Pro cell batteries

and check then while loaded down, also

It's not just the voltage that may be a problem with the batteries. One condition you want to check for is how do the individual cells within the battery make contact with each other. If the battery cells are not hard contact welded or soldered, they are prone to lose contact due to G forces. Take one of the batteries apart and check for the condition. If the contact connection method between cells is present, use the batteries for your home smoke detectors. Perfectflite @ the following address, sells a nickel hydride battery and charger:

The battery internal cells are hardwired together. I have been using a set of these batteries for about 6 months, with a dozen or so flights in Perfectflite, Transolve, and BlackSky Altac units and they work fine. Also, I'm sure there are other batteries that will fit the bill to.

Fred

JAO6469 wrote:

Were these batteries powering both the altimeter AND the charges?

Doug

If they show 9 volts or over on the Fluke voltage tester, I use them. Hundreds of flights, never a failure due to battery voltage.

Notice, I do not address failures due to "Kurt is a dumbass syndrome", only those for which I could blame a battery.

What altimeter? I know a gwiz will do that with one battery.

The bigger, (or more you like) the rocket, the more redundancy you need.

I try to set up altimeters with separate "pyro" and "CPU" batteries whenever possible. It's possible with some but not all models. (The G-wiz LC series are particularly well adapted to two-battery operation.)

-dave w

Not suprising, as it is a "neccesity" with the Gwiz. Although I remember now that it's behavior is a little different, as it will blow both charges if the voltage is low, so you get to walk instead of dig.

Just about my favorite piece of electronics. The standard works fine as a backup with one battery for a redundant apogee event.

Hello Jim,

Over in the live sound production group, they don't use Pro Cells--The don't cut the muster to power wireless mics during a show compared to the other batteries available.

Just curious but what kind of load was on the battery when you measured it?

Sorry to hear about the dart...

Andy

What kind of batteries do they use for the mics?

I was using a Perfect Flite MAWD, it was in its 12th flight. This was a fresh battery. No biggie, just finished most of the repairs on it now, and have the booster section to go, 3 of the 8 fins to re-epoxy, and 1 of the lower fins to replace. Its ok, the season is basically ended here so it gives me time to tidy up the fleet, so to speak. Plus im building a new Chubsy, stretched up another

Hello Phil,

Oddly enough, a popular battery amongst those folks is the duracell copper clad changed out every set. Most of their wireless gear doesn't degrade gracefully. We had a unit that somehow missed it's battery swap out and the results were flat out ugly. We've got oodles of half used batteries stacked on the shelf that the performers refuse to use !?!?!?!?!

I recall reading a Consumer Reports that for steady draw applications, plain old alkalines are fine but for periodic high current pulls (i.e. camera flashes) the Duracell Ultra was the best but that was about five (?) years ago...

Take care, Andy

Thanks for the info. I've been using the Duracells sucessfully for a long time.