Battery rack in the tail

12 Jan 2005 Battery rack in the tail

Here’s a couple of pictures showing how the battery area behind the baggage compartment looks.

Here is the bottom of the battery tray showing the bolts that hold the brass bar onto the top. This is for the battery ground. If we lose ground, the engine stops, so I want to make sure there is *a lot* of redundancy here.

The brass bar where the battery negative leads attach. I’ve got three bolts going through the battery rack, which itself is attached with 8 AN3 sized Torx screws to nutplates on the baggage compartment ribs. I’ve also got, attached to the middle bolt, another ground strap attached to one of the longerons on the left side of the aircraft. A lot of bad things will have to happen for me to lose ground.

Here’s a shot of the whole assembly. Note that I have made the grounds on the battery using braided ground straps.

Closer shot of the same stuff.

Here is a shot of the left side which clearly shows the left battery bus. This is where I attach stuff that I want to stay on all the time, even if the battery contactor fails, like the ECM and the Left Fuel Pump.

Right battery bus. Note that I’ve installed the starter cable. This is AWG#6 welding cable, and is very flexible, and strong. I tested it’s fire resistance, and with 10 minutes of a heat gun could not get the insulation to light. It did turn brown, but didn’t put out any fumes or ignite.

Left side cable routing. Not much over there.

The right side is where all the action is. I’ve added a couple of more wires for the wingtip lights since this photo was taken.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you see something that you think is not right, or that can be done better. I want this to be the best it can be, and I have no pride of authorship! Flame away!