Battery maintainer - "Aviation" vs normal

Pedals2Paddles

Pedals2Paddles

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Pedals2Paddles
So, I just read long thing about how aircraft batteries use a different chemistry and lower voltage than an automotive battery. And therefore, if you use an automotive battery maintainer, it will completely ruin your aviation battery. Naturally, this information came from the company selling aviation specific battery maintainer for $150 more than an identical automotive maintainer.

So I figured I would ask here to see if this is a bunch BS or not. We have an outlet at our tie down. So I'd like to put a nice desulfating battery maintainer on the plane. I know the battery will thank me as the temperate drops. But I don't want to ruin the battery either.

If this is a bunch of crap, and an $80-$100 quality maintainer will work, I will do it in a heartbeat. I might think longer about it for $219.

On a related note, has anyone ever used the electric battery blankets that keep the battery warm? I'm not sure it's worth while but figured I would ask.
 
I've seen people go 8 years on a standard Battery Tender hooked up to an aviation battery. The battery was finally replaced just for the hell of it.
Of course there are different aviation battery types and I'm no expert on which they were and what the differences are precisely. I'm sure that could factory into things. Perhaps they work fine on aviation battery X but not battery Y.

YMMV....
 
Yes, you need to use the aviation-specific charger. A member on our Mooney list just posted the same question after ruining two batteries using a Battery Tender.
 
The batteries that are 'low' voltage are the GelCell batteries, they are easily damaged by charging at Wet Cell and AGM type battery rates. What these batteries are in is irrelevant. A higher quality charger will have a selection switch for GelCell or non GelCell that limits the charge voltage.
 
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Pedals2Paddles said:
So, I just read long thing about how aircraft batteries use a different chemistry and lower voltage than an automotive battery. And therefore, if you use an automotive battery maintainer, it will completely ruin your aviation battery. Naturally, this information came from the company selling aviation specific battery maintainer for $150 more than an identical automotive maintainer.

So I figured I would ask here to see if this is a bunch BS or not. We have an outlet at our tie down. So I'd like to put a nice desulfating battery maintainer on the plane. I know the battery will thank me as the temperate drops. But I don't want to ruin the battery either.

If this is a bunch of crap, and an $80-$100 quality maintainer will work, I will do it in a heartbeat. I might think longer about it for $219.

On a related note, has anyone ever used the electric battery blankets that keep the battery warm? I'm not sure it's worth while but figured I would ask.
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Concorde RG-35A is over 8 years old.
C177, battery is in the tail.
Never use a maintainer. I take it out of the airplane once a year, wash it in the sink with dishsoap, dry it, top charge it with whatever automotive charger is handy and set it gently back in the airplane.

Did I mention its over 8 years old now?
 
It's a typical wet Gill lead acid battery. The super special aircraft battery floats at 13.04v. The regular one floats at 13.4v. Both compensate for temperature.
 
My wet G-35 works fine on a regular battery tenderizer. Nice thing about a 12V electrical system.
 
flyingron said:
My wet G-35 works fine on a regular battery tenderizer. Nice thing about a 12V electrical system.
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Same here. The main difference in the aviation vs. non-aviation Battery Minder for a comparable wet-cell application is temperature compensation. Living in Socal flatlands, that is a relatively minor factor for a hangared plane.
 
I have used both. Still don't see a difference in battery life.

I do know the aviation version costs more than a replacement battery.
 
I did NOT spring for the aviation unit, and it's been fine on my concorde battery. I don't believe their crap about aviation batteries needing a special $150 more charger. It would need a different wave pattern which I didn't see any evidence of when I drilled into it. Amps are amps.

The batteryminder has a 2, 4, and 8 amp setting. Along with type ... gel, lead acid, and agm. I run mine on two amps for an AGM battery on the Concorde.

If you go over 2 amps on a lead acid, it can boil it even with the temp sensor. I found this out when I had a lead acid G35. But it did not kill the battery.
 
