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Rusty, I may be completely wrong, but the load testers do
basically the same thing more conveniently. You might wait for hours for
the EC-2 and a couple fuel pumps to pull the battery down far enough to be
meaningful. The load testers will flow big current and is already attached
to a voltmeter. Hook it up and know how healthy the battery is in only a
few minutes.
The load tester will
give a general idea of the health of the battery perhaps, but then you'd have to
do some other tests to find out how long your engine can run on a healthy
battery. Then you have to try to adjust that time for a "semi, and
"not so" healthy battery. What you end up with is an estimate.
Wouldn't it be better to be able to do the test directly, and know how long it
will really last? I sure wish it would be hours as you suggest, but I'm
figuring I'd better be on the ground somewhere in about 20 minutes.
I've thought about tying
the plane up, and running it at a fairly high (whatever I can cool on the
ground) power setting with the alternator off, to see how long it will
run. The only problem is that I think my hanger neighbors would
string me up by the naughty bits if I did that. I'd probably have to go to
the other side of the airport, where I'd only irritate the folks in the park
next door.
Cheers,
Rusty (about to order
some parts finally)
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