How to Plug in a Lipo 11.1 Battery Airsoft

Airsoft is a globe full of old technology and an manufacture of slow moving innovation. Look at the batteries we employ. Up until recenlty, about AEG's came with nothing more than a NiCad battery, and most merely with an 8.4v. The discharge rate of the cells were poor, and you had to deal with poor quality Tamiya connectors, every bit well equally thin and low quality wiring. It's time to update the applied science we use.

Let united states address some myths regarding lipos:

Lipos WILL explode and are very unsafe to use
Lipos are also powerful for anything just a heavily upgraded airsoft gun.
Lipos crave a lot of babying

Number One

Okay, so the showtime ane isn't really a myth, simply hearing the horror stories some people tell, you lot'd recall that lipos are prone to failure and then spawn gremlins who then tear up your garden, embroider your underwear, wet your bed, then swap your sports car with a Prius. Yep, lipos Tin can (non volition) explode if you push them out of spec. The same can be said about NiCad and NiMH batteries too! Granted, the later two don't frequently fireball, they can spit out all kinds of nasties that volition burn you and possibly catch fire in addition to spewing shrapnel upon failure. Keep your lipo within specs (like shooting fish in a barrel to do), and y'all'll nary take a problem!

Number Two

Number two has to exist one of the near annoying things I hear almost lipos. Everyone is afraid of the large bad lipo battery! Why do people think that a lipo will accident up your AEG? I just don't get it. Allow'southward learn some math and empathize why this is total nonsense!

First we must understand a thing chosen belch rate. This is the rate at which current flows out of the bombardment. Manufacturers refer to this equally the "C" rate of the battery. So if your battery specs say that you have an 11.1v 2200mAh 25C battery, so you know the belch rate is 25C. Now what does that mean? Well, let's convert that to something nosotros can sympathize. To convert the "C" rate to amps (a measure of current), we just use this formula:

C Rate 10 Capacity (in amp hours) = Discharge Rate in Amps

Then let's look dorsum at the battery we were just talking about. Using the formula we have 25C x 2.2Ah = 55A. Now hold up a infinitesimal and don't freak out when you run across that 55A rating. Nosotros'll get to that in but a second. What y'all need to know is that 55amps is what that battery is CAPABLE of producing. Now permit's switch gears and see what that NiMH battery you have is capable of producing. Most NiMH cells used in Airsoft tin can discharge with a C charge per unit of upwards to 12C. Hum…. meet where I'm going don't yous? Proceed reading. Then allow's await at an boilerplate mini battery that might come with an AEG; say a 8.4v 1400mAh NiMH battery. Using the formula above nosotros find that it is capable of discharging 16.8amps continuously. Wow, big difference.

Okay, enough of the math, what does that mean to you and your AEG? Every AEG needs a sure amount of current to run. This can vary from setup to setup due to different requirements of the motor and the load it has to drive every bit determined by the spring strength and gear ratios. Permit usa expect at my M249 for an example. Drivetrain-wise, here are the specs:

Guarder High Speed Motor
Madbull M120 Spring
Standard Ratio Gears
8mm Bearings

Now this gun requires about 22A to drive it, and since it's a PARA version, it merely houses a mini battery. WAIT! Didn't we just discover out that the mini battery in the above case only can put out upwards to 16.viii amps!?!?!? That's under powering the gun by virtually 23.half-dozen%! So what can we do to increase the operation given the tiny space nosotros have to fit a bombardment? Well, we can put the battery someplace else and employ a larger bombardment, but that might not be an option. Then nosotros can increase the voltage from 8.4v to 9.6v. Well in this case, there is room to add together the extra jail cell. Adding more voltage will increment the ROF and provide more power to the system but y'all might not have room for the extra cell either; there must be a better way. Enter Lithium-Polymer batteries; stage correct. Lipo batteries are able to fit college capacities and college discharge rates into smaller packages than a traditional NiMH or NiCad battery. So let us revisit our infinite and current conundrum.

We demand 22 amps of current to drive our arrangement (AEG's drivetrain) at 100%. Then let us use a 7.4v 2200mAh 25C lipo battery. That has a discharge rate of 55A. Of course, the gun simply needs 22A…. and as such WILL Just Draw 22A. The gun can't and will not utilise more current than it needs. Information technology will however, try to pull every bit much every bit it needs. And then when yous're putting that mini battery we talked virtually before in there, nosotros're over taxing the motor and the bombardment as the motor tries to draw the full 22A out of something that can't supply it. With the lipo, we have simply used xl% of it's adequacy; thus not overtaxing any part of the arrangement! Did y'all also notice we're just using 7.4v to drive the system? Overnice huh?

So let's get dorsum to myth number ii that says we accept to have a heavily upgraded gun to run a lipo. If you lot were to run a stock gun at 100%, and the stock internals are capable of handling the gun running at 100%, and so using a lipo is no trouble. Where you see bug is systems that arn't matched. You might have a heavy spring with a motor that can't provide enough torque. Or maybe you lot have a depression quality piston or gears in a high fps rig. And then you're system isn't matched (strength of the drivetrain to the load beingness driven), and regardless of what type of battery your run (3300mAh NiMH or a 2200mAh Lipo 25C), yous're just every bit likely to trash the piston or gears. DON'T Arraign THE LIPO!

We'll get to myth 3 shortly enough, but I want to give you a moment to chew on all of this information. Allow's see what we've learned.

Starting time, as long every bit lipos are kept within the manufacturers specifications, they'll run reliably for a long fourth dimension. Just similar NiMH or NiCad'southward they'll present you with a potential fireball of a hazard if yous push them outside of the manufacturer specs.

Second, it's non the lipo that tin can kill your gun, information technology'due south unmatched components being driving at 100%. If the motor is running at 100%, but the gears are operating at 140% of their power considering of poor quality, and so they'll intermission. Same is true of the piston and anything else in the gearbox. With that line of thought, a seven.4v lipo is no more than likely to break your gun than a big 9.6v NiMH or NiCad!

Well, chew on that for a while and we'll get to myth three in the next part when nosotros discuss maintaining, charging, storage and precautions for your lipo bombardment.

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