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I had a 16 AH PC-680 AGM Battery made by Odyssey. I originally thought the nice multi-purpose charger from the auto parts store would be fine. Set it to AGM and left it overnight. Woke up to a swollen battery with charge voltage at 16.1 vdc. Then bought the mfr recommended charger. 15 vdc is max per Odyssey. I have never seen over 14.1 vdc charge voltage on the replacement battery. Just because it says AGM does not mean it is for every AGM. I am guessing there are differences that are unknown to me.
 
RV10flyer said:
I had a 16 AH PC-680 AGM Battery made by Odyssey. I originally thought the nice multi-purpose charger from the auto parts store would be fine. Set it to AGM and left it overnight. Woke up to a swollen battery with charge voltage at 16.1 vdc. Then bought the mfr recommended charger. 15 vdc is max per Odyssey. I have never seen over 14.1 vdc charge voltage on the replacement battery. Just because it says AGM does not mean it is for every AGM. I am guessing there are differences that are unknown to me.
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There is no charger that should be operating higher than 14.2 volts, GelCell I keep down around 13.4 float with recovery charge limited to 13.7 max. What you got burned by was low quality crap.
 
Henning said:
There is no charger that should be operating higher than 14.2 volts, GelCell I keep down around 13.4 float with recovery charge limited to 13.7 max. What you got burned by was low quality crap.
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It was a $125 charger from AZone. The nicest digital version they had. It should have had a limit. It seems to be fine on my standard batteries. It probably is junk. There is a reason Odyssey has a list of recommended chargers for my two batteries.
 
RV10flyer said:
Woke up to a swollen battery with charge voltage at 16.1 vdc. Then bought the mfr recommended charger. 15 vdc is max per Odyssey. I have never seen over 14.1 vdc charge voltage on the replacement battery. Just because it says AGM does not mean it is for every AGM. I am guessing there are differences that are unknown to me.
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You don't happen to suppose, just wild supposition, that you got a defective charger or one that suffered infant mortality?

Jim
 
Jay Honeck said:
True, but your battery remains charged, and you get to fly.

Works for me! :)
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Until sulfation builds up a bridge between 2 plates in your battery. Although you probably knocked the plates clean at Recklaw.:rofl:
 
Henning said:
Until sulfation builds up a bridge between 2 plates in your battery. Although you probably knocked the plates clean at Recklaw.:rofl:
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Yeah, that second impact, er, landing, loosened my fillings, so I suspect my battery plates are pristine. :)
 
I have used a 24V Batteryminder aviation charger/maintainer on my Gill battery since 2006. I am still using it on that 2006 battery and it is still working well. Let's see that would be 9+ years now. So far so good. I have never had a 12V or 24V battery go that long.
 
warning; Necro.
Still waiting for software that changes the thread color to grey when no posts for a year.
 
I used the automotive one on my last plane (which was a 12v system), works great for years. Haven't yet purchased a charger for my 185 (24v)
 
Ran my cherokee for ten years through Ohio winters. The battery is under the rear seat in the Pa-28-140, so there is a big voltage drop and the thing was impossible to start in cold weather even with the engine nicely warmed up. I hooked the battery up to a $25 battery tender I bought in a motorcycle store. Never had a problem.
 
RV10flyer said:
I had a 16 AH PC-680 AGM Battery made by Odyssey. I originally thought the nice multi-purpose charger from the auto parts store would be fine. Set it to AGM and left it overnight. Woke up to a swollen battery with charge voltage at 16.1 vdc. Then bought the mfr recommended charger. 15 vdc is max per Odyssey. I have never seen over 14.1 vdc charge voltage on the replacement battery. Just because it says AGM does not mean it is for every AGM. I am guessing there are differences that are unknown to me.
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odyssey's are different, they are dry cells. No usual need to keep them on a float charger but if you do, better buy the odyssey charger.

on the rare occasions I want to leave mine on a tender I use a power supply that lets me set the float to 27V. It's a little pricey though. It's the same power supply i use for swinging the gear and stuff like that. I turn it up to 28V for swinging the gear and down to 27V for storage. But if i didn't already have this power supply, I'd have bought the odyssey branded charger.
 

