Batteries

[blueldr]

Garden tractor batterys have gone up too. They now cost about $27.50.

[N3548C]

I have turned up a product called a Battery Tender. It sounds like it might be a good rig because it will charge at a 1.5-amp rate but will not, mfr. Deltran says, overcharge the battery. Anyone familiar with such a rig? I won't be to do the capacity test, but I can certainly cycle the battery until, hopefully, it comes into its own.

These are the electronic chargers you need to be concerned about because if they are not designed to specifically charge a aircraft battery which has different specifications than an automotive battery. When contacting Deltran specify your charging an aircraft battery. I don't see any of their products being marketed as being for aviation batteries.

Deltran's competition BatteryMinder http://batteryminders.com/ does have aviation chargers and minders. I like BatteryMinder and have two of their automotive minders which I use for my motorcyle and tractor over the winter months. The BatteryMinder Aviation chargers cost a lot more than their automotive products. BatteryMinder's automotive products are comparable in price to the Deltran which makes me think the Deltran won't work with aircraft batteries because if they did BatteryMinder wouldn't be able to sell their expensive product.

I found the Deltran Battery Tender in Wag Aero (for $36.95). It says it's "perfect for all lead acid, flooded or sealed maintenance-free batteries (AGM and gel cell)." It seems to be cycling as advertised: initialization, bulk charge, absorption mode, float mode -- or at least, the lights change color and the airplane starts.

The charge rate is 1.25 amps (red light). When the battery gets to 80 percent, which happens fairly quickly, the tender appears to slow the rate of charge (giving you a flashing green light) until the battery is 100%, which triggers the so-called float mode and the steady green light.

I left it on last week (four days as it turned out). The plane turned over nicely, not "spinning" as it would with a shot from an automotive battery charger but very impressively nonetheless.