Gill LT Battery

[PT20J]

The 4 year old Concorde RG24-15M in my M20J needs replacement. It starts fine and by that criteria might last several more years. But I have the capacity tested annually and it's down to 85% which is the minimum.

In August, I'm having a new panel installed which will eliminate the vacuum pump and so the capacity of the battery assumes additional importance. After careful consideration, I've decided to purchase a Gill 7243-16. It has more capacity than the Concorde ( 16 Ah vs 13.6 Ah) and the IPP (peak current) is higher. The IPR (current after 15 seconds) is slightly lower but I never need to crank for 15 seconds and the current is still 3-4 times the current required by my Sky-Tec starter.

It's also over $100 cheaper given that Desser is selling them for $636.02 and Gill currently has a $50 rebate.

I know Gill has a bad rap, but I'm going to give it a try. 

Skip

[carusoam]

Skip,

We are standing behind you all the way...

There are a couple of good pireps for the latest Gill battery...

Gill is actually a member of the TCM family of products...

Its quite possible that an ownership change could be related to a quality change...

 

Or all this battery technology is just getting better....

Cost comparison.... My truck just got a new battery... $200, three year warranty...

Let there be product competition!  

Best regards,

-a-

[MB65E]

I’ve had one in my airplane for 6mo. 
good so far. 
-Matt

[RLCarter]

Gill gets slammed a lot on here, I’ve had Gills in the Cessna 11 or so years, 1st one was a “flooded type” and went 5+ years, went with “sealed” after that, Mooney got the sealed Gill 5 years ago... no regrets on Gills here

[spistora]

I just replaced my 5 year old Gill (flooded type) with a Concorde.  I was also going to try the Gill LT series and chose not to because of the problems my local shop has been having with Gill customer service over the last year.  He has had a couple of warranty issues on the LTs and Gill is not responding.  Otherwise, the specs and pricing do look good and worth trying in my opinion. 

[A64Pilot]

It may seem silly. but Concorde is a family owned purely US company, that does all it s manufacturing in the US. (data maybe 5 years old, don’t know if that’s still true)

‘I don’t know about Gill. I do know that they essentially give their batteries away to OEM’s because many only want the battery the airplane came with, but I’ve had a bad experience with a Gill and seen many others (wet cell only, don’t know about the AGM)

Time will tell. but until then I’ll stick with Concorde.

85% is actually pretty good, I’d wager the majority of batteries out there are less than that as it’s exceedingly uncommon for someone to cap check a battery, even though it’s a required airworthiness item.

Unless things have changed, a Concorde is the only battery that when new you don’t have to do a cap check, they check every battery before shipping, no one else does.

‘So legally you have to do a cap check on any other brand new battery, anyone ever seen that done?

If you don’t fly often, a good battery minder will add users to the battery, but be careful, your looking for absorption voltage of 14.3 plus or minus .1 and a float voltage of 13.3 plus or minus .1. That’s for the Concorde AGM. Wet cell voltages are higher and I don’t know about the Gill AGM

Edited May 23, 2021 by A64Pilot

[Raptor05121]

I have a new Gill as well and so far so good. It was $100 cheaper than Concorde for more capacity and lighter

[MIm20c]

I’d personally wait until after the avionics work is done just in case they accidentally run it down. My experience with Gill’s customer service was not good.  No follow through on anything after 6 months of back and forth. 

[PT20J]

The capacity check is often ignored. Diminished capacity has to get really bad before you notice weak starting. But, it does affect how long you have power after an alternator quits. The capacity is not listed as a limitation, so it is not mandatory to check it for part 91 ops. If I were VFR only, I wouldn’t bother.

 

[RLCarter]

1 hour ago, MIm20c said:

I’d personally wait until after the avionics work is done just in case they accidentally run it down. My experience with Gill’s customer service was not good.  No follow through on anything after 6 months of back and forth. 

its been 5 or 6 years but a buddy had a flooded Gill go south 11 months after installation, I called Gill for him and had a new battery by the end of the week, it wasn't painful at all

[FloridaMan]

Before replacing your battery, consider investing in a BatteryMinder specific to your Conchordes. @aviatoreb (if I remember correctly) said he got 12 years out of his Rocket batteries with his batteryminder. For comparison, I'd only get a couple years out of mine without the batteryminder (I think the parallel batteries discharge each other when the health of one cell starts to go). The last two that came out and wouldn't hold a charge and had distorted in shape (concave on the sides) returned to their original shape on the BatteryMinder. I gave one of them to a pilot who was in a bind on the field and needed a battery and it's still going strong. With the rocket, and the placement of the batteries in the far empennage, requiring risking damage and lots of work to get to them, I didn't want to risk reinstalling the batteries that weren't holding a charge in spite of the batteryminder appearing to have restored them. If it was the normal battery box, it wouldn't have bothered me to try and get more life out of them. 

