets promethium.

Just a theory since psykers can do some crazy stuff.

I believe a force chainsword could work but the bolter can be stored in their packs really? thats sick! I had no clue about that and it seems like they would also probably charge the chainswords while they wernt using them it makes sense

if you look at space marine chainswords you see an area of cooling coils in the hilt.

right next to that is a small square box.

thats a battery. they always have an extra in their pack so when the one being used runs out they swap them and the empty charges from the packs power supply.


the reason chainswords have what looks like exaust vents. this may give the impression of gas power.

its really a coolent vent to reduce friction.


gas power is not viable on a sword. it would take too much fuel for even a space marine to carry.

Eviserators are run on promethiem however

nah. Chainswords use a fule imxture of 'I can't hear you over how fracking awesome I am' and Pure Whupass. with a little BBQ sauce for effect.

I always wondered about that vent turns out its just that and well I was right about the cooling coils being just that also lol I always thought it ran off electricity anyways it seemed like the only thing possible to run it anyways

Soladrin wrote:They work because my orks believe they do.

As with the rest of their tech.

They are fueled by my undying hate of stupid people.

Grey Templar wrote:


gas power is not viable on a sword. it would take too much fuel for even a space marine to carry.

???

Even with today's technology/common liquid fuel sources a chainsaw is not enormously heavy and has plenty of gas to run a good long while. With marine-style implants and power armor lifting something like that would be no problem, and the tech they have in 40k would make the fuel source need less fuel and the whole system take up less space.

I don't see why it couldn't be either a battery or gas. I could see space marines using backpack power source/battery pack operated chainswords and other forces (ie orkz, primitive worlds, worlds far away from forge worlds, etc) using gas(really should be saying liquid fuel as gas implies petroleum).

In some of the descriptions of people using chainswords they simply touch a rune on the side and it hums to life. To me that sounds like electricity and not promethium, but that doesn't rule out promethium as a potential fuel source either.

Sounds more like an on button than electricity to me

I can't find my 4th ed codex and I think it had a diagram in there. 5th ed one for generic marines just says "Taste the fear of your enemy as he dies" under it, while badass the Ork Codex has more insight into their equipment on the diagram page.

I'm going to go with they either have an internal electrical power source or have an input on the handle allowing power to flow from the Power Armour into it. The back pack powers the suit's strength augmentation, life support and generally handles waste so it probably has no room to hold and charge batteries. Just remember Power Armour has a lot of ports on it for crap to plug in including stuff for calabrating and even running diagnostic tests on it, so I don't doubt it will have ports in the hands for running stuff like Chainswords. The IG ones will probably be different though, but it is to be expected as generally they get the cheaper stuff so their ones probably would either take gas or have a battery inside.

n0t_u wrote:Sounds more like an on button than electricity to me

Read it again just for giggles?

The "humming" sound to start up versus a more fuel-like sputtering/noisy start-up was the important part. Even that doesn't make it clear whether all chainswords are powered by electricity (generated from a built-in source or backpack port) or whether there are a mix of fuel/electricity variants. I'm sure there could even be some powered by warp energy(bound daemons/warp entities, warp gas, warpstone, etc). I'm sure the orkz or other primitives could jerry-rig something like a chainsword that runs off steam power if they had to.

A well maintained gas powered engine could possibly do that as well as I'd expect them to fix it so not so much energy is wasted as noise. But, yeh it could even be hybrid of both, they seem to really ony leave it as "powered blades" but not really say what powers them.

I'm still agreeing with you though, the Imperium is pretty big and it is extremely unlikely that they would all have the exact same model of chainsword. Some power sources would suit some of them more than others.

No one really knows, just that they're chainsaws crossed with swords and very badass.

Just read in the 4th edition CSM codex in the wargear section on the panel displaying different chain weapons:

"Chainaxe: Energy supply from backpack powerplant"

Of course that just means that some chain weapons are backpack powered. I'm sure there are battery-supplied and fuel-supplied versions for imperial forces without a power source on their backs. It doesn't even seem consistent on the models as some have large bundles of cables attaching their chain weapons to their packs/suit and some are just free-floating.

Couldn't a chainsword fit both sorts of motor? I'd be happy knowing I had eckeltricity to fall back on if I ran out of gas chopping xenos to pieces.

Zed wrote:Couldn't a chainsword fit both sorts of motor? I'd be happy knowing I had eckeltricity to fall back on if I ran out of gas chopping xenos to pieces.

Hmmm .... so a chainsword is essentially a weaponised Toyota Prius? At least it'll never stop ...