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Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 17:43:21 -0600
From: Bob White <bob@bob-white.com>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] battery question
Message-Id: <20040806174321.15707c57.bob@bob-white.com>
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Hi Kevin,

If the battery was at 11 1/2 volts, that would indicate it was in a
fairly discharged state.  It would have been a good idea to put it on a
charger before installing it.  Alternators are ment more for
maintaining charge rather than building up a discharged battery.

A load test would be a good idea also.

What is the model number of these batteries, and can how often canGary
supply them?

Bob White


On Fri, 6 Aug 2004 10:45:02 -0700
"kevin lane" <n3773@comcast.net> wrote:

> -Gary dunfee is a mobile x-ray tech and eaa member.  the batteries he
> uses come in matched sets.  when one goes "bad" (performance drops)
> the whole batch gets replaced.  Gary gives us these batteries.  he
> claims they are the highest quality made, exceeding the odyssey
> batteries. they are a bit heavier because of the additional plates
> inside.  my hangar mate has at least three years and maybe 500hrs on
> his. I recently put a fresh one in my plane.  I flew it an hour and it
> worked fine.  I was amazed at how fast the prop turned over,
> indicating how old the prior battery had gotten.  the battery had been
> sitting on the shelf a year maybe before I installed it.  it showed
> about 11 1/2 volts then. I flew to Camarillo last week.  about 20
> miles from crater lake, smack in the middle of the cascade mountains,
> I noticed my egt's shooting up 100 degrees.  I pushed the mixture to
> full rich, but that only slowed rate.  I pulled some power and got
> them to start back down.  I realized my rose ignition had tripped. 
> also I had not shut off my strobe and wigwag lights.  my volt meter
> showed 8 volts.  I figured I had lost my alternator.  I shut down
> everything.  I had just been dropped by flight following because of
> radar coverage.  my wife was very calm!  I was flying the t-craft
> version of the rv, no electrical system.  I even shut off my gps since
> it had switched to its battery.  Klamath falls was less than 30
> minutes.  then I noticed my voltage was up to 10 volts.  interesting. 
> I decided to shoot for Carson city and save my 8500' of altitude.  a
> bit later I saw 11 1/2 volts.  thank god I kept the altitude.  at one
> point Ellen say "there's an airport below us".  yeah, RNO, ceiling
> 8400'.  so much for my off and on gps technique.  voltage was showing
> 13 1/2 volts now.  I tried turning things back on, and there seemed to
> be no problems.  we got gas at Carson city, lunch at minde, and flew
> to Camarillo, no problems.  I wasn't able to talk with anyone about
> this and flew back, 6 hrs, with no problems, 13 1/2 volts the whole
> time. so, is it possible the battery had a charge that wore off and
> then went into some deep charge mode, overloading my little
> nippondenso alternator?  the most amps I ever saw was 20 while it was
> trying to get back to the 13 volt mark.  maybe leaving my lights on
> was too much?  has this problem fixed itself, or do I need to pull the
> alternator and battery to have them tested?  I used to pretty much
> ignore the volt meter while flying.  not anymore. Kevin Lane 
> Portland, OR e-mail-> n3773@comcast.net
> web-> http://home.comcast.net/~n3773
> (browse w/ internet explorer)


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