Cartridge battery design system

Discussion of aircraft electrical system design, construction, and problems.

Cartridge battery design system

Postby Pickleman » Wed Nov 26, 2014 8:32 pm

Hey folks, I was reading one of my JP magazines, and a column concerning these jumped out at me:
http://antigravitybatteries.com/microstart/

It is time for me to buy a battery, and although I have followed and researched lithium iron battery technology, my weakest area of airplane construction is surely in the realm of electronic engineering. If I have an electrical talent at all, it resides in letting the smoke out of expensive airplane electronics! Anyone need an $800 paperweight? I have a nice Microair to keep papers from fluttering out of place on my desk :?

My thought was simple. These systems come with the ability to charge both under 12 volts and 120. They are clean, can fit in your front pocket, and have ports to charge your phone and laptop. They can provide 200 amps and 400 CCA intermittently. They cost $129 to $169 for the kit with all accessories, and as little as $89 for an extra battery unit. They are 6x3x1, and could easily fit through a small access door near the firewall. One could have one mounted on the firewall accessible through the hatch, and one that could be mounted in the cockpit to act as a backup or extra starting power on those cold days. The best part is that they could be simply and conveniently taken home and recharged or conditioned between uses, or even topped off at your hotel while traveling. No more dead batteries or worrying about hangar hazards when you are gone from the hangar.

There MUST be something I am missing here. Will one of you Masters of the Mysteries of Photons, Ions and Electronic Wizzardry tell me what is wrong with my thinking here? The price of both batteries would be less than a large motorcycle LiFePo battery.
Pickleman
 
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 2:58 pm

Re: Cartridge battery design system

Postby vigilant104 » Thu Nov 27, 2014 6:39 pm

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert.
The site at the link didn't provide info ont he total amp-hour capacity of the products. While my airplane's battery needs to start the plane, I also expect it to provide emergency power to the electronic ignition system, lights, and electronic instruments in case of a failure of my alternator. Without knowing the amp-hour capacity of these little batteries, I don't know if they are up to the job. Also, the Aerovee alternator doesn't cut in until the airplane is at significant RPM (??1700??--working from memory), so on every taxi-out you'll be running on battery power for awhile--another reason that the capacity of the battery is important.

The company literature says the battery will be damaged if run low (below 1V) even once. Hmm--that could happen fairly easily on a cold day and multiple attempts to start.

Anyway, I can see the attraction of a "take it home, keep it warm, take care of it and bring it to the plane to fly" approach. OTOH, that's "one more thing" to do each time you fly. The standby chargers for small sealed Pb batteries don't cost much.

The little batteries are interesting. Maybe keep one as an added bootstrap system in addition to the main battery? Good if the main is dead or you don't want to run it down on a cold morning, keep it wired in parallel inside the cabin, let it and the main recharge in flight?

LiFPo safety: I don't know anything about that.
Mark Waldron
Sonex 1230 (Builder: Jay Gibbs)
Aerovee, Trigear
vigilant104
 
Posts: 265
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 3:34 pm
Location: Near Dayton, OH


Return to Electrical System

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests