Neal Alders wrote on 10/13/2020 10:56 AM:
Thanks for that link. Price is decent, under a $100 for a 10 amp hour battery. I think I could easily over double that capacity with a couple power tool batteries in the same cubic space, however, the cost would be 4 times that.

LiPo tech has come a Looooooong way in the last 5 years. I cannot recall hearing about a LiPo combusting during use in a long time. Even at the ultra high amp draws I use in my chop saw, the batteries dont even get warm.

I was always anti-battery power tool until my first Milwaukee impact driver/hammer drill set 2 years ago. I have spent the last year renovating my house and upgrading all my tools. I am nearly 100% cordless now. I just had a wild idea that perhaps some of this new battery tech can come the way of soaring. I wasn't sure if anyone else was out there doing it.

Instrument power is easily and cheaply solved with several brands of LiFe 12 volt batteries.
What we'd really like to see is better batteries for electric sailplanes (aka "traction
batteries"), specially more energy/mass and lower cost. Smaller would be useful, too, but not
nearly so much.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1