battery

[rmorris]

pulled my battery out to charge it up, and low and behold I did get a Concorde put in...logbooks show Jan2014, so 1 1/2 yrs, on a Concorde RG24-15 Platinum Series battery. So as with most things aviation, it appears your mileage (and battery life) may vary.

I know my previous Gil batteries lasted much longer than 1 1/2 yrs.

Now, to be fair, I have made a lot of electrical changes, and how I use things. eg:
I replaced my entire avionics stack to now include two Avidyne IFD540s, they are big units and I went for the extra power 16w comms on them, etc...plus I keep my lights on and flashing at all times now...I replaced regular lights and went all LED, AeroLED to be precise...with wig wag...so the draw should be low, given they are LEDs...they supposedly have a lifespan of some huge number of hours of use, so I decided to just leave them on an wagging all the time, along with AeroLED beacon/strobe, nav/strobes, plus my older belly strobe (yes I am lit up like Christmas all the time). But it makes my bright yellow bumblebee pretty darn visible when others have to find 'traffic'.

Anyway, I digress....with all above going on, I need to hook up an ammeter and figure out my actual load....seems like if I leave that all on after landing, I barely have enough juice to fire up again. If I turn it all off right after landing, and idle for a few minutes, I have enough juice....that was making me think it was time for a new battery, but maybe it is just me.

In any case, I may give the new Gil technology a try if they have the approved new version that replaces the 242 avail at OSH.

Still love other pireps on batteries, and more importantly, why. These are the kind of thing that are great for a forum like this one...sharing your thoughts and opinions with others. We don't all have to agree, or use the same stuff, but it is nice to explore...