Rich, great advice. I reinstalled my cover awhile thinking "there must be a reason for it" ( such a genius here! ) and have rec ently been opening the oil filler door after flight. It is amazing the heat dissipating. Thanks again.

To help deal with battery heat I do a few things.

1. Make sure the scat tube that provides inflight cooling air to the battery enclosure is in good shape - no holes or kinks in it.
2. Keep the battery cover installed. It's possible to mount the battery without it and it's tempting to do so, since it makes battery access easier. But the cover routes that cooling air along the sides of the battery. This air plus the cover itself provides an impediment to heat from the engine reaching the battery.
3. Especially in hot weather, open the dipstick access port after flying to allow residual heated air to escape from the engine accessory area.

The BatteryMinder adjusts float voltage based on ambient air temperature. They used to supply a temperature probe intended to mount to the battery itself, but it was really inconvenient to use. So the current models have a probe attached to a dongle protruding from the BM itself. This works fine, even though in some cases it's not precisely accurate in that first hour or so after returning to the hangar.

Heat is the battery killer. I put my atv in a steel shipping container last summer. Battery was dead in a couple of weeks. Will not make that mistake again.

I usually get anywhere between 5 and 6 years out of mine, on a BatteryMinder. Before I started using it, I would get 3-4 years. Lots of heat here in S. TX, probably doesn't help battery life...

Wow, 10 years is a good run. Not sure how the Concorde battery minder is any different than the Gill minder. In any case Mike Busch thinks the Concorde is a better battery and I pretty well follow his advice on most topics. I am going on about 5 years now on my Concorde. Gill lasted 2 years.

I tried to order an oil filter from Spruce. They’re back ordered until October. I checked 2 FBOs and both of them have filters in stock. One of them is changing my oil and filter tomorrow.

dant wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 7:38 pm FWIW my local shop was able to get a Concorde without issue a week or so ago. Arrived in ~4 days - this was with Spruce being sold out. Might be worth asking your local place.

Sourcing options in Canada are more limited...

FWIW my local shop was able to get a Concorde without issue a week or so ago. Arrived in ~4 days - this was with Spruce being sold out. Might be worth asking your local place.

Charles wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 1:51 pm Given that my Battery Minder is supposedly specifically designed for the Concorde, would it do more harm than good to keep using it with the Gill battery?

Possibly. Is the Gill an RGM? I'd check with the BatteryMinder folks

So my Concorde RG24-15M battery that was saved by the Battery Minder a few years ago and was still running strong and even passed a load test at last year's annual with flying colors suddenly died on me. It did a fine job cranking the engine in the morning for a 40-minute flight and there was no Low Voltage warning during the flight that would indicate a failed alternator, but when we switched on the Master for our return flight, the voltage was so low it wouldn't even power up the Davtron voltmeter (2002 model). And of course this had to happen in a pretty remote place (CSH2).

I suspect an internal short within the almost 10-year old battery. I went to order a replacement but the Concordes are backordered until late November at Aircraft Spruce, so I ordered a Gill instead.

Given that my Battery Minder is supposedly specifically designed for the Concorde, would it do more harm than good to keep using it with the Gill battery?