Odyssey battery in old-style battery box?

[jbagley]

Has anyone done this? Or would it be better to install a new battery box on the firewall?

I have the old style battery box installed in the cockpit. All the connections are setup for the battery there. Moving it would be difficult so i'm inclined to modify that box to fit the odyssey pc680.

Thanks!

 

[Sam Buchanan]

Has anyone done this? Or would it be better to install a new battery box on the firewall?

I have the old style battery box installed in the cockpit. All the connections are setup for the battery there. Moving it would be difficult so i'm inclined to modify that box to fit the odyssey pc680.

Thanks!

James, my RV-6 had the original box with the Concord battery. When I upgraded to the PC680, the battery was moved to the firewall. This simplified wiring and kept all the fat wires firewall forward.

Many planes have been upgraded to the PC680 in the old box by adding some blocks of wood or foam to hold the smaller battery in place.

 

[L.Adamson]

I have wood & some nylon (I believe), strips in mine. Would be much too hard to move in my slider, and no room on the firewall, anyway.

L.Adamson --- RV6A

 

[fl-mike]

I made some space fillers from Ethafoam and used a couple of blobs of RTV to hold them in place.

 

[asav8tor]

Don't use fillers that support combustion.

 

[L.Adamson]

Don't use fillers that support combustion.

Happily, my wood fillers are in a metal box with a metal top, as that's the old RV6 design. My main concern was to use fillers that don't support electrical current.

L.Adamson --- RV6A

 

[Rick6a]

I would go the modification route as opposed to moving the battery box to the firewall and then dealing with all the complications that would surely entail.

During construction of my 2000 vintage standard kit RV-6A, the Odyssey battery became available. I mounted the PC-680 in the kit supplied battery box and installed it between the rudder pedals, per plans. Because the Odyssey is one half the width of a standard size battery and had room to spare, I took advantage of the extra space by mounting the master relay in the box alongside it. You can't make a shorter wiring run than that! Not shown in the photo is the battery box cover. At key locations inside the cover and using RTV, I bonded blocks of balsa inside to help keep the battery immobile and isolate its positive terminal from potentially shorting out against the box cover such as *might* occur during inverted flight. Also, notice the small length of angle stock I riveted to the bottom of the box to further restrict the battery. The arrangement has worked well and has proven trouble free for over 5 years.

 

[rich]

battery box

James,
I did the exact same thing as Rick 6 years ago and no problems.

 

[Tschell]

Odyssey

I enlarged my batt box by about 1/2 inch in width and moved one hinge on bottom and put 2 Odyssey batts in there. I now have 2 master solenoids and 2 master switches.(Ever left the master on? Embarassing when you go to start it the next day.) That extra batt comes in handy. It is wired similar to Klaus' Lightspeed drawing so it serves as a backup to the dual Lightspeed ignition.

 

[f117fte]

finally upgraded to Odyssey also

I upgraded to the Odyssey and installed it in my old battery box for my
RV-6A last spring 2010.

Mercedes
RV-6A