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Purchase a suitable 1.2v battery cell. In my case
a NiMH 3700mAh cell was required. My existing 8.4v pack is 3600mAh, and I
was unable to find a suitably cheap cell of the same capacity. If you have
the same problem be sure to purchase a cell with a greater capacity. If
your pack is NiCad, get a NiCad cell. Ebay is a great place to buy cheap
single cells. |
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Detach the stock, and carefully split
it. It will probably be glued around some portion of the seam. Click the
image for a larger version that shows where the six locator pins are.
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Strip the heatshrink and wiring from your current battery pack, and
place it in the stock to determine how it will fit.
NOW is a good time to ensure that both your 8.4v pack
and the new cell are discharged! If you solder the new cell to the pack
with unequal charges then you will have problems charging and using the
new pack. I discharged both the pack and the cell with a 12v automotive
bulb. It will not take long, discharge until barely any glow is seen in
the bulb. Do not completely discharge. |
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I decided on this layout. It leaves more space for the charging
connector, and will be easier to heatshrink. Your mileage may vary. You
will have to remove the long plastic protusion that holds a standard pack
in place. Actually, as you will see in later photos, I rotated the 8.4v
pack so that the last cell on the end(the one not in line with the
others) is towards the rear of the gun. This made it a lot easier to
connect the new cell to the pack via the tags on the last cell. |
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I had to partially remove the moulding sections shown in this image to
get the new pack to fit properly while enabling the stock to fit together
correctly. |
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Solder the new cell to the pack, and a set of cables for power and
charging. This battery pack is not going to be removable from the stock,
so will need to be charged in situ. As the space at the rear and down the
sides of the stock will be reduced I decided not use a single cable (i.e.
the original way) for powering the gun and charging the battery. The
original high current cable that connects the fuse holder to the gun with
a small Tamiya style connector was connected straight to the battery via a
car-style fuse holder on the positive end. The standard fuse holder is too
big to comfortably fit. A charging cable was also connected (via the fuse)
and routed back along the battery ready for a connector that will allow
charging. Low capacity wire is fine here if you don't fast charge. |
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Don't accidentally short the charging wire while
transporting the battery. Luckily, using low current wire acts as a fuse
and prevented damage to the interior of the cells. This is only surface
damage (I hope). |
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(After rewiring) You can now heat shrink (or tape) the pack together.
Ensure that it will fit properly before wasting heat shrink, and make sure
you fed the charging cable along the pack between the two rows of
cells. |
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Solder whatever connector you fancy
to enable charging, and place your new 9.6v pack snugly in the stock.
You can now glue the stock back together (if you like) and secure back
on your AK (now 50g heavier). |
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If you want to be flash you can place a strip of
sticky fishtank thermometer on the outside edge before you heatshrink. This will give you visual warning when charging your battery
that it is getting warm. It will be difficult to check the temperature by
hand as the battery will not come out of the stock once finished. |
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Attaching the stock to the gun is a tricky process. There is not a lot of
space as you can see. If I do this again I'll take more care to ensure that I account
for the way the rear of the gun intrudes into the stock space. I
managed it, but it's not pretty. |
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The final result. Yes I used gaffa. I'm not
prepared to glue the stock together until I am confident that this is all
going to work.
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