Picatinny Battery Mount for iGO 6100mAh Battery Packs

thingiverse

I've finally settled on my final design. So far, I've printed four versions, each with a few tweaks here and there. My latest print is the one you see here. Recently, I bought an ATN X-Sight II Night Vision Scope, which led me to realize that I'd need a battery pack if I wanted to hunt for extended periods. Running the scope from internal Energizer Lithium AAs gives you about two hours of run time. Since I had a spare iGO battery pack at home, I decided to put it to use and designed this mount to fit. It's a snug fit, and that was intentional - to keep the battery pack from falling out. I could have made the pack bigger, which would've required a latch to keep it secure, but that's not what I wanted. Instead, I opted for a friction hold, which keeps the pack from rattling around inside the mount. The hardest part of this build was coming up with the quick-release picatinny mount on the back. Luckily, I found a model on Thingiverse that saved me a lot of time - you can find it here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:925927 The iGO pack has a button on top to turn it on, and this should line up with the big hole at the top of the mount, so you don't have to constantly slide the battery pack in and out just to turn it on. In one of my previous prints, I inserted the battery pack for testing and realized that I hadn't designed a way to easily get it back out. It's held pretty tightly, but I was finally able to remove it without too much damage. To fix this, I drilled a hole in the bottom of the box so you can use something small (like a stick) to push the battery pack out far enough to grab hold of it from the open end. This hole has been added to the final model. I printed all test models at 20% infill but went with 100% for the final version, which gives it extra rigidity. The total print time is around 10 hours at 100% and about 5 hours at 20%. Be careful when removing supports from around the quick-release mount - I had to reprint because I got a bit carried away and broke one of the retaining clips that go into the rail. If you decide to print this, please post a picture, and if you'd like a copy of the Sketchup file so you can easily modify the design, just send me a message and I'll send it your way. Happy 3D printing!