Best Battery for our Carbon Cubs?

[Calvin]

Bill,
Hopefully by now you've sensed that we ALWAYS prefer the lighter weight solution which would be some sort of new-tech battery. So don't worry, we'll continue to monitor the technology and look for ways to incporporate it.

If I may add to this battery issue I will say this. I understand all of our situations differ a bit. But consider these facts. No small battery will ever be the answer to insured great starting this engine. The bigger battery box just is not that big of a deal to retrofit. The 5 pound gain in weight is a small price to pay for the benefit you get from making sure you can start the engine every time. Now here is another BIG benefit. This is electronic ignition. If alternator craps out look at all the battery power you have to get you a long ways. Not true with these tiny motorcycle battery. remember the back up battery is only good for 1/2 hour. Your money ahead in the long run biting the bullet and putting in the big battery. For sure if you have a incident because your stuck over the trees, valley, water corn fields bad roads, etc with no good place to land and loosing the precious electric juice as you go along hoping and praying. I have been there and its not a good feeling. You would be kicking yourself before the crash.

[glickle]

I understand Cubcrafters treading carefully into the world of Lithium Iron batteries and respect their judgment to make sure its right. That said as of Dec 3 when I sold my #107 CC my Lithium Iron battery made by Aerolithium was still going strong and works!! and all at 4lbs, which is over a 10 lb saving from the Odyssey which is a great bttery also. I have had it in the plane since April 2012 and it has over 150hrs and probably more than 250 starts cold and hot on it without a hickup.

I pick up my new CC #246 in January with the new starter,and larger battery box but it will have the standard Power Sports battery. I will advise what I learn and if the new Hartzell starter resolves the starting issues. As I recall in #107 it took a while for the starting issues to surface over time as the engine broke in and the battery got weaker so I may not have an immediate PIREP.
I kept my Aerolithium Lithium IRON battery from #107 however, and repaced it with the X2 ( the strongest of the small lead acid) for the new owner after having a full discussion with him about the starting issues. I wanted the new owner to be satisfied with his own research and information about whether he is comfortable with the Lithuim Iron technolgy. Regards Gary

[seastar]

All
I have heard all of the arguments against "new technology" all my life.
I graduated from Purdue the year the transistor was invented at Bell Labs ( yes, I'm that old - 80).
I have made my living all my life by being an early adopter of technology and inventing things that it made possible.
In my humble opinion anyone who ignores technology advances is doomed to live in the Stone Age.
Lithium batteries (or some such) are the wave of the future.
The best selling LSA in the US is using a Lithium Iron battery. Cubcrafters biggest competitor is offering a Li-Iron battery.
We can't ignore it.
Bill
PS
The lithium iron batteries have more Amp hours than lead acid, not less, so if you lose the alternator they last longer.

[rlinford]

All
I have heard all of the arguments against "new technology" all my life.
I graduated from Purdue the year the transistor was invented at Bell Labs ( yes, I'm that old - 80).
I have made my living all my life by being an early adopter of technology and inventing things that it made possible.
In my humble opinion anyone who ignores technology advances is doomed to live in the Stone Age.
Lithium batteries (or some such) are the wave of the future.
The best selling LSA in the US is using a Lithium Iron battery. Cubcrafters biggest competitor is offering a Li-Iron battery.
We can't ignore it.
Bill
PS
The lithium iron batteries have more Amp hours than lead acid, not less, so if you lose the alternator they last longer.

Agreed on the technology of LiFe but we live in a country where a gazillion sleaze ball attorneys are allowed to file lawsuits for just about anything. Having been on the receiving end of this kind of legal extortion I can understand why CC is slow to adopt LiFe battery's for their production aircraft before they have a long track record in aviation. Since I am building my own I put the biggest LiFe battery in it that I could fit and my guess is that the engineers at CC would do the same in their own personal aircraft. Fear of change isn't what retards innovation these days, it's fear of getting sued. Like a lot of aircraft owners I have a pretty decent net worth so I will never be able to sell my CC-EX because if someone bought it and then killed the self in it I would get sued for sure whether it was my fault or not. If Edison had lived under our current legal system we would still be using kerosene lamps.

[seastar]

rlinford
Point well taken.
I'm no lawyer and I don't want to play one here but I wonder if some of the popular Lithium iron batteries being used in LSA aircraft would engender any more liability than a motorcycle battery?
But then, I also often wonder about the whole liability issue with our "uncertified" LSA aircraft.
I know that large amounts of liability insurance are hard to obtain on LSA aircraft.
Seems stupid, how much damage can a 1320 pound, fragile airplane do traveling at 30MPH?
I suppose time will sort out the entire issue.

Bill

[OFS]

You guys are to generous, the FAA still considers the radial a modern high performance engine per the 2012 Powerplant study guide...

[Calvin]

You guys are to generous, the FAA still considers the radial a modern high performance engine per the 2012 Powerplant study guide...

I love my 300 HP Lycoming radial on my stearman.
Cal

[seastar]

??????
What has that got to do with batteries in our airplanes????????
Bill

[Kurt.KMQJ]

They have the wrong forum.
Apparently.

[OFS]

??????
What has that got to do with batteries in our airplanes????????
Bill

I was making a joke of the faa partially... There is a lot of safety in known reliability, you start introducing new technology into aviation and you lose that. There is no doubt Lithium Iron batteries have good power to weight. They will not catch fire but rather thermally dissipate in a dead short condition... The downside is the critical voltage that they can drop below and the cell(s) will be unrecoverable. Maintaining cell balance is critical for this reason. The situation could occur where the battery indicates a full charge, but you have a few cells at 90% and a few at 110% with an average of 100% indicated charge. Now imagine the battery becomes unrecoverable at 60% charge. That 20% charge tolerance will ruin a few cells if the battery is run down to the "acceptable cumulative" low voltage cutoff. The carbon cub charging system does not incorporate a balance type charger for this battery technology.

Before someone corrects me, I am not sure if these (aerolithium, Aerovoltz, pulse...etc) batteries have a built in balance maintainer.