jaylw314 Posted November 2, 2022 Report Posted November 2, 2022 (edited) 52 minutes ago, Arthur said: First I’d like to thank everyone for their response. I still haven’t figured out the problem, but I did find a floating switch behind the panel and I have the fuel flow system referred to in some replies. This has been like this since I bought the plane 3 years ago and never had a problem even if I didn’t fly to 2 or 3 weeks. At the present time I have found a 9.Mili amp parasitic drain no matter what I do. All switches off. All breakers off doesn’t change anything. I’m going to try mounting the found switch and remove the dalton clock to see if that changes the draw. Does anyone know what an acceptable parasitic draw would be? I dunno, 9 mAh means over 8 days you'd lose about 1.7 Ah on the battery. Since the total capacity is something like 30 Ah, it's hard to imagine that would have been enough to drain the battery?? It might be helpful to disconnect the fuse to the always-on wire in the tailcone and see if that changes things. The Davtron M800 on Aircraft Spruce lists a "keep alive current" of 4 mA, FWIW Edited November 2, 2022 by jaylw314 Quote
1980Mooney Posted November 2, 2022 Report Posted November 2, 2022 53 minutes ago, Arthur said: First I’d like to thank everyone for their response. I still haven’t figured out the problem, but I did find a floating switch behind the panel and I have the fuel flow system referred to in some replies. This has been like this since I bought the plane 3 years ago and never had a problem even if I didn’t fly to 2 or 3 weeks. At the present time I have found a 9.Mili amp parasitic drain no matter what I do. All switches off. All breakers off doesn’t change anything. I’m going to try mounting the found switch and remove the dalton clock to see if that changes the draw. Does anyone know what an acceptable parasitic draw would be? With the Master off the only possible draw should be the single line coming from the battery box in your tailcone. It feeds your Headliner lights, the clock and the hot memory circuit on your archaic fuel flow totalizer. There is an in-line glass fuse - should be 5 amps. Open it to break the circuit. There should be no parasitic draw at that point. If there is current draw with your inline fuse removed then you have a chaffed wire between the battery and the Master switch or your Master is bad. If the parasitic draw drops to zero with the in-line fuse open (out) - then reinstall the inline fuse and isolate the clock separate from the headliner and separate from the fuel totalizer. 9 milliamps is only 6.5 amps/month. That should not kill your battery in 8 days as you observed. Davtron M800 keep alive current is 4 milliamps. Quote
Arthur Posted November 4, 2022 Author Report Posted November 4, 2022 On 11/2/2022 at 5:52 PM, 1980Mooney said: With the Master off the only possible draw should be the single line coming from the battery box in your tailcone. It feeds your Headliner lights, the clock and the hot memory circuit on your archaic fuel flow totalizer. There is an in-line glass fuse - should be 5 amps. Open it to break the circuit. There should be no parasitic draw at that point. If there is current draw with your inline fuse removed then you have a chaffed wire between the battery and the Master switch or your Master is bad. If the parasitic draw drops to zero with the in-line fuse open (out) - then reinstall the inline fuse and isolate the clock separate from the headliner and separate from the fuel totalizer. 9 milliamps is only 6.5 amps/month. That should not kill your battery in 8 days as you observed. Davtron M800 keep alive current is 4 milliamps. First I was reading the meter wrong. Second I removed the in line fuse and the draw dropped to zero. Third I will have to find the exact culprit, but at least I can fly again without disconnecting the battery ground after every flight. Thanks again to all. 2 Quote
carusoam Posted November 4, 2022 Report Posted November 4, 2022 shared data… A typical Concorde… in a 90s Mooney… With the keep alive circuit… not operated for a month… When charged with a BatteryMinder…. Will indicate a strong desire to be charged. What to do with the now unknown battery… 1) Power a tug with it… 2) Use it for ground power to help with database updates… 3) Experiment with charging and capacity testing… 4) Might make a nice trophy… a reminder of the wacky event. Realistically… nobody knows what happened to the battery… Some mechanics are challenged with electrical issues… Knowing how to connect a battery properly… is usually known before going to mechanic’s school… Batteries lately are in the 0.6 amu range… and three months waiting… Contact Concorde to see how good their customer service system works… Expect that you won’t be the first person to have a new battery