Printable View
Does anyone have a jack on the outside of the aircraft for easy jump starting or charging the battery. Is it possible to have one jack that will do both. The cessna and piper plugs are too large. My battery is in the tail so it is kind of a pain to get to.
I ran a plug for a battery tender to the cabin on my plane. It is not sufficient for jump starting, but will allow a dead battery to be charged or, in my case, plugged into the tender to keep it up in the cold weather.
I don't do to much flying in July and August because of the heat here, so I keep mine on a battery tender. I run the cable through the flaperon opening on the turtle deck. It has a convenient quick attachment connection that is fastened to the battery. As was mentioned earlier it is not enough power to start an engine with a completely dead battery, it does keep my battery fully charged during periods of prolonged inactivity.
I hard wired a battery tender plug on my battery. It comes out of the battery compartment thru the battery access door. I keep it plugged in when the plane is parked in my hangar. Handy to have. The RED arrow shows where the black plug comes out of the side of the battery access door.
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/f...ery%20Plug.jpg
My battery is in the normal location on the firewall (SS7) and I ran a full size + and - cable from the battery terminals down the firewall and terminated in the bottom cowl rear air outlet area. The ends are normally capped so they can't be shorted together, but can be easily reached for battery charging or jump starting without removing the cowl.
Jim,
I'm not quite to the wiring stage yet, but I had planned to "permanently" install the a Battery Tender cable and route it thru the firewall to be accessible under and forward of the panel. I'm liking your approach though that doesn't bother with having to pass thru the firewall with the other wiring and yet would still be very accessible.
I have a big quick disconnect under the CP side of the instrument panel, the
pluggable side is a modified set of jumper cables. The plug looks like this one:
http://www.parts-express.com/smh-sy1...ector--263-120
The inside connector ties to the starter solenoid, and ground.
I use it from time to time in the winter, since the IO-120 is a bear to start
when the temp gets down to zero-ish
Jeff
Jiott,
Your design sounds like something that a person could connect to the traditional jumper cables - meaning a person could get a jump just about anywhere if needed.
Do you happen to have a photo of your installation?
Our S7 would be similar as we have the standard location on the firewall for the primary battery.
I like the idea of no firewall penetration and something that does not interfere with removing the cowl.
Dave, sorry no pictures. Actually right now the cables are not on due to some fooling around I was doing. When I put them back on I will try to remember to take some photos. Actually it is really simple:
I used the same gauge cables as goes to the starter.
Crimped and soldered on the large ring terminals on both ends of the cables.
Sandwiched them under the existing battery cables on the battery posts.
I may move the negative off the battery and connect it to engine ground.
The two cables bend 90 degrees at the battery and come straight down the firewall to a couple inches below it.
The are held in place in a couple places by some rivet-on zip tie anchors.
The large ring terminals on the bottom make an excellent place to clamp on jumper cables or battery charger.
Just make sure you cap off the bottom ends (or spread them far enough apart) so there is no chance of shorting them together when not in use.
That's it folks, super simple.