[A64Pilot]

Are the batteries paralleled in a Rocket? If so that would mean that both would die together, I would assume maybe a Rocket has a battery select switch that isolates the two batteries? If so your going to need two minders.

On edit, they make battery tenders that are for multiple batteries, up to at least 4 batteries so you could get one for two batteries and only have one charger.

 A few pics, the old fashioned metal box battery minder is within spec for a Concorde at 14.4 Absorption and 13.2 Float.

Lastly bulging or concave sides are completely normal for a Concorde, that’s because it’s a valve regulated recombinant gas sealed lead acid battery, the valve won’t open and release gas unless it’s excess internal pressure, like when you climb to high altitude, so when you descend it’s sucked in in appearance, but as you charge hydrogen gas is produced and it will be recombined with oxygen into water, but until it is it will look bloated.

‘Concorde gives a class on their batteries and enough people are concerned about the bulge that they have a slide just for that.

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by A64Pilot

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, FloridaMan said:

Before replacing your battery, consider investing in a BatteryMinder specific to your Conchordes. @aviatoreb (if I remember correctly) said he got 12 years out of his Rocket batteries with his batteryminder. For comparison, I'd only get a couple years out of mine without the batteryminder (I think the parallel batteries discharge each other when the health of one cell starts to go). The last two that came out and wouldn't hold a charge and had distorted in shape (concave on the sides) returned to their original shape on the BatteryMinder. I gave one of them to a pilot who was in a bind on the field and needed a battery and it's still going strong. With the rocket, and the placement of the batteries in the far empennage, requiring risking damage and lots of work to get to them, I didn't want to risk reinstalling the batteries that weren't holding a charge in spite of the batteryminder appearing to have restored them. If it was the normal battery box, it wouldn't have bothered me to try and get more life out of them. 

That's right - 12 years.  And one of the batteries was still working but one had gotten pretty tired.  I replaced both while we were at it since I figured at 12 years those batteries owed me nothing.  The battery minder more than paid for itself.

[A64Pilot]

The key to remember here though is what PT20J is doing, and that’s a yearly battery capacity check.

A battery can easily start an engine and not have enough capacity to get you on the ground if the alternator quits and your IFR. Loss of communication and navigation in the clouds would suck

‘So if you do fly IFR it’s smart to do a cap check and replace the battery based on that, and don’t wait until the engine cranks slowly.

[PT20J]

I have never seen a claim of exceptional battery life from anyone who does regular capacity checks.

My battery has a somewhat indeterminate history. Technically, it is not the battery Mooney or Concord approves for the Mooney. The approved batteries are RG24-11M and RG24-15. The 11M is a lower capacity battery with a manifold. The higher capacity 15 doesn't have a manifold. But, it fits and since the plane has the plumbing for the manifold it makes sense to use it. It was installed by the previous owner, but there is no logbook entry, just a handwritten label with only a date. Was that the installation date? The date it was last charged? The owner's daughter's birthday? Who knows? The plane had not been flying much the last few years and the battery appeared pretty sulfated when I bought it three years ago. I put a BatteryMinder on it and that has kept it going. This year when it was removed for the capacity check, the avionics shop reported that the case was bulging. Not a good sign. I think it owes me nothing at this point.

Skip

 

 

[carusoam]

Mooneys with two battery systems from the factory use a battery selector switch... Batt#1 or Batt#2...

Simple analog relays... don’t be slow when switching batteries... you can find a dead spot in between 1 & 2...

Also...

BatteryMinder vs. Battery Tender... are two different products from different sources...

Minder is the most often reported about...

Best regards,

-a-

[A64Pilot]

Interesting.

 A Boats 1-2-ALL battery switch is built to connect the other battery prior to disconnecting the first when you switch from 1 to 2 or back.

‘It’s done that way to protect the alternator, apparently sudden disconnection of a battery can damage an alternator.

Battery minder, Battery Tender, I’ll add another name, Float Charger.

‘All are three stage chargers, fist stage is bulk, which means the charger can’t supply enough amperage to bring the battery up to absorption voltage, so it’s known as current limited. 

second stage is absorption, Absorption voltage is reached and maintained as current drops, known as voltage limited.

Ideally absorption voltage is maintained until acceptance reaches 1/2 of 1% of rated capacity of the battery in amp hours, but that requires a programmable charger, so minder / tenders will either use a timer or will drop to float upon reaching a very small acceptance rate, like .1 amp.

.1 amp is better than a timer if you have either a large or small battery as they will be either under or overcharged.

Desulphators are pure snake oil. I wish they weren’t. I wish they actually did work because they would actually recover capacity and add many years to a batteries life, because lead acid batteries die from sulphation. So when you see a charger that advertises it has a desulphator setting or cycle, pass on it.

