I've been promising a good neighbor and aviation enthusiast a ride for ages. We finally got together Friday, preflighted, and belted ourselves in, flipped on the master and there wasn't even enough juice to light up the LED warning lights on the panel. Seems I had left my iLevil receiver on and connected to the USB outlet draining every last electron from my battery.
Oh well, just a minor setback, I removed the battery cover, jumped her off and let the alternator charge it for 20 minutes. Put the cover back on, belted up, hit the starter and had enough juice to turn the prop maybe two blades. (The battery's good, but 20 minutes wasn't enough due to the total discharge.)
Has it ever happened to you? Definitely not my first dead battery dilemma. How to jump off the engine without removing the battery cover. I know there are special connectors to do this, but what's wrong with the following?
Sorry for the fuzzy photo. It shows a spare cable from my wiring kit which is attached to the positive battery post. The other end is anchored to the throttle/mixture cables and protected by an insulating boot.
The idea is to push back the boot and attach the positive clamp from the jumper cables to the exposed lug. (The negative clamp will attach to the firewall.) Once the engine starts, disconnect the jumper cables, hand them off to the ground crew, reposition the boot and go fly. John
Oh well, just a minor setback, I removed the battery cover, jumped her off and let the alternator charge it for 20 minutes. Put the cover back on, belted up, hit the starter and had enough juice to turn the prop maybe two blades. (The battery's good, but 20 minutes wasn't enough due to the total discharge.)
Has it ever happened to you? Definitely not my first dead battery dilemma. How to jump off the engine without removing the battery cover. I know there are special connectors to do this, but what's wrong with the following?
Sorry for the fuzzy photo. It shows a spare cable from my wiring kit which is attached to the positive battery post. The other end is anchored to the throttle/mixture cables and protected by an insulating boot.
The idea is to push back the boot and attach the positive clamp from the jumper cables to the exposed lug. (The negative clamp will attach to the firewall.) Once the engine starts, disconnect the jumper cables, hand them off to the ground crew, reposition the boot and go fly. John
Last edited: