EarthX Batteries STC's approved / pending - LIFePO4 battery Chemistry

[XeVision]

They have a large list of STC's pending, Diamonds are not on the list, not sure why. Some from here should contact them to push for all Diamond aircraft models to be added as well. These are great batteries, great cranking performance and longevity, they are well protected from over charge and over discharge. I use this battery type in my Glasair about 5 years now. They are also **VERY MUCH** lighter weight than ANY/EVERY type of lead acid battery.
Other than also using their products, I have no other connection to this company. They do offer both 12/14 and 24/28 VDC batteries with different capacities/sizes for each Voltage. I won't EVER go back to a Lead battery of any kind.
Note: Mike and Mark Patey both use them in their aircraft.

https://earthxbatteries.com/list-of-stcs/

https://earthxbatteries.com/wp-content/ ... signed.pdf

[mhoran]

I reached out and got the following response:

The Diamond aircraft owners must have recently been discussing this as we have many people reaching out with the same question as you. We have not updated our STC list to reflect what aircraft are on our list to pursue next as working with the FAA is challenging at best and the 24V aircraft has a long list of potential aircraft but providing a timeline is tough as we are at their mercy. Diamond aircraft is on our list, and we are hopeful that in the next 6 months we will have the STC, but again, we are at the FAA's mercy. We are 2 years in process at this point to receive any 24V aircraft STC's but once we attain the first one, the rest shouldn't (in theory) be far off in attaining.

Very exciting!

[Rich]

I've used one of their batteries in my motorcycle (Yamaha FJR1300) for 10 years. Comments:
- Cold cranking amps diminish by quite a bit in subfreezing temperatures. The fix is to start with one that has significant excess to begin with.
- It has a built-in battery management system (BMS) to prevent over-discharge damage. If it gets discharged sufficiently the BMS will disable it entirely, such that it will show zero volts to a voltmeter. Some chargers will not detect the battery is there and won't start recharging. You have to kick-start the process by providing voltage to the terminals, after which the charging proceeds normally without further ado. This situation does not damage the battery unless it has been sitting for an extremely long time in this state.
- You can't use the Concorde-specific BatteryMinder or any other tender with de-sulfation cycling. But there are a variety of "regular" tenders that would suffice.
- The health of charge of lithium batteries in general can not be judged by voltage alone. They tend to show close to full voltage until just before they shut down.

I did a what-if for my plane. It would reduce empty weight by 22.2 lb. (down to ~1677 lb.) and move the empty CG from 95.51 to 96.15 in. The rearward CG move is somewhat helpful to me but might not be so helpful to those with 50-gal tanks and more rearward CG's already. For DA40NGs, the CG would move forward, though I haven't done any calculations by how much.

[Boatguy]

It would be nice for the 62 which is made nose heavy by the TKS fluid and radar.