So guys and gals this will be somewhat short and won't include pictures in the process just the finished result and a description of how I did it, since I did this quite a while ago but should be pretty easy to follow along.
Things you'll need:
Dead AEP battery or one you don't care about since it won't be functional afterwards
Solder, and soldering iron
hot glue
deans connectors male and female
heatshrink for the connections or electrical tape in a pinch
multi meter
Turnigy Nano 300mah 2s Lipo
https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=59263So here is my finished piece:
What your seeing there in short is the end of the NIMH AEP battery soldered to a deans male connector and then hotglued together to give it some strength. Then a deans connector on the small Turnigy Lipo with black tape on the connection because I didn't have small enough heat shrink at the time.
How to do it:
First check polarity of the connection to insure your later soldering to the right positions, do this before taking it apart.
So take your existing AEP battery, carefully remove the end cap off the battery. You'll have to peel the heat shrink back on the battery to get to it, likely break the tabs. But make sure to leave enough contact to solder to, also try not to break the parts you'll be keeping. The battery is toast, so if you need to break that fine, but do be careful since the battery will still have some voltage and can be dangerous.
Next solder the deans connector to the contacts try to keep it close and short, so it takes as little room as possible. Once you get a good electrical connection there. You can just build up some hot glue around the connection to insulate it and make sure it's tough enough to go in and out of the slot without coming apart, as well as unplug and plug the deans connection when you take it apart to charge.
So now you have a deans adapter for the gun more less, you can hook any deans battery to your AEP now, but it's time to make one fit in the slide without modifying the gun.
So take the battery, cut the leads one at a time and solder them to the female deans connector. I used about an inch of wire per lead. Make sure to keep them short since they will sit between the battery and your adapter. Leave your balance charge port alone, since you'll need that as well, it will ride in the same position as the wires you'll see later. Shrink the connections so they are safe, or wrap it with tape. Alternately you can goop some hot glue on there to insulate the connection then tape it which is what I did at the time since I didn't have small enough shrink tubing handy.
Now you've pretty much got the whole thing, to install slide the adapter into the slot like normal with the arrow oriented the right direction(alternatively if you screwed up the polarity earlier you could slide it in backwards and make it work without redoing everything, however remember what your doing so you don't screw up). Once the adapter is in place gently push the lipo and wires into position. Then install your slide, be careful not to pinch the balance wires since they are prone to getting out of position and getting in the way.
Overall this is a pretty easy mod and works great, it's pretty easy to change the battery. For those concerned about capacity, I haven't had an issue. I don't use my AEP much though it gets some use most games since it's my close range gun when I'm running my sniper rifle. I'm not sure what the max ammo count is but likely around 300 rounds per charge maybe more. Fire rate increases a fair amount for the NiMH cell because it can thrown down power more efficiently. I haven't had any issues with durability at all, it's been running this way in my gun for around a year now and it's been great.
Any questions feel free to ask them here.
Take care!
Luke
EDIT: Note this isn't a "new" idea, well maybe the way I did it is new. But I've seen other guys modify lipos to fit etc, so there are other guides out there that gave me the idea. And I just did it this way since you can use old original batteries, or lipos etc. Also you could solder the battery directly to the top of the battery cap to get more room and use a larger battery, then chop your old charger to hook to your charger etc. Or you can use a smaller connector since the full sized deans is a bit large. So feel free to modify as you see fit, I just haven't had the urge since it works, and I don't need more capacity. I only charge this battery every 3-4 games at this rate so it's pretty much a non-issue for me it might be for you.
