JS wrote:
Some people are installing Lithium Ion batteries instead of traditional
Sealed Lead Acid. Your experience?
Any more thoughts on the benefits and dangers of Li-Po?

I've seen a few people use an auxiliary battery (and associated charger)
that was intended to be attached to the bottom of a laptop computer,
which should be fairly safe (ignoring the recent experiences of Dell and
Apple). If one is tempted to roll their own setup, I suggest they
search around for a few videos of shorted or overcharged Li-Po cells,
and ask themselves how many they want in the cockpit near them...

The encoder I used was the ACK. It is small, light, comes with a mount,
and uses little electrical energy.

I don't know about that particular encoder, but some consume very little
energy sitting in a nice warm hangar, but eat a lot more when the
temperature is 0C or below...

If you install a transponder system, it must be turned on for the
duration of each flight. If the glider batteries are running low, I
would suggest contacting ATC and letting them know you need to turn it
off to maintain the rest of your instrument panel. Then they shouldn't
assume you fell out of the sky.

Gliders have a preassigned squawk in the Reno area, and the local ATC
folks are aware that a lot of gliders have limited battery capacity, so
they don't get uptight when we disappear...

Marc