I replaced the 12v Concorde battery on my TB20 this year as it was showing signs of a cell failing. It was over 12 years old. I replaced it with another Concorde battery after researching the battery market and I’m glad that I did.
My Gill was showing first signs of wear after over seven years of successful work. When I got that one it took me number three for a working one, first delivery was DOA, second was broken after 5 flight hours. I thought seven years would be ok and ordered a new Gill. Guess what, although it was showing full voltage after charging it was going down to broken level volts occasionally when connected. The Nato battery test revealed the new battery was not holding capacity and strangely sometimes charged and sometimes not. This in connection to a famous online-shop near Frankfurt, Germany, trying to muck me about physical chemistry basics – and yes, quite economically optimized told me such bullshit I did not even claim my money back – I decided to toss the new Gill to garbage and get a Concorde. Have been very happy with it since.
It seems that Gill went from good to complete sh1t about 8 years ago.
I buy 100% Concorde sealed for 100% of my clients.
For 24V Gill battery users:
Just heard that the Gill 7242-14 is PMAd as a direct replacement for the G242.
Has anybody ever installed one of the new Gill batteries?
I have a feeling that Concorde cornered the market for those who
) that the substitution is legaland Gill are simply too late to the party. After all – look at post 1 – they announced this more than 5 years ago.
On the Socata owners’ group the forum owner has always stated that Concorde are not legal (short of applying for a Major Alteration). So, many people never changed. My view has always been that changing the battery for a similar one complies with the “basic change to the electrical system” concession here, but most A&Ps are unwilling to read the regs / stick their neck out. And here in Europe we have EASA regs which offer yet more room for getting people worried legal interpretation.
Peter wrote:
On the Socata owners’ group the forum owner has always stated that Concorde are not legal (short of applying for a Major Alteration).
(S)he should read CS-STAN. At least if s(he) has an EASA-reg aircraft.
The Socata group is almost totally US oriented. But as I say, the support for the strict interpretation (no PMA or no STC → Major Alteration) is weak (the word I would use is “bollocks”) because of the more general concessions available there.
Do you have the CS-STAN reference? It must be quite new.
Peter wrote:
Do you have the CS-STAN reference?
It’s Standard Change CS-SC037a “Exchange of a main aircraft battery”.
As I wrote in the post you linked to, this SC was planned to be introduced with the next revision of CS-STAN which went into force on April 4 this year.
Ok so using Standard Change CS-SC037a “Exchange of a main aircraft battery” then one can change a Gill Battery for a concorde.
But what about a Odyssey SBS J-16 battery which are a FAA-PMA Certified Sealed Aircraft Battery?
I’m thinking in a C172.
Then the next question would be what about an Odyssey PC680? Which appears to be in quite popular in LAA types
Is the EASA process battery brand specific? I doubt it.
EASA accepts FAA-PMA parts subject to not being critical – see e.g. here.
@antonio, @wigglyamp and others may know more about this.
