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Want Battery Recommendation for Rotax 503

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Victor Bravo

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2014
Messages
13,443
Location
KWHP, Los Angeles CA, USA
I figure I can find a few people here who might share their expertise, success, failure, and/or warnings. A LOT of you guys know a hell of a lot more about electrons and amperes and charge rates and voltmeters than I do. By volume, the majority of the aircraft I've owned and operated were powered by rubber bands...

I want to buy a battery to install in my RidgeRunner project. It has a pretty standard Rotax 503 DCDI in it. I have used Odyssey batteries with great success (PC680 in my Cessna, PC545 in my HKS Kolb), and I know they are a very high performance / high quality option. But they're certainly not the least expensive girl in the ho-house.

I found several other types of batteries that ALSO say "sealed lead acid" and "AGM" in the descriptions, at 60-70% of the cost of the Odyssey.

I found some Lithium batteries that are a LOT lighter than the Odyssey, within fifty bucks of the Odyssey price.

Has anyone here used the "Motobatt" brand, the "Aerovoltz" brand, etc. etc. who can offer some guidance?

The Odyssey I would use for this is probably the PC545. I KNOW that is a good battery. What I don't know is if the "sealed lead acid AGM' battery from Motobatt and/or other cheaper brands is good, bad, almost as good, horrible, etc.

I also do not have any experience with the super whiz-bang Lithium "Aerovolt" or "Anti-Gravity" units.

My FIRST choice is to buy something that works every bit as good as the Odyssey, and costs half as much because the brand name is different. But I don't know if that is reality or not.

If the Motobatt and other competitors to Odyssey are crap and not worth the price difference... then my SECOND choice would be to learn whether the lighter lithium batteries are really as user friendly, low-maintenance, safe, abuse-tolerant, etc. as the Odyssey.

All advice is welcome.
 
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