Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2014-2015 - 52

LITHIUM BATTERIES 101
Continued from page 51

And closer to general aviation, Cessna recently halted
use of a lithium main-ship battery in the Citation CJ4 -
after initially planning to certificate four aircraft with batteries using lithium-ion chemistry .
The CJ4, the first business jet certificated with a
lithium-ion battery, is back to using that chemistry, as is
Boeing's 787 - both with redesigned batteries .
But the damage will be slow to overcome .
Offered Winter, "Lithium-ion batteries have gotten
something of a bum reputation because of some of the
issues caused by other chemistries . We want to help our

tery are self-contained, sealed and need no servicing
of the type technicians are familiar with in some leadacid and nickel-cadmium batteries .
A little of everything, from recharging fully-spent
batteries to cranking times to handling uninstalled batteries and assessing their condition varies from the
legacy technologies challenged by Nanophosphate
Lithium-ion chemistry .
"That's the root of the
Lithium Batteries 101 workshops," Slater explained .
The workshops can't help but also highlight the lead taken
Winter added, "Aircraftmaintenance shops will face
by True blue power introducing a broad swath of general
different handling, shipping
and safety issues accompaaviation to the significant advantages that accompany the
nying these new batteries .
We want to give them the
differences in lithium-chemistry batteries.
knowledge they'll need to
handle and maintain the
new chemistry ."
It's a welcome prospect, according to a number of
customers, current and future, to understand the basic
avionics shop owners and managers, since they recsafety and handling concerns and the regulatory issues ."
ognize the lithium-battery revolution came with its fair
While lithium-ion batteries aren't yet standard equipshare of safety and handling issues .
ment in most of general aviation, their time in the muck of
To better serve pilots and aircraft owners, the repair
misunderstanding should soon end thanks to new techshops and staff also need to understand differences
nology and new chemistry that essentially neutralizes the
in damage tolerance the Nanophosphate Lithium-ion
threats demonstrated by other, less-stable, less-attractive
battery designs enjoy, and what can happen from damapproaches to making lithium a popular power source .
aged or broken cells .
And the lack of some positive education about these
"This is all somewhat different from what most
types of batteries could greatly handicap True Blue Powshops are conditioned to expect," Slater explained .
er and acceptance of its new main-ship aircraft batteries .
Early Recognition Reinforced
by Recent Events
Winter and his staff recognized early on that external
events and circumstances would influence both the
perception and acceptance of the new True Blue Power
batteries .
It's not as if lithium-ion batteries have gotten the best
reviews in recent years . Overheating cellphones, toohot-to-use laptop computers and cargo fires traced to
shorted lithium-ion batteries were bad enough on their
own .
But then came the recent grounding of the Boeing
787 Dreamliner after two models suffered fires and failures related to their own advanced lithium-ion batteries .

"We see the potential for a technician other than the
aircraft's primary maintenance people having to deal with
a battery they're not familiar with," Winter explained .
After all - aircraft exist to bring fast, diverse travel solutions to the passengers .
The Safer Solution?
Beyond the issues of shipping lithium-ion batteries,
Boeing's issues with the lithium battery packs on its 787
Dreamliner further elevated concerns about using these
new batteries as aircraft batteries .
True Blue Power's very different Nanophosphate
Lithium-ion chemistry and its different construction technology essentially render those concerns moot - even
for batteries mishandled or mistreated .

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Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2014-2015

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