There is a relay for the EPU in the DA40 too. See page 7-37 in the AFM. The relay is powered by the third pin (the smaller one) of the EPU Cessna type plug.gsontheimer wrote:Yes, there is a relais for the EPU as well, if I remember that correctly. But not in the DA40. And there is nothing in the flight manual about jump starting or starting from an EPU. So if the battery is low because of a long winter, what do you do? Just turn on the master switch, plug in an external battery in parallel, and crank the propellor with the starter, then, after the engine runs, unplug the external battery?Steven wrote:I'm not sure if it is the same in a DA40, but you definitely can jump start a DA20 from the EPU. There is a procedure for it in the flight manual. I did it a couple weeks ago.
I bought a jump plug at Aircraft Spruce. If you want to start the engine with a flat battery, you just hook the external battery to the jump, switch Battery on and start.
I use it mainly for avionics supply with a CTEK 24V charger I bought from accubat.fr. You just need to plug the external power and all the avionics starts. You don't need to have the battery switched on.
There is also a charging mode. I tried to get it on this afternoon (it was the first time since november that I could reach the hangar, too much snow) but I couldn't get it work allright. I didn't have time enough to sort the problem today. I will do that this WE. Normally, with the Battery switched on and the Battery Breaker pulled off it should work and I could leave the charger plugged as long as I want (like the Battery Minder). There is also a temperature sensor for current regulation.
The Battery Minder requires a hard wiring. I guess it requires a shop sign off.