destroyed…. When you get the new battery… be there to operate the volt meter…. Before making the connections… If you need a reason for the oversight… you can use a story about checking the stacking order of all the hardware bits and pieces, the use of battery grease, or torque value for the battery’s nut… Flying in IMC? Even, if the battery passes a capacity test… you are going to be wondering when the battery is going to fail for the next six years…. One thing for sure… Concorde supplies an instruction booklet with their batteries… Read it before contacting them… Expect the conversation to get started simply… Dear Concorde, I have no idea what happened to my brand new battery… model, serial, date, date of purchase, where purchased… I am unable to follow the pre-installation instructions… voltage reading issue. can I send my battery back to find out if it is still good…? is this covered under the warranty…? Installing a battery with reverse polarity has a tendency to let smoke out of things like diodes… There are a few diodes in many Mooneys, to help guide the flow of electrons…. It only takes seconds to allow their smoke out… Oddly… some batteries look identical to each other… from a distance…. And only their markings (+ Pos) indicate how the battery is actually charged… Example… My tug is a sears brand riding mower… if you buy a sears battery, everything works fine… if you buy a similar (identical looking) battery from autozone…. There is only one way to install the battery… yet, You will see the smoke leaving the diode… the poles are reversed! Always trust, but verify! PP thoughts only, not an electro-mechanical guy… Best regards, -a- Quote
Will.iam Posted November 5, 2022 Report Posted November 5, 2022 On 11/4/2022 at 10:44 AM, carusoam said: shared data… A typical Concorde… in a 90s Mooney… With the keep alive circuit… not operated for a month… When charged with a BatteryMinder…. Will indicate a strong desire to be charged. What to do with the now unknown battery… 1) Power a tug with it… 2) Use it for ground power to help with database updates… 3) Experiment with charging and capacity testing… 4) Might make a nice trophy… a reminder of the wacky event. Realistically… nobody knows what happened to the battery… Some mechanics are challenged with electrical issues… Knowing how to connect a battery properly… is usually known before going to mechanic’s school… Batteries lately are in the 0.6 amu range… and three months waiting… Contact Concorde to see how good their customer service system works… Expect that you won’t be the first person to have a new battery destroyed…. When you get the new battery… be there to operate the volt meter…. Before making the connections… If you need a reason for the oversight… you can use a story about checking the stacking order of all the hardware bits and pieces, the use of battery grease, or torque value for the battery’s nut… Flying in IMC? Even, if the battery passes a capacity test… you are going to be wondering when the battery is going to fail for the next six years…. One thing for sure… Concorde supplies an instruction booklet with their batteries… Read it before contacting them… Expect the conversation to get started simply… Dear Concorde, I have no idea what happened to my brand new battery… model, serial, date, date of purchase, where purchased… I am unable to follow the pre-installation instructions… voltage reading issue. can I send my battery back to find out if it is still good…? is this covered under the warranty…? Installing a battery with reverse polarity has a tendency to let smoke out of things like diodes… There are a few diodes in many Mooneys, to help guide the flow of electrons…. It only takes seconds to allow their smoke out… Oddly… some batteries look identical to each other… from a distance…. And only their markings (+ Pos) indicate how the battery is actually charged… Example… My tug is a sears brand riding mower… if you buy a sears battery, everything works fine… if you buy a similar (identical looking) battery from autozone…. There is only one way to install the battery… yet, You will see the smoke leaving the diode… the poles are reversed! Always trust, but verify! PP thoughts only, not an electro-mechanical guy… Best regards, -a- That is why they sell left and right side polarity for the same size battery as auto manufacturers can seem to agree to which side they want the positive connection on. Quote
Hank Posted November 5, 2022 Report Posted November 5, 2022 All I know is that I was getting worried about my Concorde. Just opened the cowl, it's older than I thought--says "installed 8/17/16" on top, and the charger showed 80% charge when I hooked it up. It's getting time to order a new one, especially if delivery times are extended. Quote
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