Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

[lfries]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

91.205 you need an alternator or generator for IFR but only an adeqluate source for night VFR
(c) Visual flight rules (night). For VFR flight at night, the following instruments and equipment are required:
(1) Instruments and equipment specified in paragraph (b) of this section.
(2) Approved position lights.
(3) An approved aviation red or aviation white anticollision light system on all U.S.-registered civil aircraft. Anticollision light systems initially installed after August 11, 1971, on aircraft for which a type certificate was issued or applied for before August 11, 1971, must at least meet the
anticollision light standards of part 23, 25, 27, or 29 of this chapter, as applicable, that were in effect on August 10, 1971, except that the color may be either aviation red or aviation white. In the event of failure of any light of the anticollision light system, operations with the aircraft may be
continued to a stop where repairs or replacement can be made.
(4) If the aircraft is operated for hire, one electric landing light.
(5) An adequate source of electrical energy for all installed electrical and radio equipment.(6) One spare set of fuses, or three spare fuses of each kind required, that are accessible to the pilot in flight.

[Mark Julicher]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

Regular old incandescent position lights draw 1 amp each, so that is three amps while your position lights are on.

[VictorBravo]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

I know there are new LED position lights becoming available... but what also needs to be done IMHO is to have someone in the electronics business build an "approved" solid state LED or discharge type anti-collision light system that makes use of what is available today. Those antique rotating beacons are the size of a salad bowl and that awful geared rotating mechanism needs to be put out to pasture. I'm sure they use up a lot of power for what they do. Nothing needs to rotate, there can just be a 1X/second strobe inside a red cover. The whole thing could be the size of a calculator and nearly flush with the outside of the airplane. Or a red LED array built in flush on both sides of the fin.

[jim cooper]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

I am NOT a mechanic and know less about things electrical. Without this site and the knowledge of Bill Berle, Hank and others I would not own an airplane. Its facinating to read what they know and how to solve problems. In the BC12D I'm getting, it has a battery that powers the Nav lights and radio. I would like to put led wingtip strobes on it. A kit fox at the airport has them and they work GREAT. Naturally they are not approved for a certified aircraft. What would happen if they were put on anyway? Big trouble? The T-Craft is in NY state and will be here in Maryland by the end of April. I was very upset by the collapse of the hangar and the demise of my T-Craft . I had decided to quit flying. Then....I found the current one and it promises to be a real nice airplane. As I said, without this site I would have given up. JC

[N95334]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

Lloyd, nothing about cabin or instrument lights? So I can get a ball cap with two lights on the sides and be ok? Guess red still the favorite for night vision.
I have one of those older big approved aviation red anticollision light the size of a soup bowl on top of the fuselage. Bet that draws more than 1 AH when on and rotating.

[NY86]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

9AH does mean 9 amps x 1 hour, but...

The rating is typically what they call the "20 hour rate". This means you can draw 9/20 amp for 20 hours. The one hour rate will be closer to half that, or something like 4.5 amps for one hour.

'Course if you had 2 9AH batteries...

[N95334]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

John your killing me
Thought I had that one down and now 9/20 thing

[Mark Julicher]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

If your new Icom radio is a hand held, beware that if you attempt to provide power with the Icom supplied 12volt charging cord, the radio will not transmit when the cord is plugged in to a power source. Icom does that in order to discourage folks like us from using their hand helds as primary radios.

There is a work around. If you are interested, PM me and I'll be glad to share a solution that has worked wonderfully for me.

First a disclaimer - if this sounds like I know what I'm talking about, well boy have I got you fooled....

Based on SCRed's advice I did some testing with my new Icom A6. I used a variable power supply capable of providing 6 to 14 volts at up to 3.5 amps.

Note that the wall-wart charger that comes with the radio is rated 12 volts and 200 milliamps. Therefore the wall-wart is only a trickle charger.

I set my ham radio to the aviation band and both transmitted and received with the A6 using a headset and selecting a range of about 8 to 13 volts pumped into the charging jack of the radio. I had good clear transmissions and good reception. Success! During transmissions the voltage dropped slightly (about 1 volt) on my power supply which I consider normal for this rather light duty power supply.

Now here comes a surprise. I did the same transmission and reception directly using the handheld radio WITHOUT the headset. The power supply struggled to keep up with the current draw and I saw a voltage drop of 4 volts. That means that the A6 was asking for a lot of amperage (probably about 2 amps) when it is used straight up no headset. Clearly the Icom wall-wart rated at two tenths on an amp will not be able to handle that kind of current draw. Furthermore, it might not be advisable to pump that kind of amperage through the charging jack and traces on the circuit board. At some point things are going to get hot.

For those who are a little bit electronic savvy you could consider building a LM317T regulator onto a cigarette lighter plug. Set the chip for 9 volts and plug it into a 12 volt supply. Put a 3 amp fuse in this rig. The LM317T is rated for 1.5 amps, so it will work for short transmissions using a headset. It should work until your main battery goes below 10 volts.

The notes in the radio's handbook are somewhat confusing. At one point it says to turn the transceiver off when charging to avoid damage. At another place it says never connect the transceiver to a power source that is DC fused at over 5 amps because an accidental reverse connection will be protected by this fuse. Hmmmm. So the charging circuit can probably handle 5 amps for a short period of time (pun intended). Then the radio can probably handle being plugged in to a 12 V system through the charging circuit and operated in that fashion as long as the power supply can provide a couple amps. Double Hmmmm. It is still not clear why Icom says, "To avoid damaging the transceiver, turn the power off while charging."

