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TCW Integrated Battery Backup Experiences?

ColoRv

Well Known Member
TCW Battery Backup Experiences?

I've had my IBBS from TCW for about 16 months. It's been flying for 20 hours now. During the construction phase, I kept it connected to my main battery and kept both charged.

My startup procedure is to turn on the IBBS system to boot the Garmin system while I put on seatbelts etc. Last flight (flight number 12 or so) the Garmin system was shutting down before I even got my seatbelts on. After the flight I performed a test on the IBBS to see how long it would keep the Garmin two screens and ADAHARS up....about one minute later it started shutting down. I checked the wiring first and all is as it should be so called TCW and sent it back. They said I had a bad cell, charged me $107 and it's in the mail back to me now.

My question is, how often will I have to do this? The lifespan seems awfully short and during flight the efis showed no issue with the backup battery other than a slightly increased voltage at startup which TCW says is indicative of the charging circuit doing its thing. I wouldn't have known the battery was useless if I hadn't tested it...which sorta negates the reason for carrying its weight around.

Anyone else have any experience with this system? I find myself wondering if I wouldn't have been better off installing a standard battery in it's place. Certainly cheaper. I could have bought an odyssee for what this repair cost and if the lifespan of a nickel metal-hydride battery is this short.....why bother?
 
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Bill,
I have been flying with my TCW for almost 2 years now, backing up my G3X.
So far it's been flawless. Of course I haven't tested it, so who knows.
 
TCW Battery

Hi Bill
I've had the TCW IBBS backup battery for about 3 1/2 years. For the first two years I did nothing so naturally my battery went dead. I sent it back and paid to get it fixed. When they sent me the repaired unit , I also ordered a charger for this battery. So every two months for the rest of my build I would charge the battery. So far I have about 90 hrs on the plane. When I go flying I turn on the IBBS system and it starts my 2 G3X's while I'm getting ready to start the engine . So far it's working the way it's suppose to. I didn't fly for about two months ,Feb and March and the battery went dead. Quick charge and it was back to normal. I fly about two hrs a week.
Russel Koch
RV9A
Flying and what a wonderful plane
 
Russel, what discharged it during the down time?

I think you and Joe may want to turn them on to see how long they will run your system. My repaired one arrived today and I intend to test it fairly often from now on.
 
I have the IBBS and works great but some times when i dont fly over a week or two the battery lost his charge so i use the ibbs wall charger and the battery gets charged fully again.
On Osh i ask TCW people for the life time of the battery and they told me that it has about 2 or 3 years, then you have to change the battery sending the unit.

I think i will wait until the new Li-Fe-PO4 6ah were available to change mi 4 ah NI-MH old one.

You have to full charge the battery and make a test with the equipment on. If you have less than 30 min you have to change the bat.
 
Bill,

I had exactly the same experience as you. Mine sat while I rebuilt the engine and never took a charge again. Sent it to them and $105 later it's sitting in my office waiting to go back in the plane.
 
What should I be doing?

I have had my IBBS battery about 9 months now while I am in the final build process. Ever few months I turn on the master and IBBS with a small charger on the main battery for an hour or so. From what I read this should charge the IBBS battery.

Should I be doing something different?
 
iBBS

I have an RV10 with G3X backed up by an iBBS. I use mine on every flight for startup. I have had mine for four years now and it still is working great. I just did a conditonal inspection and tested the iBBS. It backed up my two screens for almost an hour. If I'm still in the air that long I should receive the Darwin award. I have been really happy with mine and recommend it as a back up and for start up. I'm also looking forward to the 3 ah Lifepo for my SuperSTOL.
 
When I wired my unit up I connected a trickle charge wire thru a 1 amp breaker. Isn't that adequate to keep the unit charged, as long a the main battery holds an adequate charge?
 
I have 2.5 years flying and 360 hrs on mine. I've never done anything special to charge it. I always power on with the IBBS first, verify function of all items powered via the IBBS, then turn on the main bus and start up.

I have done a capacity test at each annual with all items powered via the IBBS only (Autopilot, GNS430W Nav, Trutrak ADI). I stop the test after an hour, never had a problem making the hour during the two annuals performed to date.

I had two problems during the build, both of which were fixed with no charge:

1. I failed to charge it for a long time when I was building and the charge got so low that I couldn't charge it, I sent it back and Bob sent me a new one when that happened. This was a design issue with the early models that has since been corrected as I recall.

2. I inadvertently shorted it briefly probing some pins on a harness not realizing it was powered on when I was building and blew an internal fuse; the internal fuse was not user serviceable. I sent it back and got it fixed for no charge. I can't remember for sure but I think that it was redesigned to make the internal fuse user serviceable and I got an updated model.

I have found Bob to be very fair and very easy to deal with.
 
