POWERSAFE DRY CELL BATTERY SBS J-16 FAA PMA

[6863]

Mac, I'm wondering how much battery power you need compared to me. For example have you gone to all led lighting etc? I have not.

Last year I exercised the worst part of bad judgment and installed a skyBeacon - yes low draw, but that still left me with two high draw Whelen strobe lights and one incandescent nav light. Of course my 60 amp alternator can handle those loads but not without electrical noise. My experience with the skyBeacon is that I also need a good battery capable of acting as enough of a capacitor/filter to make my electrical system free enough of noise to keep the skyBeacon happy. When my 35 AH Concord bench tested low during skyBeacon testing I replaced it with the 25 AH model. The new battery made a noise difference, but now I'm afraid to go with any less than the 25 AH battery. Any thoughts anyone?

John

[2066]

John, I have changed out all bulbs to LEDs including the nav, panel, map lights & Grimes retractable LL bulb. I do still have one dorsal strobe. I'd really intended to wait for the Sky...or Tail Beacon but became a bit anxious back when uAvionix and Garmin were duking it out, so went with the Garmin GDL82 -- had to do ADS-B as I'm frequently in/out of Class B. My little 12 amp B & C alternator (dynamo?) handles it all with no problem. No noise issues from the strobe.
Mac

[8342]

I am shooting in the dark but don't a lot of the noise issues that get solved through better grounding.
You might want to look at the wires themselves.

Rick

[6643]

Yeah, if the battery can start the engine then I don't think it will have any impact on RF noise. More likely changing the battery connections is what caused the change in noise.

[6863]

Yeah, if the battery can start the engine then I don't think it will have any impact on RF noise. More likely changing the battery connections is what caused the change in noise.

Nathan Bainbridge at B&C is my hangar neighbor and the one who insisted I needed a new battery. My battery connections were clean but didn't even come close to passing a capacitance check. The new battery made a big difference. What put me over the top was rewiring the left wing with a twisted pair of wires - power and ground and have made many successful flights since the new battery install and rewiring.

I am now dealing with strobe static in my headphones and have been told I need a notch filter. I'd appreciate any advice on a specific notch filter and where exactly to install it.

John

[3510]

Why did you rewire the left wing strobe? Did you have the strobe noise in your headphones before the rewiring? Also, did you use shielded wire, and ground the shield on one end?
To determine where the noise is coming from, you might try removing the antenna connection to your radio( if no noise, then look at the 12v supplying the radio}. When I installed a new intercom, radio and transponder years ago, I installed a power filter between the 12v buss and the radio equipment. Don't know the part number of the filter, but it was one that was commonly used with aircraft radio equipment back then.

[edidin]

I saved a couple of pounds total, in addition to the battery weight savings. I don’t remember offhand, but I could look it up for you if you were interested.

In my old 120 with the original non-forward swept gear, I want all the weight back there I can get!