Maybe I'll just try all this experimenting while the radio is still on warranty just to be sure

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

Mark,
I would like to work together on the idea of a system for operating my Icom along with the wind generator system I am putting back on my 41. The wind generator has a voltage regulator that keeps the 12V battery charged and I pull power for the radio, GPS and whatever other junk I want to put in off the battery.
I like the idea of the LM317T regulator on the 12V output to create a 9V output for the radio. I never did like the idea of using the charging jack with 12V and worried about that warning too.
I would also like to have two 6V outputs to float across the headset batteries. Would a couple of diodes allow these lower voltage batteries to be held at close to full charge (by the float voltage) and the internal batteries would take over if there was a failure that caused the 12V buss to drop off line?
The little solid state regulators weigh close to nothing and it would be kind of neat to have one for each different voltage needed.
Do you have a circuit diagram for the LM317T voltage regulator?
Hank

[Mark Julicher]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

Hank,

Yes, Here is an easy circuit for the 317 IC. The circuit was also printed on the back of the blister packages sold at Taylorcraft Shack. Also used to be commonly available in the little engineer's notebooks written by Forrest Mimms and sold at Radio Shack. Also found in the Amateur Radio Handbook. I recommend using 1/2 watt resistors or better if you expect to continuously draw a lot of current.

LM 317 also comes in a TO3 case which is capable of 3 amps, so that is something to ponder... Mostly I use the flat TO220 case rated 1.5A. Also note that there is a family of constant output ICs that will put out constant voltage. 7805, 7809, 7812, etc. These need about a 1.5 volt drop to be stable.

Diodes are a possibility... a forward biased diode will drop .7 volts, so if you had a constant 9 volt source and dropped it through 4 diodes in series it would provide 6.2 volts. Not exactly elegant, but it works. I would probably opt for a 317 IC and a couple resistors instead.

Now here is a brainstorm to consider:
What if you wired a DPDT push to talk switch so that the trickle charging current went through one side and the PTT went through the other? Make the PTT normally open and the trickle charge normally closed. When you key down you interrupt the charge circuit. The Icom only needs a single wire to make and break the transmit circuit. Hmmm. Better have a fuse in there someplace too just because of Murphy.
IF, on the other hand you were using an intercom that needed two wires to operated the PTT circuitry, it may take a 3P3T switch for the PTT or even a tiny relay. Not difficult. The intercom box we rigged in Doc's Champ required a DPST for the PTT when combined with an Icom A6. It just depends on the brand of intercom.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

I LIKE it! I would use a solid state relay for the PTT so you could still plug the PTT into the radio too. I will try and go to TaylorShack tonight and get some IC's and resistors to play with. This is making my Battery Box kind of complex inside (all of my electronics are mounted in the original size box with Velcro and a smaller battery).
I want it to look original and just take the top off of the box to see all my plugs meters and controls. I figure if I set it up right I can use Velcro to hold the guts in and just pull the whole mess and drop a full size battery in, hook it up and be back to original.
Hank

LOVE that FAA certified Velcro. If it isn't permanently attached, you can pretty much put it in.

[NY86]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

... When you key down you interrupt the charge circuit...

Wow! Now that's "out of the box!"

[bashibazouk]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

Okay, so I'm pretty much lost in this discussion, but I've got an Icom A24 which works just great. I've been running a 12v charger from an AGM battery in the bag behind the seat. The charger died for no apparent reason (genuine Icom accessory) and I got to looking at the specs on the case. Said it put out 11v (I forget the amps). The Icom wall charger says 12v @ 200MA. I figured (in my usual non-technical way) that I could straight wire the Icom with a fuse and charge away at 12v and be fine.

For what it's worth, the radio won't transmit when I'm pumping 12v into it. What's the deal, anyway since the battery pack says it's 7.2v. What do I need to do to make this work without buying another $65 12v charger from Icom?

Josh

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

Josh,
I am about half way through the wiring diagram for the Ward Aero set-up and part of it was a 12V connection setup for the cigar plug outlets and a voltage drop circuit for the Icom to plug in directly. Only take a few dollars worth of parts to build but I have NOT tested it yet (I will post the whole mess when I know everything works). The whole circuit also include a float charge system for my ANR headsets and power for the intercom system so everything runs off of a portable battery and control panel.
Hit me off line if you want to work on it with me. I can certainly send you the circuit diagram for the Icom radio battery by-pass. Just be careful setting it up. If you just plug it in and adjust it you can burn up the radio before you get the voltage set. You will need an analog VOM to set the output first.
Hank

All who want to try this, remember, I am NOT an electronics engineer!

[Mark Julicher]

Re: Want to use battery in my Taylorcraft

Doc has this in his plane and it has worked well for the past year.
All Portable!

Doc does not use the radio power cord because we did not understand the limitations of the Icom charging lash-up when we built it. Hank's circuit should take correct that! The radio feeds into the P/S engineering intercom very nicely, and the PTT works fine.

There is a 12V 8AH gel cel inside the box.
There is a cigar lighter plug outlet in the side of the black box used for GPS.
The gel cel also feeds a strobe light mounted in the rudder. (1 amp continuous draw)
The black pushbutton is a battery test button.
There is a charging jack that accepts voltage from a "smart charger" when the plane is in the hangar.