New Battery

 

May 8th 2004

Our 2nd Battery

We installed a new battery because we began to get low voltage error codes from the FADEC after startup.

The original one that came with our ship worked great and didn't seem to have any problems starting the ship and still maintained good voltage readings but it must of been getting weak to have the that happening. The battery is supposed to only have a 2 year life span so we certainly aren't complaining since our old one has went in excess of 4.

March 11th 2006

Our 3rd battery

We had to install another battery after finding that it's 3rd cell was almost dry from what I think is having the charger hooked up to it to long combined with the fact that I had most likely over filled it with electrolite when it was first put into service in May of 2004.  We had some considerable physical down time this year and for the most part of the past several months we left the charger hooked up for weeks at a time.  We did start having trouble starting the ship but we just wrote it off attributing it to the extreme cold weather we were attempting to operate in.

This time around I noticed that the instructions for filling the battery with electrolite had conflicting information so I made a call to the Gill Battery tech support.  In the end I learned that I was misinterpreting the information and had more than likely caused the problem to occur.

Broken down in terms I could understand, here's how it's all supposed to be done and maintained.

1.  Fill the battery with electrolite until it's 1/8 of an inch above the plates and seperators within the battery.
2.  Gently rock the battery back and forth in an effort to bring out any air bubbles that were trapped between the plates.
3.  With the caps loosely on the battery about 1/4 turn.
4.  Slow charge the battery overnight until it reaches full charge.
5.  With the battery electrolite still warm from charging bring the level of the electrolite up until it just touches the bottom of the filler tube seperators and it's finished.

This is a very important step in the process
because the electrolite actually expands when it gets warm and if it's filled to high it will expand during charging to the point where it will purge itself from the battery.  Having it warm and just at the bottom of the seperator rings puts the electrolite at its highest level and will assure a large enough air pocket at the top of the battery that will avoid this problem.

6.  Check that the battery charger/maintainer isn't putting out to much voltage which will also cause this condition.

It shouldn't be putting out more than 13.2 volts.
This is done simply by hooking the charger to the battery and placing a volt meter across the terminals and reading the voltage.
If it does it will cause the electrolite to produce oxygen and hydrogen gas to the point
that it will exceed that air gap we left in the battery and cause the acid to purge out.

March 13th 06

We've had an anomaly with the size of the new battery.

For some reason it's to big.

It's just a touch, 3/32 of an inch or less but that that means at least in our ship that it won't properly fit the mounting bracket.

The day before I bent out (flared) both lower brackets as far as they would allow but it still had to be pried into the mount and even at that it won't sit down far enough in the brackets.
Next I went over the bottom sides of the battery with a file along the bottom edges and that didn't help either.

What I think is going to come of it is after awhile the brackets will rub through the case and cause us to have a catastrophic battery failure.  In a ship with a mag system that isn't such a big deal but in a RotorWay once it gets below 10.some or so volts (I can't remember the exact figure off hand) the FADEC units shut down and the spark plugs will cease to fire which pretty much means we're coming out of the air.

At any rate, with our kind of luck, we're not the kind of folks that purposely set ourselves up for a wreck
so we are trying to get a new battery that fits properly from Gill Battery.  I spoke with them on the phone on this day and they told me they had never had this problem before and that they would help us solve the problem one way or another.  The fellows first idea was to drain the acid out of the battery and ship it back to them but I wasn't to keen on that idea because if there was a leak from the package and a hazmat situation arised from it I'd be responsible.  I simply told him that for the hundred and some dollars involved here that it would be better for me to just eat the price of the battery rather than take on such a liability and he agreed.  On a second note the call ended with the fellow saying he'd get back to me as soon as he could on the issue.

 
Mean while I got to thinking that when we put the battery in the ship it was fresh off the battery charger and just maybe because it was still pretty warm that the case was swollen a bit from the heat of the electrolite.

I took the ELT unit back off along with the rest of the brackets but it still didn't fit properly nor could it be pressed down into it.


At this point well just have to wait and see what the folks at Gill will do to resolve it.

Pause