Great points.

Thanks Rob!

MW

185Midwest wrote: I'm considering going back to the original factory setup. The big old Concorde or Gill battery seem to leave very little to chance. Thoughts anyone?

MW

I was staying out of this discussion, however, since you asked for thoughts, here ya' go.

I have enough maintenance tasks; I do not need to add any additional issues or concerns with batteries. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, I see no need to change or add "modifications" that do nothing to increase my mission effectiveness or level of safety. I know what works for me in my environments and for my battery needs I look to Concorde. Concordes (RG-35AXC) sat in the back of my PA-18A and 180H down to -57 (coldest I experienced) while working them in interior Alaska with no issues, and most important, no worries. Even with the stock locations, long cable runs and typical starting temps down to -35, I never had a no start with either. This is without battery heaters, although my engines run full pre-heat systems. I had one Concorde RG-35AXC in service for 10 years. I passed that along to a Concorde rep at an IA seminar and once he heard it was averaging 300 hours per year, he was not surprised. Batteries are like muscles, they prefer exercise.

I am so impressed with Concordes products that I use four of their big (8D) AGM batteries in our off-grid solar system as well as RG-24 series for our radials. Excellent products, excellent tech support and most important to me, no worries with their proven battery chemistry. Note, I am not disparaging the “blue” battery or any others, merely stating why I continue my relationship with my preferred battery manufacturer, I have no reason to seek a fix for something that is not broke.

TR

Thanks TR. Great input.

JC

Great question and in the experimental aircraft world, we have about 85% that are mounted on the firewall and with tens of thousands of them out there with over a decade plus of data. It has not been an issue unless you have a very tight cowl area with no ventilation and live in a very hot geographical location, such as Phoenix.

The Van's RV7 has been known to get an alert in the beforementioned conditions. The battery does come with a heat alert that you will get in the cockpit if you have this situation and you would want to mitigate the heat as this will shorten the life of any battery. It is NOT a safety concern, it is a longevity of your battery concern. You can protect them with heat tape, insulating foam or blast tube for air flow. Hope this helps answer your question.

WorkingWarbirds wrote:Customer with an RV7, landed in 110F weather in AZ. Did not open his oil filler door or park into the wind like I recommended. Battery heat soaked during his hour on the ramp. After startup, as soon as alternator put a charge to it, the battery activated its heat trip safeguard, which resulted in it not accepting a charge. Alternator was still outputting that that time and pilot had no idea the battery had failed. He departed on the flight back to Socal and at some point in climbout the alternator tripped about 20 min out of his departure airport, probably from it not having a good load to absorb charging anomalies. He decided to return to his point of departure. His EFIS died when he was turning final. He had exhausted his entire EarthX charge and the Dynon backup batteries. Luckly he landed the aircraft by feel without too much issue and everything was resolved safely.

I do not believe the EarthX's compromises are worth the weight savings in most aircraft.

There is a lot of misconception and inconsistencies with this story. The first would be the statement the battery "activated its heat trip safeguard which resulted in the battery not accepting a charge." The battery does have heat monitoring and will provide an alert via a flashing LED light on your panel or your EFIS if connected this way, but it does not "heat trip" the battery from accepting a charge.

As you say this was your customer, can you confirm the EarthX LED alert was installed? Or that it was connected to the pilots EFIS? Either method works.

Next you mention the pilot did not know the battery "failed"? Not sure what that means, can you explain? How do you know it failed? Did it recharge up after the pilot returned to the airport? The EarthX battery also comes with an alert for an internal issue, located on the battery itself and also the LED light, was there an alert indicating this?

When the alternator tripped, did the pilot try to reset the alternator breaker? Is so, what happened? Why did it not turn the alternator back on? You state both the main battery and the backup batteries were drained after he returned to the airport. If he drained both batteries that fast, this would indicate that alternator was most likely not working properly before it tripped and was not charging either of the batteries. There should have been low voltage warnings not only from the EFIS, but the EarthX battery also has an alert (if it was connected) to indicate a low voltage warning as well. When you evaluated the alternator, did you find out why the reset of the alternator did not work in flight? And as you mention the presence of the EFIS, what was the voltage reading before the alternator tripped when you looked at the data log?

More information will be very helpful to understand what occurred here to be able to learn from it.

Sorry Christine, that was a fat finger typo! It is -40 def F, not -60 deg F.