Lithium Ion Batteries for the Ovation??

[William Munney]

Gents:

Can we use something like the True Blue or Earth X or other Lithium Ion Batteries in the Ovatrion?  Anyone with any experience with them? 

Other than that nasty thermal runaway issue it seems like a good idea and saves weight too.  They are pretty far back there though so maybe its not good for CG.

Edited February 20, 2024 by William Munney

[GeeBee]

You might save weight.....until you have to add Charlie weights to maintain CG.

[StevenL757]

@William Munney I’m not sure about the EarthX product, but the only airframe that is approved to use the TB17 from True Blue Power is the A36 Bonanza.  Even if it becomes available for the Ovation, you likely won’t want to pay the price for one of them…let alone two.  They’re easily north of $4,500 apiece.

Edit…just had a look again (been over a year since I saw them around $4,500), and Spruce has them - albeit out of stock - for the bargain price of $6,779.

Each.

[exM20K]

40 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

You might save weight.....until you have to add Charlie weights to maintain CG.

Or just add A/C.

[philiplane]

I will be the last guy to sign up for these batteries.

It's a solution in search of a problem.

[William Munney]

Well.  That settles that.  I had no idea they were so expensive. And we haven’t even got to CG or safety yet.  I’ll pedal a portable generator before I spend $6k for a battery.

Thanks all.

Anyone know where the best prices are for the Concorde batteries?…….’96 Ovation.

[Hank]

5 hours ago, William Munney said:

Well.  That settles that.  I had no idea they were so expensive. And we haven’t even got to CG or safety yet.  I’ll pedal a portable generator before I spend $6k for a battery.

Thanks all.

Anyone know where the best prices are for the Concorde batteries?…….’96 Ovation.

Lately, the problem has been availability rather than pricing. Good luck!

[FJC]

Ovation Batteries: around 850 each. Plan ahead...they are hard to find!

[A64Pilot]

On 2/20/2024 at 7:57 PM, GeeBee said:

You might save weight.....until you have to add Charlie weights to maintain CG.

Due to the arm difference you would save some weight, but I can’t imagine the weight would be enough to justify the price.

Anyone know what the “Instructions for Continued Airworthiness” is for these things? do you do capacity checks or similar yearly?

Ref yearly cap checks, most of us don’t have the $$$ to invest in a “real” capacity tester so we Rube Goldberg something like light bulbs as a load etc.  and keep track of time, but as voltage drops the amp draw increases so it’s not real accurate but close enough.

A couple of months ago I put LifePo4 batteries in my Golf Cart and due to some extent the relatively flat voltage discharge it went dead on me and I had to tow it home.

So I installed a Columb counter battery monitor a few days ago which tracks amp hour usage very accurately, thing costs about $30 and is dead nuts accurate.

Well I had an epiphany, this thing would be perfect for doing a cap check on an aircraft battery, simply connect it to your battery apply a load and when you hit terminating voltage it will tell you exactly in amp hours what your batteries capacity is. 

 

[William Munney]

On 2/23/2024 at 7:15 PM, FJC said:

Ovation Batteries: around 850 each. Plan ahead...they are hard to find!

Aircraft Spruce has them.  And now I do too!  Yep.  Expensive!

[daytonabch04]

Last weekend, I was AOG due to dead batteries.  I paid right around 870 and then shipping/tax came out to about 1k total.

Luckily, I found a place that had them in stock, but when your plane won't start at the fuel pump your options are rather limited...