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Old 25th February 2008 | 17:24
  #89 (permalink)  
wigglyamp
 
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 408
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From: Too close to EASA
Battery powered transponders

I've installed battery-only powered transponders in non-electric aircraft.
A couple of light-weight/low power examples:

Filser TRT800. Weight 570g. Consumption typical 200A.
Becker ATC6401. Weight 800g. Consumption 370mA.

A typical battery used in Tigermoths and many gliders is the Yuasa 6.5A/Hr sealed lead-acid. When operating both a VHF (Becker AR4201) and a transponder, battery life is normally around 5 hours. A new aviation approved Lithium battery is about to be available which doubles the capacity to 13A/hr in the same size case - it's being targeted directly at the glider community.

If you needed to swap the transponders between different aircraft, both of the above units store the aircraft data in non-volatile memory, either in the aircraft mating connector (TRT800), or in a 'dongle' (ATC6401) which plugs into the transponders (same method as many 406 ELT's use), so you don't need to re-programme or risk sending the incorrect Mode S address when you swap units around.
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