Nothing on Startup

[thomas1142]

Haven’t flown since a week ago this past Saturday. Went out today to beat up the pattern, when I flipped the master switch on all a got was a loud click followed by a less loud click a second or two latter. Battery or......

[ArtVandelay]

Get out the voltmeter, helps to have alligator clips so you can see the voltage from the pilot seat when you turn the key: check battery first, then master solenoid, etc

[RLCarter]

Check battery terminals, I’ve seen loose terminals do what you described 

[thomas1142]

Had to go get a voltmeter. Terminals are tight. Battery showed 24.8 volts no power applied, dropped to 4.6 and kept dropping.

Any need to check voltage regulator with this reading from the battery? Also, is this standard battery behavior, start one week then 9 days latter dead with nothing left on or anything else that would drain it.

Battery is a Gill and it’s 5 years old.

[neilpilot]

Unless you have some leakage to ground to power draw, you need a new battery.  You could disconnect the ground and see if the battery holds a charge for a few days with the ground disconnected. 

[Oldguy]

Five years on a Gill is pretty good. Time for another money injection for the Mooney. 

[ArtVandelay]

Battery is a Gill and it’s 5 years old.

It’s time to get a new battery.


Tom

[thomas1142]

I fly 100 to 110 hrs in a 9month year, airplane sits for the other three months.

Leaning towards a concord, what says the crowd?

[squeaky.stow]

 Very happy with my Concord. I bought the Batteryminder designed for that battery because I sometimes would go two or three weeks without flying. It’s way more expensive than a generic charger and Concord will tell you that it is because it is specifically designed to get maximum life out of your battery with the customized desulfating program. 
I fell for the hype. Was it worth it? Time will tell, but coming up on the 4th annual since installation. No significant drop in capacity so far.

[Oldguy]

17 minutes ago, squeaky.stow said:

 Very happy with my Concord. I bought the Batteryminder designed for that battery because I sometimes would go two or three weeks without flying. It’s way more expensive than a generic charger and Concord will tell you that it is because it is specifically designed to get maximum life out of your battery with the customized desulfating program. 
I fell for the hype. Was it worth it? Time will tell, but coming up on the 4th annual since installation. No significant drop in capacity so far.

^^^^ This is what I have for my J and quite happy. I have not yet set up a permanent connection to plug in the BatteryMinder, but it is not too much effort to connect it when I know it will be sitting longer than I like - maybe a whole 5 minutes. In addition, I also have the AGM (gas mat) battery.

[StevenL757]

2 hours ago, thomas1142 said:

Leaning towards a concord, what says the crowd?

Without a doubt...yes.

[MooneyMitch]

Regarding Concord 28V and Concord specific charger...... I too had 2 Concords aboard my Ovation and would connect charger while aircraft sat for a couple of weeks occasionally.   All seemed fine..... no starting issues ever.

Conversely, my friend with an Ovation, also has Concords aboard....... his aircraft sits quite a bit, sometimes for a month without flying...... he’s never put chargers on the batteries and he’s only replaced batteries once since airplane was purchased new in 2005 !

When he did replace, it was only one battery losing interest.  Turned out it wasn’t the battery at all, it was a switching issue.  Go figure !!

 

My opinion...... that’s darn good service from those batteries.

[Hank]

Sorry, Mitch, I love my Concord and have never bought a charger / maintainer / desulfator for it. Now on 2nd Concord, installed in Sept. 2016 and going strong, despite very irregular flying patterns since install. Previous Concord went > 6 years and was replaced for a trip to the boonies due to slow cranking.

[MooneyMitch]

1 minute ago, Hank said:

Sorry, Mitch, I love my Concord and have never bought a charger / maintainer / desulfator for it. Now on 2nd Concord, installed in Sept. 2016 and going strong, despite very irregular flying patterns since install. Previous Concord went > 6 years and was replaced for a trip to the boonies due to slow cranking.

I agree..... Concord gets my vote too.

 

[squeaky.stow]

While there seems to be a consensus on MS that Concord batteries are better than Gill, the topic of battery minders and desulfators is a bit more like the LOP discussion. 
I am most assuredly not an expert on the topic but I did do a lot of research prior to buying my battery minder. Here is what I learned.

