"fuse" in Instruments, Probes and Leads

I just installed my EarthX battery in my aircraft and started the engine and my charging amps was really high, is this normal?

Yes, this is normal. A lithium battery can and will accept a much higher charging current than an equal size lead acid battery. If your battery is not fully charged, your alternator can potentially output a current equal to or slightly above the alternator’s rating for a few minutes to top the battery off. Your fuse, breaker, or current limiting device should be sized approximately 20% above the alternator rating. Example, if you have a 40 amp alternator, use a fuse, breaker, current limiter set to 48 amps (or 50 amps).

What's in the box?

1. SureFly Ignition Module (SIM)
2. Power wire harness (84" long 14ga. wire with inline fuse holder, 10A fuse & ring terminals) If your battery is located in the tail of your aircraft, you will need to purchase a longer power wire.
3. Manifold pressure hose (36" long 1/8"ID x 1/4"OD high temp. rubber hose)
4. Engine STC paperwork
5. Airframe STC paperwork

Will my aircraft lithium battery catch fire?

We understand the fear of a fire in an aircraft is real and justified. We also understand people fear that a lithium battery will spontaneously self-combust with no warning and reason and catch everything near it on fire too.  We want to address this fear. The EarthX batteries are LFP chemistry, or lithium iron phosphate, the most abuse tolerant and requires a lot of energy to force them into thermal runaway. The term thermal runaway can mean different things and for a LFP battery, it does not mean a 3-foot-tall explosion of flames, it means it will produce a lot of smoke for about 10 minutes.  (It should be noted the type of chemistry that does cause a large fire ball is the most used cell in the world, a Lithium Cobalt cell. This is found in your cell phone, your tablet, your laptop, etc.  On a commercial flight, if you are traveling on a 737 with 204 person capacity, it would be typical to have around 300 of these batteries in the cabin with you as a reference point).

To cause a thermal runaway with the EarthX battery, many things in your aircraft, and you as a pilot, would have failed. First, your regulator would have to fail. Then your over voltage protection on your aircraft would have to fail. Then you as a pilot would have to fail and not turn your charging system off (alternator off) as you see the voltage and amps climb, destroying all your electronics on your panel and popping fuses everywhere in the process. If you did nothing but continued to fly, and if the batteries protection failed too or you exceeded the protection limits (over 100V), it takes about 7 minutes of this type of runaway energy to cause a thermal runaway with the battery. The FAA TSO certified approved battery, the ETX900-TSO,and the ETX900-VNT, are in a fireproof containment system (internally) and is a sealed battery that is vented overboard, so even in this catastrophic state, the smoke is pushed overboard and it is not a battery safety issue and it does not cause anything near it to heat or catch on fire either.  

As far as the fear of spontaneous self-combustion, the battery must be part of a catalyst situation for it to go into thermal runaway. It will not simply “combust” with no reactor.  The batteries have short circuit protection and a battery management system to prevent the use of the battery if it detects a fault. The Hundred series for aircraft also has a fault monitoring that would alert you if something was outside of normal with an LED light that will illuminate.