Battery Minder II

Anthony

Anthony

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Anthony
I posted this in an old thread. I just want to make sure I don't destroy the battery or blow up the plane, hangar, myself.......

Thanks.

I bought an "Automatic Battery Charger" at Walmart, to keep my battery charged over the winter. Now I am having second thoughts about hooking it up, and leaving it on. The unit will charge the battery, then when fully charged goes into "maintain mode" which is described as "Float-Mode Monitoring" which the manual says keeps the battery fully charged by delivering a small current when necessary. It says nothing about de-sulfating.

The unit is a Schumacher XM1-5. Is this OK to use on my Tiger's Gill G-25?
 
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TMetzinger said:
Are you keeping the battery in the plane while you maintain it?
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Yes, I was going to keep it in the plane.

My thought is to put the pre-heater, and battery charger on a timer that flips on a day before say/days I intend to fly, then shuts off the day after. So a weekly cycle prior to the weekend or days I can fly the plane.
 
Anthony; The unit will charge the battery said:
I would remove the Battery from the plane. Rember thease units were designed for full size Auto Batery not the smaller G-25 or G-35 Aircraft Battery. I have a harbor freight float-mode type it seems to be in the 50 to 100 Ma range of charge, might be a little high for the smaller aircraft battery. If it is too much you will lose water in the battery also note a sealed battery will vent water if the presure is too much.[/B]
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I use a batteryTender on my Miata, which has a much smaller battery than you'd see in a plane. It's fine. But I'm not sure of the schumacher unit, and I wouldn't charge the battery IN the plane at all.
 
I disagree with Brien. You should be fine. I wouldn't run the charger continuously, days on end, but if you put it on a timer as you plan to, you'll be fine. The only issue with the float charger is should a cell fail in your battery, the total voltage will never reach the point that the charger begins to float so the "good" cells would get overcharged and boil off. Having the charger on a timer mitigates this small risk. The smallness of the aircraft battery compared to a typical auto battery just means they won't tolerate as much of an amperage push as a larger capacity battery. Low amp chargers (< 2) for the aviation battery are fine. A de-sulfating charger would be even better.
 
Walmart sells a little timer for $6.

I don't like to keep my cheap chargers on continuously. The timer can be set to run at various times. I set mine to run one hour every six.
 
kgruber said:
Walmart sells a little timer for $6.

I don't like to keep my cheap chargers on continuously. The timer can be set to run at various times. I set mine to run one hour every six.
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I'm going to hook both the Reiff pre-heater, and battery charger up to the timer fo run a day before I am going to fly. So for example I'll set it to turn on Friday morning, as I typically fly Sat, and/or Sun, then shut of Sunday night. So it could be on three days out of seven. Thinking through it, I guess I could get two timers, and have the pre-heater go on seperately and stay on through out the weekend, and just have the charger on a couple days a week.

Anybody else do this? Alternating every six hours could be an option also, instead of a steady charge for two or three days at a time.
 
Just some observations:

Your battery charges in the plane every time you fly it.

And your alternator will kick out more amps than the typical lower cost battery charger.

The alternator also holds the voltage at a constant 14.5ish volts - just like the dreaded trickle chargers.

So, at least according to some people who claim to be experts, you shouldn't ever fly your airplane because it will destroy the battery and airplane in short order.
 
dsbrantjr said:
BatteryMINDers come highly recommended in the Amateur Radio and classic car communities. They safely maintain charge and de-sulfate as well. They make aviation-specific models also: http://www.batteryminders.com/batte...-Charger-De-Sulfators-orderby0-p-1-c-249.html
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I use the BatteryMinder model 12248-AA-S2 and have never had a problem with it. I keep the battery installed in the plane when charging and don't use a timer. Keeping it plugged in continuously allows the smart charger to do its thing and not constantly go through the various charging modes. When I purchased it, they were running a trade-up program and it cost me $135. Not cheap, but better than the $200 they normally cost. It's one of the few chargers that doesn't have a warning against using it for aviation batteries.

Ryan
 
n12365 said:
I use the BatteryMinder model 12248-AA-S2 and have never had a problem with it. I keep the battery installed in the plane when charging and don't use a timer. Keeping it plugged in continuously allows the smart charger to do its thing and not constantly go through the various charging modes. When I purchased it, they were running a trade-up program and it cost me $135. Not cheap, but better than the $200 they normally cost. It's one of the few chargers that doesn't have a warning against using it for aviation batteries.

Ryan
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Oy vey, that's a good point Ryan. The charger I bought uses logic to do this also. I probably should have gotten a real Battery Minder branded charger. Maybe I should try just leaving the darn thing plugged in for a week and see what happens. I guess the worse that could happen is that I'll fry the Gill and have to get another.
 