Trickle charge function

Regarding the question of the trickle charge wire, This connection provides a very small current to the IBBS unit to overcome self discharge currents. It does not provide any significant charging of the battery, but instead keeps it in a condition to accept a full charge from the fast change function associated with the power applied via pin 1. Pin 1 is the main power connection to the product and provides fast charge current as well as main bus voltage sensing for the auto transfer function. For a discharged battery, the recharge time can be 90-120 minutes. Lastly, the product does not have an internal low voltage discharge limiter. That is, if you let it run the connected equipment down to full discharge you can reduce the battery's life. We did this on purpose as we wanted to ensure that during emergency use every last joule of energy is available to run the connected equipment without regard for future battery cycles.

Bob Newman
TCW technologies
Www.tcwtech.com

RV-10 N541RV.
 
internal short

24 months used as one of my standby for 2 out of my 3 G3X, and a GNS650 - then the main PC680 battery was dead one day. An internal short in the TCW had created an excessive draw. Replaced and all good. You need a battery tender on your main battery to keep the constant charging of the TCW battery from drawing it dead in about 30 days. Required annual testing procedures are in the manual for reliability/airworthiness. They recommend not going below 9.5 volts, so not sure just leaving on for an hour is quite desired?
 
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Wait...

In order to properly test autonomy of the very small and low power IBBS battery you must be sure to remove the feed from pin 6.

If you don't, the screens will recieve "feed through" power from the main ship battery.

Many people wire pins 1 & 6 in parallel. This essentially puts both batteries in parallel and you will never fully see or test autonomy of the IBBS without disconnecting pin 6 or depleting the main ship battery.

I have little faith in the small cells within the IBBS, but do like the circuitry within the unit. My plan is to keep the IBBS but export the battery leads out of the box to a remotely located, equally sized fire alarm battery.

I know of another RV who has done this and no smoke was produced!

:cool: CJ
 
What does the vendor recommend for battery maintenance with plane stored and not operated for a week, a month, three months?
 
780 hrs and 5.5 yrs on my unit with no issues since I started flying. Test at every annual and exceeds 45 minutes powering autopilot, GNS430W, and ADI. I fly at least once every 2 weeks. For me, this has been one of those pieces of equipment that you don't think about because it just works - I wish everything was like that!
 
TCW Integrated Battery

I have a IBBS-12v-3ah (Lithium Iron Phosphate) Have it connected to dual GRT Sport HS EFIS displays and GRT External A-429 module. The Sport EFIS PFD takes 2 minutes to align and the backup battery keeps it powered during start. Prior to installing it, the PFD would reset when the starter was engaged and the the alignment would restart once the engine was running.

I enable the back up battery before starting engine and turn it off at end of the flight. Have been flying with it for past 100 hours and it has worked with no issues. I monitor the backup battery voltage on the EFIS via the checklist menu and the battery voltage is about 12.4 VDC when airplane hasn't flown in 7 or 10 days and it is usually about 12.75 VDC after flying for 45 min or hour. Haven't bothered to perform a load test on it but so far it has been flawless.
 
Im just installing full twin screen G3x G5 ..GTN 650 etc in my RV14 and have back up Alternator. My reason for installing a TCW box is more to provide power before start up than serious emergency power...so Im reckoning only on the smaller 3 amp unit rather than the 6.
That will be sufficient.........wont it? Thanks!
 
IBBS selections:

You need to select the right IBBS product based on total current consumption. List out the equipment you want to include on the back-up battery, then add up all the currents and compare this against the product ratings. If you are adding the GTN650 you need to decide if you are just backing up the GPS/display portion or also the Comm portion. The Comm portion requires quite a bit of current during transmit. Generally, when customers include the transmit portion of these type of navigators we recommend that they go to the 6ah unit.

Current ratings:

IBBS-12v-3ah 5 amps continuous, 10 amps peak for transmissions
IBBS-12v-6ah 8 amps continuous, 12 amps peak for transmissions


Bob
TCW Technologies
 
If all you are looking for is to have your EFIS screens stay on during startup, consider installing the TCW power stabilizer instead of the backup battery. Simple installation, weighs almost nothing, and maintenance free.

Erich
 
Batteries gone bottoms up.

Had one of these units.. Batteries after a while would not hold a charge... Ripped them out -- guess what -- 10 rechargeable 1.2v batteries... REALLY !!! And the cost of replacement if one goes bottoms up, is what ???

Replaced the whole unit with a sealed lead-acid battery between the sub-panel and the firewall... Designed to function as everyone else is using for a G3X system.

1/10 th price and 100% more reliable. Maybe my batteries were just unfortunately a bad lot - as it seems some have greater luck..
 
Since I posed this question 5 years ago, I thought I should give an update. As my original post said, the first unit failed pretty quickly, the second has been going ever since without issue. I fly IFR so I test this system fairly often. Still going strong.
 
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