Fried my AEG with a LiPo

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Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby MySwan » Tue Oct 13, 2015 9:51 pm

Long story short, my LiPo started smoking in my gun so I tossed it and now that I got my NiMh charged my gun won't do anything and my NiMh heats up pretty hot in the wires. So my next question is what to do. It's 22 awg wiring in the gun with no fuse (yeah I know but I bought this from a trusted friend who has used it for years and it worked when I used it).
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby Hawkeye [F.O.A.D.] » Wed Oct 14, 2015 4:43 am

Sounds like you fried the wiring and or the trigger contacts and you have a dead short (which will destroy a lipo). 22 awg is to small for a lipo, I use 16 or 18 awg. you will have to take the gearbox apart and look at the wiring to find out for sure but you need to replace the wiring with something heavier.
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby MySwan » Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:03 am

Hawkeye [F.O.A.D.] wrote:Sounds like you fried the wiring and or the trigger contacts and you have a dead short (which will destroy a lipo). 22 awg is to small for a lipo, I use 16 or 18 awg. you will have to take the gearbox apart and look at the wiring to find out for sure but you need to replace the wiring with something heavier.

That's what I thought. So on finding the right wiring, would any 16 awg wiring for an M4 work? As long as it's good quality of course but I mean in terms of compatibility. I have a Classic Army LWRC M6A2.
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby Hawkeye [F.O.A.D.] » Thu Oct 15, 2015 4:10 am

MySwan wrote:
Hawkeye [F.O.A.D.] wrote:Sounds like you fried the wiring and or the trigger contacts and you have a dead short (which will destroy a lipo). 22 awg is to small for a lipo, I use 16 or 18 awg. you will have to take the gearbox apart and look at the wiring to find out for sure but you need to replace the wiring with something heavier.

That's what I thought. So on finding the right wiring, would any 16 awg wiring for an M4 work? As long as it's good quality of course but I mean in terms of compatibility. I have a Classic Army LWRC M6A2.


Yes for the most part.
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby spazzticsmurff » Mon Dec 28, 2015 11:10 pm

if plan on continuing to use lipo batteries i would suggest getting a mosfet like those you can find on nukefet.com
since you need to replace the wiring anyways, imo this would be your best bet.
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby MySwan » Tue Dec 29, 2015 2:10 am

spazzticsmurff wrote:if plan on continuing to use lipo batteries i would suggest getting a mosfet like those you can find on nukefet.com
since you need to replace the wiring anyways, imo this would be your best bet.

I rewired my gun long ago. Now I need a new lipo and I will throw in a fet with money I now have from christmas.
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby Steve » Sat Jan 02, 2016 1:29 pm

MOSFETs aren't really a necessity when running a LiPo. A MOSFET is just a transistor. It takes a smaller input voltage / current and uses this to control a gate for a larger voltage / current. As long as the motor is rated for the voltage and current that you are using, you can use a lipo without a MOSFET.

Most of the airsoft MOSFET units are really programmable logic controllers. They do anywhere from a few to a lot of things in addition to gating the power. If you are just playing standard outdoor airsoft, they are kind of overkill.

They become really useful when you are doing high rate of fire semiauto shooting (the better units do active braking, so you only fire one shot in semi, and also have sensors to make sure the gun completes one full cycle, so you always get one shot). They also can do "gee-whiz" stuff like give you a programmable burst feature.

However: You are adding complexity to a system. And every time you add complexity, you increase the potential for failure. If you only own one AEG, I'd keep it stock. If you own a bunch, it may be worth adding a MOSFET to one or more of them if the particular unit you are looking at does the stuff you want it to do (not all MOSFET units have the same features!), but accept that you are increasing the likelihood that the AEG will fail.
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby Hawkeye [F.O.A.D.] » Sat Jan 02, 2016 11:13 pm

Steve wrote:MOSFETs aren't really a necessity when running a LiPo. A MOSFET is just a transistor. It takes a smaller input voltage / current and uses this to control a gate for a larger voltage / current. As long as the motor is rated for the voltage and current that you are using, you can use a lipo without a MOSFET.

Most of the airsoft MOSFET units are really programmable logic controllers. They do anywhere from a few to a lot of things in addition to gating the power. If you are just playing standard outdoor airsoft, they are kind of overkill.

They become really useful when you are doing high rate of fire semiauto shooting (the better units do active braking, so you only fire one shot in semi, and also have sensors to make sure the gun completes one full cycle, so you always get one shot). They also can do "gee-whiz" stuff like give you a programmable burst feature.

However: You are adding complexity to a system. And every time you add complexity, you increase the potential for failure. If you only own one AEG, I'd keep it stock. If you own a bunch, it may be worth adding a MOSFET to one or more of them if the particular unit you are looking at does the stuff you want it to do (not all MOSFET units have the same features!), but accept that you are increasing the likelihood that the AEG will fail.


A basic mosfet stops arching of the trigger contacts, which in turn extends the life of the part. I have had to replace many trigger contacts of the years but have not had a single issue since switching over to a basic 3034 mosfet. And in my opinion is a requirement when running lipos.
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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby ClownBaby » Sun Jan 03, 2016 2:59 am

Is MOSFET an acronym, a word combo, or somebody's name?

Hawk, you gonna spell it in HIGHCAPS ALWAYS! That way you get that echoing boom, like a monster truck announcer is saying it.

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Re: Fried my AEG with a LiPo

Postby Steve » Sun Jan 03, 2016 4:16 am

It is an acronym. Stands for metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor IIRC. Fancy was of saying beefy transistor. The huge benefit of MOSFETs in microelectronics is that a tiny little current (like 40 milliamperes) can control 15 amps. This lets PLCs like arduinos control household 110v lights.

The units that get plugged into AEGs are and are not MOSFETs. They are really PLCs that HAVE MOSFETs incorporated into them along with other stuff, like Hall effect sensors and H-bridges and capacitors. Just soldering a straight MOSFET in an AEG is kind of retarded. All it would do is decrease performance very slightly and heat up a little (or a lot, and then blow up, depending on current).

There are a couple of basic styles of MOSFET units. There are some that plug in in-line with the battery and let you have burst fire and whatnot. These WILL NOT help with trigger contact arcing. All they really do is use a timer circuit to cut off flow of current to the motor after a certain amount of time has passed until they sense that you have released the trigger. There are (arguably better) units that get wired or soldered into the gun at various levels of complexity. The ones that WILL "protect" the trigger contacts from arcing damage isolate the trigger as a separate circuit. They run a much smaller voltage and current into the trigger loop and detect when the trigger is pulled. They then allow the bigger flow to occur through the motor. Since less flow goes through the trigger contacts, and no fly back from the motor gets dumped through the trigger circuit, you get less arcing.

If you are just looking to protect your trigger contacts, and don't care about the extra features, you could probably get better results for your dollars by soldering a diode across your motor terminals from + to -.

That being said: I think 3 of the 6 AEGs I run regularly have MOSFETs (PLCs, really). The rest of them will get MOSFETs installed when they need their next rebuilds. But, I play strictly indoors, running 11.1v LiPos, almost always on semi-auto only, and tend to dump 1500+ rounds in a 7 minute game. I'm pretty sure this counts as abuse in anyone's book. If you are less hard on your equipment, you probably don't need to worry about installing a MOSFET.
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