TMetzinger said:
I use a batteryTender on my Miata, which has a much smaller battery than you'd see in a plane. It's fine. But I'm not sure of the schumacher unit, and I wouldn't charge the battery IN the plane at all.
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Ha... never thought I'd say this, but... ditto. :)

(The Miata's not mine, but it's stored in my garage. We take it out for a spin every once in a while. BatteryTender 1A version. It's been on the battery for the majority of two years now. No problems.)

I've also got a Schumacher bulk/jump start type charger. I'm not impressed with the build-quality nor the circuit design. They're cheap cheap cheap inside.

Only battery I've long-term charged with the Schumacher charger was the relatively dead deep-cycle RV battery after pulling the trailer out of storage, and definitely not indoors.

(Edit: Be mindful that BatteryTender and BatteryMinder are two different name brands. I'm not as big a fan of BM as BT.)
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Just some observations:

Your battery charges in the plane every time you fly it.

And your alternator will kick out more amps than the typical lower cost battery charger.

The alternator also holds the voltage at a constant 14.5ish volts - just like the dreaded trickle chargers.

So, at least according to some people who claim to be experts, you shouldn't ever fly your airplane because it will destroy the battery and airplane in short order.
Click to expand...

Depends on the charger. Some cheap chargers are fires waiting to happen. Others are fine. I'd have no problem putting a BatteryTender unit on a battery that's still in the plane.
 
TMetzinger said:
Depends on the charger. Some cheap chargers are fires waiting to happen. Others are fine. I'd have no problem putting a BatteryTender unit on a battery that's still in the plane.
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Concorde has issued a service alert relating to Battery Tender battery chargers.

It has come to Concorde’s attention that these chargers are not suitable for use with Concorde’s RG Series aircraft batteries. The output voltage on these chargers is set too high, resulting in an overcharge condition which may shorten the battery service life. Furthermore, these chargers can fail internally such that the output voltage goes beyond a safe limit (i.e., over 34 volts on a 24 volt battery). This condition can damage the battery in a very short time period and, under certain conditions, lead to thermal runaway.
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http://www.concordebattery.com/otherpdf/sa2.pdf
 
So I guess it depends on the unit how much confidence you put into the safety of it.

I am going to give it a shot for a day or two, and see what happens. I still will probably go the timer route. Thanks guys.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Just some observations:

Your battery charges in the plane every time you fly it.

And your alternator will kick out more amps than the typical lower cost battery charger.

The alternator also holds the voltage at a constant 14.5ish volts - just like the dreaded trickle chargers.

So, at least according to some people who claim to be experts, you shouldn't ever fly your airplane because it will destroy the battery and airplane in short order.
Click to expand...

Periodically pushing the battery voltaget to 14 (14.5 is a bit high for some types) isn't anywhere near as damaging as holding it there indefinitely.
 
Anthony said:
Oy vey, that's a good point Ryan. The charger I bought uses logic to do this also. I probably should have gotten a real Battery Minder branded charger. Maybe I should try just leaving the darn thing plugged in for a week and see what happens. I guess the worse that could happen is that I'll fry the Gill and have to get another.
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"The worse that could happen" if you get a shorted cell spewing out acid inside your battery box and the drain tube leaking acid all over the bottom inside your plane you will pay $$$for that. Leaving a unattended battery charger or battery Minder hooked up inside your plane for long periods of time if something goes wrong you could have a real mess to clean up. Their is a Continued Airworthness requirement from Gill to do a Capacity check every year after the first year of service most people blow it off and wait for the battery to fail first. Do what you want I have several friends who make a good living off people who try to cheap it out and end up paying for it in the long run.
 
I am not trying to "cheap out". I asked the question to asses the risks before hooking the thing up. I will pull the battery if I know I'm not going to fly, and just charge it prior to flying.

I've had a battery short out internally, boil over, and spill out onto the ground through the drain tube. No damage occured to the plane, and the battery wasn't even on a charger. After this Gill goes, I am getting a sealed Concorde.
 
Anthony said:
I am not trying to "cheap out". I asked the question to asses the risks before hooking the thing up. I will pull the battery if I know I'm not going to fly, and just charge it prior to flying.

I've had a battery short out internally, boil over, and spill out onto the ground through the drain tube. No damage occured to the plane, and the battery wasn't even on a charger. After this Gill goes, I am getting a sealed Concorde.
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Realy good choice sealed battery Gill or Concorde are the way to go does away with the corrosion problem on terminal and acid spills.
 
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