Is so which and if not, why not?

Thanks,

Paul

nimh batteries might work but you well get less battery life and a lower starting voltage (1.2), lithium rechargeable batteries come off the charger with more than 1.5 volts.
they can also have current spikes and drops.
not to mention if you charge a lithium battery wrong, or to fast it will burst. not the friendly kind of burst either.

Always use a quality brand battery, store bought lithiums are fine to use.

I really doubt anyone is going to spend enough time out with a night vision device to justify the need for rechargeables when the battery life is 40 hours per single AA

I use eneloops and they're fine

This,

I've put together an external battery pack so if it leaks i haven't lost anything, Even so I wouldn't expect to have to replace more than the battery housing and on a pvs14 thats about 30 bucks worth of parts. I haven't seen any housings that  have leaked all the way through in on the circuit board. I could be wrong though.

At 40 hrs per battery, you're looking at about 250 batteries in total to reach the magical "10,000 hour service life" and if you were using the monocular full time, 40hrs per week,(5 nights x 8 hours) it would take just shy of 5 years to do this. A single quality lithium AA battery should cost under $2 per cell, and cheaper in bulk.

So, $2 per week for batteries, or $100ish per year is basically the worst case scenario as far as cost of usage is concerned.

The rechargeables and their charger are about $20ish for a four pack and charger. You would probably need to buy new cells annually as they wear out.

So you can save $80 per year by doing this, but you will risk your warranty, and if you corrode your battery compartment you will easily eclipse any savings, with a new battery compartment install probably running around $250-300 including the parts, diagnosis, labor, and repurge.

If you pop even one battery you are way outside of the "savings" zone, and furthermore, if you can afford to play with NVG's full time, the price of good batteries are just a drop in the bucket compared to time off from work, the NVG's themselves, the cost of weapons, the ammo expended, hunting tags... I could go on.

Just buy some good lithium duracell or energizer's in bulk from Costco and call it good. Keep em with your ammo fort.

ETA: as the frequency of use decreases, the potential savings do also,  and IMO the risk of leaving one installed and corroding the battery compartment increases.

The rechargeable batteries ate through the plastic and the epoxy of the battery housing? Wow, I've gotta see pictures of this! I know people using rechargeable batteries in some pretty expensive camera gear, professionally, and this would be the first I heard of it. I run AA rechargeables in my 2x AA battery pack for my MOD3, and I haven't had an issue yet. I 3D printed the pack, so if it melts or dies, I'm not overly worried. That's the only device I've ran rechargeable in though, and is primarily why I made it.

Vic's comment has me wondering now... lol.

I don't think chosos was saying "Vic's comment has me wondering now" in a bad way, but I may have read that wrong.  

To the OP, for low consumption devices like NV monocs, I can't see using rechargeable batteries unless there is nothing else available.  Like others have said, there is just no payoff there.  If it was a high drain device like thermal or digital then I can see using them but NOT storing them inside the device (shouldn't be storing any of this stuff w/ batteries inside anyways).  I've used quality NiMH batteries in numerous thermals over the years with no ill effects but, then again, the batteries were never inside them for more than a few hours at a time.  Mostly I use them when practicing w/ the device, the Energizer lithium batteries were always used when actually going out hunting.  Nowadays thermals have much better battery life so the point is largely moot.  Always use a quality battery, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

I wasn't slamming your comment Vic.  

If you had a picture, I would legitimately be wanting to scope it out. I also deal with lots of batteries and devices in my line of work, and I've never run into what you described without some extreme abuse on the cells.  I primarily printed my battery box to run it with rechargeable AA's; not that it won't work with normal AA's or lithium.

With all this being said, I've seen some really quick and gnarly corrosion issues with the cheap yellow harbor freight and other cheap batteries so I would also advocate to run high quality batteries no matter the type.

I use lithium. More run time plus lighter weight.

I had some corrode over and ruin a pair of Tac6 electronic ear pro

Someone explain the negative to the Eneloop to me.

I just measured some batteries and these are the readings.

Eneloop alkaline/NiMHAA. Charged less than 5 times over the course of its life and fully charged about two weeks ago. 3.8mA
Rayovac alkaline AA. 2-3 years old. Used for max 10 mintues. 4.2mA
Duracel Procell alkaline AA brand new. In package 4.2mA

If I'm concerned about the power output being too much, wouldn't I be more concerned about the other batteries?

When I see the remarks of a man like Vic of TNVC, who sees many more devices than I have ever used or wish I had used, and by more than a few orders of magnitude, AND who has heard at least as many similar stories of catastrophic damage caused by poor battery choices from trusted sources...I listen.
I do not argue.
I do not quibble.
Unless it is an unmitigated emergency, no secondary battery will ever see the inside of the battery compartment of my expensive gear.