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Charge battery thru Ground Power Jack

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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
Guest

Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 8:34 am Post subject: Charge battery thru Ground Power Jack

 	  Quote: 	
		  

In exploring Charles' idea of a manual switch, intuitively I thought 

that drawing power from the battery while trying to charge it might 

mess up the charging side of things.


	


   Truly 'smart chargers' will tolerate this. For

   example:



http://tinyurl.com/mzzselv



   Here, a load applied during a sustaining state

   the charter went to work to grunt the load and

   stayed in the top-off mode. It returned to

   the sustaining mode when the load was removed.



   A still heavier load would have overwhelmed

   the charger's ability to grunt the load and

   no doubt the voltage would have sagged. But

   recovery after removal of load would have

   been the same.



   I cannot speak to this capability in other

   maintainers without tests.



 	  Quote: 	
		    But what about attaching a 12 v wall wart supply to the positive 

 of the GPJ to provide the necessary current to close the contactor 

 and light the indicator lamp? Upon contactor closure, the batt 

 maitainer would sense battery 12.5v (+/-) and supply the necessary 

 V+ to charge the batt. The fly in the ointment that I can see is 

 that the higher voltage of the batt would takeover the current 

 demands of the contactor and lamp and we're back to square one. 

 UNLESS... the charger can provide enough amperage for both 

 contactor demand and battery demand now that the connection to the 

 batt has been accomplished.

I think I may be chasing my tail.


	


   Why not simply provide a ground maintenance

   connector for the battery? Take a 5A fuse from

   your battery bus to any handy connector situated

   for easy access in the hangar. Plug your maintainer

   into this jack while parked.



   But even before that, what is the perceived

   value of 'plugging-in'? RG batteries exhibit

   very low self discharge rates . . . and those

   rates are temperature dependent. A battery

   stored in a hangar over the winter would

   probably start the engine next spring. Plugging-

   in between flights during the flying season probably

   doesn't add much to the utility or service

   life of the battery.



   But assume you are plugged-in. Assume further

   that the charger-maintainer is in the same

   league as the Schumacher 1562 series devices.

   Hitting the battery with some load for ground

   ops while the charger is attached will not

   chase the charger into the weeds; proper

   charging/maintaining of the battery will resume

   when the load is removed.



   Bob . . .

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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
Guest

Posted: Fri Oct 11, 2013 9:32 am Post subject: Charge battery thru Ground Power Jack

 	  Quote: 	
		  This charger from Walmart comes with a cord that attaches 

permanently to a battery.  On the end of the cord is a plug that 

connects to another plug on the end of the battery charger cord.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Schumacher-Automotive-SpeedCharge-Battery-Maintainer-and-Charger/13005742


	


   Geesh . . . the thing is down to $17. That has to

   be the greatest bang for the buck of any similar

   product offered.

   Bob . . .

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jonlaury

Joined: 06 Nov 2006
Posts: 336

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 7:42 am Post subject: Re: Charge battery thru Ground Power Jack

Bob said:



"But even before that, what is the perceived

value of 'plugging-in'?" 



OK, I would just feel better l if I could use the mostly dead weight GPJ for something else besides an event that might never occur, i.e. being surprised by a dead battery. But if that happened, it would be convenient to just connect to the GPG with the charger w/o removing the cowling. Maybe in time I will get more relaxed about having everything in top shape, but with this new bird, I'm all over it like a new mother fixing anything that isn't right. And I confess to being oversensitive to my battery settling on 12.4v, without a float charge, after a month long undiagnosed problem of  seeing it drop below 12v over a few days because of the battery-bused ANR headset I'd left on ( the power indicator was turned out of sight).

So I'm going to cut the cord  and see where the batt settles now and maybe an attitude adjustment will be the solution. 

I do need to install a 12v outlet(s) in the cabin, so when that's done, I will just use Joe G's idea to plug into it and connect to a charger when necessary.

John

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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
Guest

Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:51 am Post subject: Charge battery thru Ground Power Jack

 	  Quote: 	
		  

I do need to install a 12v outlet(s) in the cabin, so when that's 

done, I will just use Joe G's idea to plug into it and connect to a 

charger when necessary.

John


	


   That's a proven recipe for success. Dozens of my readers

   over the years have installed cigar lighter sockets and/or

   unique 12vdc power outlets powered through a battery-bus

   fuse. This access to the battery offers a means

   by which the charger/maintainer can be connected to the

   battery . . . with a cord hanging out through a cracked

   open door or canopy.

   Bob . . .

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