On edit, you can partially recover a sulphated battery with an intentional overcharge, short term sulphation is more reversible than long term sulphation. This intentional overcharge is often called an equalization charge as it’s also used on large stationary wet cell banks to mix or equalize the electrolyte as over time it will stratify or have different specific gravities on different levels and a overcharge will cause the battery to off faster and mix the electrolyte.

Concorde calls this intentional overcharge a “Conditioning” charge

But that’s not what chargers with desulphators do, they claim to pulse the battery with either high voltage or AC to burn off the sulphation. 

Concorde also manufacturers other batteries of course, their Lifeline line is essentially identical to the aircraft battery and is often used in large banks of batteries costing thousands of dollars and regularly deep cycled, so people really learn to take good care of them as they are expensive and often not obtainable where they may be.

Of all the battery manufacturers, Concorde’s Lifeline battery manual is by far the most comprehensive of any manual. Do some reading, almost all of it is directly relatable to the Concorde Aircraft battery as they are pretty much identical. I’m not saying a Lifeline is Airworthy, it’s not of course.

A lot of things carry over from non aircraft sources, like tire care for instance, caring for your aircraft tires is very similar to caring for your automobile tires, so if you know auto tires, you will mostly know aircraft tires.

‘Anyway for those interested, do some reading of the Lifeline manual, the construction, charging etc is pretty much identical to the aircraft battery.

https://lifelinebatteries.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/6-0101F-Lifeline-Technical-Manual-Final-5-06-19.pdf

 

Of course the Aircraft battery manual, which takes precedence.

https://batterymanagement.concordebattery.com/BatteryDocs/5-0171.pdf

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by A64Pilot

[PT20J]

I'm pretty impressed with Desser. Not only did they beat everyone else's price on the Gill LT, but I ordered if Friday afternoon and received it today. Free shipping and no sales tax. And the manufacture date on the battery is only a week ago so it hasn't been sitting on a shelf for months.

I looked back on Gill's website for the rebate information and realized that I had missed the fact that it expired at the end of last year. I called Gill customer service and no one was available so I left a message. Got a call back an hour later apologizing for the wait and telling me that the rebate was in fact a last year promotion and apologizing for not getting the info removed from the site. I didn't get my $50, but I did get a profuse apology and a call back.

Skip

[Yetti]

Just a helpful note.  Dresser is taking 10% off Gill Batteries.    Offer ends today.

https://shop.vseaviation.com/products/general-aviation/batteries

[hypertech]

I gave one a try when Concorde's were short of stock.  It failed capacity check at its first annual.  Gill was good about replacing it under warranty with the fail print out.  I won't buy another.

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, hypertech said:

I gave one a try when Concorde's were short of stock.  It failed capacity check at its first annual.  Gill was good about replacing it under warranty with the fail print out.  I won't buy another.

Same here on a Gill 7243 and even though it was still in "warranty" Gill offered me a little over $100 toward a new one. Not a chance.

[PT20J]

2 hours ago, hypertech said:

I gave one a try when Concorde's were short of stock.  It failed capacity check at its first annual.  Gill was good about replacing it under warranty with the fail print out.  I won't buy another.

 

29 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

Same here on a Gill 7243 and even though it was still in "warranty" Gill offered me a little over $100 toward a new one. Not a chance.

Same thing here. I didn’t even call Gill. I just went back to Concorde.

[Yetti]

can we get a year date on these occurrences? and if you used a maintainer or not?

[LANCECASPER]

2 hours ago, Yetti said:

can we get a year date on these occurrences? and if you used a maintainer or not?

2019 - I did, one especially for a Gill Sealed battery. Don't waste you money on a Gill. Friends don't let friends buy Gill.

[Rick Junkin]

I just replaced two Gill LT batteries with Concorde RG24-15Ms. One of the Gills, my #2 battery, was installed in 2019 and remained mostly for ballast for the last couple of years. I installed the other one, my #1 battery that handles the power-off parasitic items, in 2023 and it was on its last legs going into this year's annual. Both were maintained on a BatteryMinder.

Interesting to note that the Concorde documentation advises against 24/7 maintenance charging and instead recommends a weekly or monthly top-off charge, depending on how much you fly.

Also interesting to note is that the White Lightening GPUs that have a BatteryMinder incorporated only have a single version of the BatteryMinder available, and it doesn't say anywhere what version it is. When I asked the question the answer I got was "it's good for all batteries". Makes me wonder about how much difference there really is between the different flavors of BatteryMinders and, more importantly, how much difference it really makes. I'm not smart enough to figure that one out (I got to take the electrical engineering course TWICE) but I know some of you are.