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I started my Annual Inspection today (#17 on this airplane). Planning on replacing the VM-1000 battery and the Emergency battery, and completing the spar carry through AD while the plane is apart. Hopefully, nothing else shows up. Got the engine and prop portions of the inspection checklist done today.

One topic we were discussing in Arnaud's recent Alternator thread was the question of battery temperature, so I decided to do a little research project:
I'll look at it again during the next time I have the cowling off after the Annual is done. Since it is Summer in S. Texas, I should get an idea of the maximum temperature the battery sees during operation (and charging).

Hi Steve,

Very good idea, I will do the same. Do you think that this range of temperature is appropriate or better to put 2 or 3 witness stickers with different range?

Let us know the results.

Arnaud.

You can get different ranges, but I wanted to try this range first, as it seemed the most likely to cover the expected maximum.

Hi Steve, at what interval you replacing the VM battery? I did it 2015 when it died - bought the 2003 DA40 in 2009, have no idea if it was replaced before.

Thomas wrote: ↑Sat Jun 05, 2021 5:35 am Hi Steve, at what interval you replacing the VM battery? I did it 2015 when it died - bought the 2003 DA40 in 2009, have no idea if it was replaced before.

Every ten years. This will be the second replacement on my airplane.

For the VM-1000 battery are you talking about the chip or backup battery. Mine is 2002 and when they changed the backup battery it lost the total hours in the VM-1000. Luckily they had the hours and we could re-enter them. If it is the chip where can you get those?

It is the chip (which contains the memory battery):

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/det ... f2b8a40c87

There is a procedure in the VM-1000 manual to re-enter the tach hours.

Awesome! Thank you!

So, back to the Annual. Today I was going to lift the airplane to clean and grease the wheel bearings. Well, one of my hydraulic jacks wouldn't work. I don't know why, they are Chinese junk that is only 19 years old...

Luckily, I had the foresight to buy rebuild kits for them a couple of years ago, so while I was doing other stuff on the airplane, I drained the oil out of them and I will work on rebuilding them over the next couple of days. I've never rebuilt a hydraulic jack, but I have the exploded parts diagram, so it hopefully won't be too hard to expand my horizons.

I have a pair of Meyers A5 jacks of indeterminate age - likely far older than my plane. I use them every time I want to add air to the tires or work with tires/wheel bearings. One of them, after raising the plane, will very slowly lower it. But they have these locking collars, so for now not a big deal. I do have overhaul kits I've been too lazy to install.