Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

I have a flat battery in my plane...can I simply take it out and charge it with a domestic 24v charger?

I hear that aircraft batteries are not like car batteries. They are more fragile and hold less charge. Mine is too flat to start my plane’s engine (as I discovered earlier today).

So, can I buy a £50 domestic 12/24v battery charger for lead/acid batteries and charge the battery for my plane or do I need to buy a special charger (doubtless at a “special” aviation price) in order to charge my battery? Can anyone tell me where to buy such a thing in the UK? (I can find loads of ground power units, but no chargers.)

Do I need to do a battery test afterwards? If so, is the simple act of charging an aircraft battery something best left to a certified engineer?

I have just seen the price of a new aircraft battery. Incredible. Nearly £500. There must be something I don’t understand about such things…

Thanks in advance

Howard

Flying a TB20 out of EGTR
Elstree (EGTR), United Kingdom

I would take it out and charge it without hesitation, then reinstall it and fly on. Provided I had identified the reason why the battery was flat in the first place. If you care about your battery, you should not jumpstart it as that will surely shorten the life time of the battery.

LFPT, LFPN

Yes; lead acid is lead acid. If yours is a 12V then a car charger will be fine.

There are clever chargers which pulse the current and supposedly strip off deposits, and can even supposedly partially recover a battery which is too shagged to pass the load test. I have a CTEK MXT 4.0 but never used it.

I hear that aircraft batteries are not like car batteries. They are more fragile and hold less charge

That’s nonsense

Even the cheap and nasty ones (Gill) are loads better than the ones you get from Halfords.

In the longer run, get a Concorde battery. There is no comparison with Gill. Reassuringly expensive though – like Stella beer

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Excellent. Thanks guys. I shall check my existing car battery charger and see if it will do 24v. If not I will buy one for £50 from Amazon that does 12/24v.

:-)

Howard

Flying a TB20 out of EGTR
Elstree (EGTR), United Kingdom

Halfords tend to be car orientated – 12V.
If they can’t help, try these people – branches in various places.

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/

Regret no current medical
Was Sandtoft EGCF, North England, United Kingdom

For clarity:
“Jump starting” is the act of connecting another vehicle’s battery to your own via a set of jump leads and immediately trying to start your machine. This will only work if you have high quality jump leads (heavy gauge with good connections). Too often people try to jump start something with crappy two quid jump leads only to find that their machine still doesn’t start and conclude that there’s something else wrong whereas in reality the crappy jump leads are simply incapable of carrying the required current to crank the engine.
The best way to use a set of jump leads is to connect the two machines, start the engine of the machine with the good battery and then go away and have tea and biscuits.
After you’ve enjoyed your tea break and chatted to the “very pretty but far too young for you” waitress in the café, then go and start your engine. The extended interval between jump lead connection and starting attempt gives time for the flat battery to be charged by the charging circuit of the other vehicle and greatly improves results.

You can even use household flex this way if you’re in a jamb.

Forever learning
EGTB

Personally, I would recommend spending more time with that waitress in the café, ( have a good sh—g,for example) then come back in a couple of hours when your battery has had time to recuperate , before flying off.
Av batteries do not take to kindly to going from nill to full 60 Amps and tend to get fried.

FAA A&P/IA
LFPN

Exactly. And while you’re at the cafe being served by the waitress, a nice 4 A charger should serve the battery.

LFPT, LFPN

At a 4A charge current, the waitress will need to be giving you a lot more than just her time You are looking at 4 hours to top off a 15Ah TB20 battery.

BTW, Concorde batteries which fail the load test are still good for many more years for other stuff. Just run it through a reconditioning charger (like the CTEK one), find a UPS whose battery total adds up to 24V, bring out the wires, sit the battery next to it, and you have a really high capacity brand new UPS

Some recommend putting the battery on the reconditioning charger anyway, say at each Annual. It may well be a good idea but I still got 6 years out of my last one without doing that. And when it failed the load test it was still starting the plane perfectly using the high speed starter – which is how it should be. The Gill would fail suddenly, and in my case far away from home.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter wrote:

The Gill would fail suddenly, and in my case far away from home.

How did you do then ?

Last Edited by PetitCessnaVoyageur at 21 Dec 08:15
16 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top