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I bought the one Dr. Bruce recommended years ago from Northern Tool, but they don't sell that model anymore, and yes it is aviation battery specific.
 
Just make sure you have the charger's specs, and the battery's specs, and match them up. It doesn't need to be any fancy-pants special type of charger, it just needs to be the right charger for the job.

I use NOCO Genius chargers, and they work really well for lead acid and AGM batteries.

The three big specs are max rate of charge, max voltage, and float charge. Exceeding any of these results in battery damage. There's technically a fourth one: type of battery, as some have internal circuitry, so keep an eye out for that too if you have an oddball battery.
 
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txflyer said:
I did NOT spring for the aviation unit, and it's been fine on my concorde battery. I don't believe their crap about aviation batteries needing a special $150 more charger. It would need a different wave pattern which I didn't see any evidence of when I drilled into it. Amps are amps.

The batteryminder has a 2, 4, and 8 amp setting. Along with type ... gel, lead acid, and agm. I run mine on two amps for an AGM battery on the Concorde.

If you go over 2 amps on a lead acid, it can boil it even with the temp sensor. I found this out when I had a lead acid G35. But it did not kill the battery.
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I would concur with this. I used a standard $50 Battery Tender on my RG-25XC and had no problems. You just have to watch the charge rate no matter which battery you have. To high a rate, and you could ruin the RG, and boil over the wet cell.
 
The only difference between a wet cell aviation battery and a car battery is that the aviation battery comes with paperwork and is a crappier battery. In order to get the weight down, the plates are less substantial (and hence the battery tenderizer is more important). Still there's nothing "magic" about the aviation units other than hype (and that they support 24V batteries).
 
I had a lot of back and forth with Concorde when I wrote a KP article on keeping their AGM batteries up to speed and the bottom line is that an AGM battery likes to be taken up to around 13.8, let discharge (self discharge is OK) down to around 13.0, slowly back up to 13.8, discharge to 13.0, and so on forever.

Something I've noticed (but cannot explain; I only took 4 semesters of college chem) is that the NEGATIVE terminal of a battery kept on CONSTANT trickle charge will corrode with some sort of white powder. I have no idea what is going on, but the local mechanics agree that they have seen the same phenomenon.

Just to add to the confustion ...

Jim
 
weirdjim said:
I had a lot of back and forth with Concorde when I wrote a KP article on keeping their AGM batteries up to speed and the bottom line is that an AGM battery likes to be taken up to around 13.8, let discharge (self discharge is OK) down to around 13.0, slowly back up to 13.8, discharge to 13.0, and so on forever.

Something I've noticed (but cannot explain; I only took 4 semesters of college chem) is that the NEGATIVE terminal of a battery kept on CONSTANT trickle charge will corrode with some sort of white powder. I have no idea what is going on, but the local mechanics agree that they have seen the same phenomenon.

Just to add to the confustion ...

Jim
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I believe that oxides of both lead and zinc are white. Is there any lead on a battery terminal? Okay, that was a bit rhetorical...
 
Clark1961 said:
I believe that oxides of both lead and zinc are white. Is there any lead on a battery terminal? Okay, that was a bit rhetorical...
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You are correct. Lead oxide is what you used to find on iron water pipes soldered together with tin-lead solder back in the '50s.

Zinc oxide is the white grease we used on our surfer noses to keep them from sunburning. (It also makes a really great heat sink thermal grease.)

Jim
 
I don't use a maintainer because I don't have electricity in the hangar and the solar solutions are expensive. My battery lasted me 3 years and it was old when I bought the plane. I'll have to check just how old it was but it had several years on it. So I'd say it was at least 5 years and probably more.
 
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