Marco Leon wrote:
I have a common problem of possessing a Tanis heater in my Warrior but
no electrical source by which to run it.

You may have already read this thread, but if not, you might find
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...e8d8cc0078d41b
and in particular
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...46b39f6df7c857
where I went through the math on sizing the battery.

As to what kind of battery: If I wanted to do this and money was no
object, I'd go with a gel-cell/absorbed-glass-mat battery, plus a decent
charger to go with it. The gel-cell battery is more expensive, but has
the redeeming feature that if you tip it over, acid doesn't go everywhere.
A "decent" charger probably means a microprocessor-controlled one with a
setting for gel-cell batteries - they should be charged a little
differently than a flooded battery. If you overcharge a gel-cell with a
cheap charger, you can't (usually) add water to the battery to fix it.

If I wanted to do it on the cheap, I'd probably go to Wal-Mart and buy
their big yellow "deep cycle" flooded lead-acid battery and whatever
cheap 6 or 10 amp charger they sell. You have to be more careful when
handling a flooded battery, and the cheap charger means that you have to
remember to shut off the charger yourself. But, if you do accidentally
overcharge the battery, you can add distilled water to the battery to
make up for what you boiled off.

Whatever you do, DON'T leave out the fuse between the battery and the
inverter. Batteries can deliver a whole lot of energy in a hurry and
that's probably something you don't want happening around your airplane.

Matt Roberds