Anybody Know Airsoft? I Have A Battery Question.

I bought an AEG a while ago as an accessory for my firearm for fun and cheap, quiet practice. Now ammo is mostly unavailable and what can be found is hideously expensive so it looks like it's going to be airsoft or nothing till the market stabilizes.

I bought an ok AEG but I know the batteries and charger aren't the best. The charger is some cheesey trickle charger and the batteries are just 1500mah NiCd packs. What's interesting is the AEG runs on 8.4v. That gave me the idea that I could run the gun on 2 18650's for an almost 50% boost to capacity and compatibility with the kinds of batteries I'm already using and recharging with my flashlights. I like simple and I like easy.

So, is there any reason this wouldn't work?

The off-the-charger voltage of the stock pack will be almost 10V, whereas the highest voltage 2 li-ions will give is 8.4V, the nominal (dead) voltage of the nicad pack.

It should work, but it will probably cycle slowly.

NiMH is probably your best bet for an upgrade.

I'd be careful, electric motors draw a lot of current, much more than many of our lights. There are some AEGs built specifically for lithium polymer, you might be able to retrofit yours. But overall I'd agree with what Luke said, NiMH is still the best option.

I've done a little more research and it seems that the "large" battery packs are using sub-C cells. That looks like what I have in mine. I was just thinking that safe chemistry 26650's might be better than 18650's. They'd have twice the capacity of the NiCd pack, little voltage sag and I'm sure they can cope with the draw. FWIW my gearbox is just a plain jane JG V3 with whatever their standard "heavy duty" motor is. I rarely use full auto and when I do it's just for fun so within reason ROF isn't too important to me. I was going to get some 26650's for my Mag85 anyway so when they arrive I'll go ahead and work on a way to get them to power my AEG and see what happens.