EarthX battery for Experimental Aircraft

[Neal]

Can’t wait to put my EarthX in. I believe the SBS-J16 is too weak for this plane. Today had failed first start and second attempt barely turned over. Just came off of weeks on the charger.

 

[Neal]

In talking with Pete from CubCrafters yesterday I inquired about the CubCrafters settings for EarthX battery installs. He sent me the chart below. I'm probably going to modify my values, for example anything above 13.0V in my opinion is in the green band. 12.9 down to around 12.5 will be my yellow band, below 12.5 will be red. I have to check what I already configured and where I set alerts. I'll take a screenshot when I sort this out.

Also in the chat Pete mentioned that simply the voltage alerts in the G3X are sufficient for warnings about the battery health which is great to hear as I bought the battery fault light and don't intend to use it. I agree that voltage values alone should be sufficient to monitor what's going on with the battery.

Here are LiFePO4 battery state of charge which is very different from AGM (lead) batteries.

 

[Cubonaut875]

In talking with Pete from CubCrafters yesterday I inquired about the CubCrafters settings for EarthX battery installs. He sent me the chart below. I'm probably going to modify my values, for example anything above 13.0V in my opinion is in the green band. 12.9 down to around 12.5 will be my yellow band, below 12.5 will be red. I have to check what I already configured and where I set alerts. I'll take a screenshot when I sort this out.

Also in the chat Pete mentioned that simply the voltage alerts in the G3X are sufficient for warnings about the battery health which is great to hear as I bought the battery fault light and don't intend to use it. I agree that voltage values alone should be sufficient to monitor what's going on with the battery.

View attachment 304​

Here are LiFePO4 battery state of charge which is very different from AGM (lead) batteries.

View attachment 305​

That's not even close to what I sent you on my panel. Very interesting indeed

 

[Neal]

That's not even close to what I sent you on my panel. Very interesting indeed

I highly recommend raising your seat and verifying what battery you have installed, make sure you have an EarthX (blue) or a AGM (orange). Based on your production order experience, I don't know what you have under your seat

 

[Neal]

I'm sure I'll be tweaking this more but this is 90% there for what I want for my settings. I wasn't sure how common values worked between two settings. For example should yellow range + alert be 12.7 to 12.9 and the yellow range below it 12.9 to 13.0? The common value of 12.9 is what I'm not sure is right to set or if the values need to be different.

 

[Neal]

Very pleased with the EarthX battery! I had not had it on charge since my last flight a week ago and have been using it throughout the week for my landing light project as well as a long Garmin update yesterday. I went to fly, volts were around 12.8 to 12.9 so that's around 40-50% state of charge. The engine cranked strong and was no issue starting! Impressive. What's also nice is that LiFePO4 batteries can take a higher charge rate, pretty much anything you can throw at it, so the alternator was throwing 20-25A at it so helping it recharge faster than the prior setup. Highly recommend!

 

[Cubonaut875]

I highly recommend raising your seat and verifying what battery you have installed, make sure you have an EarthX (blue) or a AGM (orange). Based on your production order experience, I don't know what you have under your seat

That is an excellent idea. Of course I just came back from the hangar.

 

[Neal]

Tweaked the numbers, looks like if you don't connect the values you will get gaps as I thought. Here's what I'm running with...hopefully for good.

 

[Cubonaut875]

Stopped at the Hangar and checked my battery, definitely an Earth X battery. I'm curious, did you take a picture of your config settings before you changed them with the Earth X battery. I'm curious if my battery is config'd to the standard battery.

 

[Neal]

 

[Cubonaut875]

Looks like my Config is set to a non Earth-X battery. Email headed to Pete. Thanks Neal!

 

[Neal]

Looks like my Config is set to a non Earth-X battery. Email headed to Pete. Thanks Neal!

I asked Pete when on the phone with him and mentioned I didn't think your numbers were right that you sent me. He felt the GDU replacement should not have affected them. Anyhooo, here is what he emailed me when I asked him for the numbers for EarthX. Click here for the post.

 

[Neal]

Follow up on my EarthX ETX-900 experience.

Absolutely love this battery! Yesterday I flew, it's been two weeks since the last flight. I did an avionics update prior to flying without being on the charger, I have not used the charger for a while now. So two weeks and avionics update, I was concerned if I would be able to turn over the prop to start. On the prior SBJ-J16 it would definitely struggle. Yesterday - nope. Strong start, no concerns whatsover.

Also, very happy with the settings I'm using for voltages.

Highly recommend switching to EarthX!

 

[Neal]

One of the issues with LiFePO4 batteries is the temperature constraints which mainly applies to charging which is more restrictive. The BMS within the battery "should" prevent charging when outside these parameters. While temps typically don't get too cold here in VA, which I'm now proven wrong as it's 19F as I type this, ouch, I did wrap my battery in a thermal wrap I found on Amazon that people use on car batteries. The temp in the hangar doesn't typically get down to OAT but it could be a problem.

My RV (motorhome) has a bank of LiFePO4 batteries (4 x Victron 330ah) and the installer offered an option to put a heating pad around them that they get custom made. It's a small 12V drain that provides a small amount of heat, actually they can get quite hot, so there is a relay that is used paired to a Ruvee bluetooth temperature sensor that controls the on/off of the heating. It only takes a few minutes to heat the pads and then it turns off and that residual heat keeps the batteries warm for quite a period of time. I think aircraft with LiFePO4 batteries will need to consider the same type of setup, just like we have engine pre-heaters, owners should consider some type of battery heating as well if using LiFePO4 batteries such as EarthX. Someone could/should probably reach out to EarthX to suggest they offer something like this and some LiFePO4 batteries such as Battleborn actually have heaters built in which would probably be a better solution.

 

[spusmc]

Stopped at the Hangar and checked my battery, definitely an Earth X battery. I'm curious, did you take a picture of your config settings before you changed them with the Earth X battery. I'm curious if my battery is config'd to the standard battery.

View attachment 312View attachment 313View attachment 314

Looking at this you have the leads on the right side of the plane not forward correct? Mine came with the connections facing forward from CC. Is that an extension for the ground? Seems like that would be much easier to connect the wires than having them facing forward. Mine are forward with the same battery and currently one set of leads to jump but not trickle charge. Needless to say trying to connect the wires with the battery facing forward more of less kicked my a$$.