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Anything 063 and under I use a older heavy sheet metal break. Anything over that thickness I use a hydraulic press that I made from a bottle jack with some heat from a oxygen acetylene torch.
063 and under I bend cold and properly oriented perpendicular to grain. I was looking at the earth and odyssey batteries. I have used odyssey sealed batteries in my last 2 aircraft. The first one I used lasted 15 years. Thanks for the suggestion. I think I am going to keep battery and bracket on passenger side under seat and use battery laying on its size.
We use batteries with all of the different lithium chemistry at work and found that they all have reduced performance below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Our solution is to do one of two things to work around this problem, we either run them at a partial load for about 60-90 seconds before going to full load to increase cell temperature or put patch heaters on the batteries to warm them above 40 degrees. So if you live in a cold climate and have a heavy load on the battery I would stay with the SJ16.
Just my observation using lithium batteries over the past 20 years.
Thanks, didn't know that. Yes I'm in northern Ohio by Lake Erie and we get some cold temps. I do like the Odyssey batteries. My Sport trainer has one under the instrument panel at a 45 degree angle, because I have a small header take up front with wing tanks. I appreciate the advice.
Yeah, EarthX recommends you run an electrical load (I run all my lights and avionics) for about a minute, then let the battery sit for a couple minutes with no load before cranking in cold temps. I run an EarthX and I've done their cold-temp method a few times on cross-countries down to about 15 deg F, and afterward the engine cranks over very quickly.
EDIT: I just checked their website and now all I can find is this, which is directed at cranking a snowmachine at temps below 0 deg F:
What is unique about a lithium battery is you can warm the internal components by simply trying to start your vehicle. Do not try starting your vehicle for more than 10 seconds per minute as that is not good for your vehicle or battery, but after attempting to start the vehicle, wait one minute, try again. Depending on the amount of warming up needed to get the desired cranking amps, the amount of times needed to do this varies.
I got the plates and brackets for the brake master cylinders made and welded in. I cleaned up and epoxy primed all the bare steel parts on the fuselage and related rudder parts. While this was all drying I cut out patterns for the instrument panel and firewall. I then cut out and formed the steel parts for the solenoid mounts, mixture, throttle, and primer mounts. Along with the gear and wing strut fittings. The 4 U brackets for the gear attachment were already made and came with the wag aero fuselage kit. I welded in the primer, throttle, mixture, solenoid brackets. I also welded the inner spacers on the landing gear fittings.