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<DIV>I am waiting until Li-Ions hit the power tool market. When that happens I am sure that the battery price will go down to be competitive with glow fuel. Charging and discharging issues would be resolved.</DIV>
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<DIV>There is another market there that could help a lot. I work for Johnson Controls. The automotive division is developing Li-Ion batteries for the hybrid vehicles. I am trying to get sponsored but not sure if I can justify. However, I will keep trying to get some free batteries. I hope that size and weight are good for our models.</DIV>
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<DIV>Vicente</DIV>
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<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">-------------- Original message -------------- <BR><BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>Richard</FONT> <BR><BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>I am not a battery expert, but like everyone else on the list that does not stop me from having an opinion about batteries.</FONT> <BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>First, electric airplanes do not exactly drive the battery market,......even if 50% of the FAI finalists use them. No other applications </FONT><BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>that I am aware of uses these batteries in the manner that we attempt, which is that massive current draw. What electric planes do </FONT><BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>to batteries is damaging, as demonstrated by your 25 flights. </FONT> <BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>I would not expect the battery market to develop a battery capable of long life and extreme current draw since no one else uses </FONT><BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>batteries in such a manner.</FONT> <BR><BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2>Invest in bottle of Windex, clean the oil. </FONT><BR><BR><BR><BR><FONT size=2><TT>In fairness to the manufacturers, I don't think they really understood that<BR>guys potentially would go out and fly 50+ flights per week. When I finally<BR>got all my infrastructure charging act together and made time to<BR>practice--which wasn't all that much, I still was clicking along at a 35<BR>flight/week pace right up to our first contest in mid June. As you may<BR>recall, I was using 20C 3200s on a shared cost beta program. At 11 lbs.,<BR>the airplanes were gobbling up 63-68 amps at times and significantly heated<BR>the batteries and shortened their lives. The manufacturer came out with<BR>some 15C 4000s--but there was still the problem of amp draw and heat. The<BR>consensus at that point is the batteries aren't very happy at much over 10C.<BR>The problem I had/have is anything over the smaller batteries was going to<BR>blow the
weight limit--plus, as more information was coming out from some of<BR>the top guys that they were getting around 50-60 flights on the larger<BR>packs. Since I'm not a top dog, I would pretty much have to foot the entire<BR>bill to switch to the larger units. As it appeared to me--the batteries<BR>just aren't quite up to the task for the average guy--so I made an interim<BR>decision to go back to IC for the rest of the season--hoping the battery<BR>guys would come up with something more acceptable for '06.<BR><BR>That didn't pan out very well either, so I was effectively out for the<BR>season. (Lots of other contributing factors also) What I told the battery<BR>manufacturer was what a guy really needs is five sets of batteries(with the<BR>then current stuff) and immediate service for turnaround. Have three sets<BR>for flying and one or two sets traveling to/from.<BR><BR>I'm sold on electric--particularly for a guy with limited practice time. I<BR>could go on and on....<BR><BR>Richard</TT></FONT> <BR><FONT face=sans-serif size=2><BR><BR><BR>Gray Fowler<BR>Principal Chemical Engineer<BR>Composites Engineering</FONT> </BLOCKQUOTE></body></html>