Most of the “science” published about battery desulfators and smart chargers comes from the manufacturers of said products who have a vested interest in convincing you to buy their product over the cheaper alternatives. There was a lot of pseudoscience and bafflegab in my opinion. But I did find a couple of pretty good peer-reviewed studies by PhD types who appeared to have no dog in the hunt. Bottom line appears to be that desulfators do work fairly well as a preventative measure but very poorly in “restoring” old batteries to health. So, on the theory that keeping my battery healthy was worth the investment I decided I needed a desulfating smart charger. 
Now did I need the really expensive one that Concord says is absolutely critical? Their argument is that the cheap ones use too high a charging rate and can heat the battery and cause damage. Right. And turning on my alternators and blasting them with 30 amps every time I fly does not? That’s where I could not find any good unbiased information so I swallowed hard and spent the extra money. I have no idea whether it will really make a difference in the long run.

There are lots of really smart EE folks on this forum who can probably provide some perspective on whether this is all real science or just clever marketing like my wife’s Anti-Gravity Firming Eye Lift cream with MicroEnviroNutrients.

[LANCECASPER]

19 hours ago, thomas1142 said:

Battery is a Gill and it’s 5 years old.

I would contact the people at Guinness World Book of Records. You may hold the world record for most years on a Gill battery. Most people get closer to two years out of a Gill.

[RLCarter]

17 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

I would contact the people at Guinness World Book of Records. You may hold the world record for most years on a Gill battery. Most people get closer to two years out of a Gill.

My sealed Gil is 5+yrs old and will get replaced next month at annual, hard for me to justify the additional 100 bucks for a Concord

[LANCECASPER]

The sealed gill is better - i was think about the standard Gills


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[RLCarter]

The standard (acid flooded) generally fail from improper initial setup regardless of brand, sealed batteries take even more to setup correctly and failed very early on, now they come with the acid (serviced) installed from the manufacturer and the failure rates from improper setup all but stopped 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

I would contact the people at Guinness World Book of Records. You may hold the world record for most years on a Gill battery. Most people get closer to two years out of a Gill.

I’ve got some Gill batteries in Cessna products which are beyond 5 years and still going strong.  I might be a Mooney thing!

Clarence

[LANCECASPER]

I’ve got some Gill batteries in Cessna products which are beyond 5 years and still going strong.  I might be a Mooney thing!
Clarence

Are those Canadian years or U.S. years?



Living in Texas I think the heat is pretty hard on them.


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[Guest]

5 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

Are those Canadian years or U.S. years?



Living in Texas I think the heat is pretty hard on them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Metric years, take an American year and multiply by 0.62 for the correct answer.

Clarence

[carusoam]

On 8/10/2020 at 2:35 PM, thomas1142 said:

Had to go get a voltmeter. Terminals are tight. Battery showed 24.8 volts no power applied, dropped to 4.6 and kept dropping.

Any need to check voltage regulator with this reading from the battery? Also, is this standard battery behavior, start one week then 9 days latter dead with nothing left on or anything else that would drain it.

Battery is a Gill and it’s 5 years old.

If you wanted to prioritize your list... you could have started with this one... 

Most Gills don’t get past 2 years before failing the capacity test...

So after 5 years, it most likely doesn’t have the full capacity any longer...
 

Voltage will read correctly... 

Have mechanic execute the capacity test while you order a new battery...  (probably wasted effort)

Voltage regulator is for controlling charging... having 24.8V indicates it is charging properly....

Congrats on getting it to go the distance...

PP thoughts only, not a mechanic...

Best regards,

-a-

[RLCarter]

39 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Metric years, take an American year and multiply by 0.62 for the correct answer.

Clarence

According to @LANCECASPER and the Texas heat index my Gil is pushing 8yrs, that pretty good I think

[ArtVandelay]

If you wanted to prioritize your list... you could have started with this one... 
Most Gills don’t get past 2 years before failing the capacity test...
So after 5 years, it most likely doesn’t have the full capacity any longer...

The wet cell batteries don’t get the maintenance they require.
Which is why AGMs do better for most.
And many of the Concords seem to get treated like royalty, so they last longer.