![]() The optimum bus voltage varies a little with ambient temperature, as shown in the table at right.The solid-state voltage regulators installed in most of our aircraft are capable of holding bus voltage constant within a few tenths of a volt, and of varying the voltage slightly to compensate for temperature. If you don’t, it’ll leave you stranded in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. They simply can’t stand the kind of abuse - either physical or electrical - that car batteries seem to shrug off without even noticing.If you treat it right, your aircraft battery should provide three to five years of reliable service (and some owners do even better). ![]() Their plates are comparatively thin, fragile and closely spaced. Their capacity is quite low compared to automotive batteries. They’re built to be lightweight and compact. Automotive batteries are big, heavy, hell-for-stout brutes that can take this kind of licking and keep on ticking.But aircraft batteries aren’t Die-Hards. Perhaps we check the battery’s electrolyte level once a year at annual (if we don’t forget) between annuals, it’s out of sight and out of mind.Then, after five or six years of faithful service, we curse them when they refuse to start the engine on a brisk, winter, Sunday morning in Cold-As-Hell, N.D., when there’s not a mechanic or battery cart anywhere on the field.We learned most of these bad habits from our experience with automobiles. We fail to check our aircraft bus voltage regularly, and allow it to drift too high or too low. ![]() We deep-discharge them by forgetting to turn off the master switch and then jump-start our airplane to go flying, subjecting the battery to a punishing rate of charge. We let them sit unused for weeks at a time and then expect them to crank our engine. Batteries are the Rodney Dangerfields of aviation: They get no respect.
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