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I have a 2019 ICON founders edition #81 and it appears my battery needs replacement! I went to start the other day and the master solenoid just clicked. I always put on the battery tender after each flight, and although the tender showed a full charge when I unplugged, after the fuel pump charge there was not enough to start. When I put back on the tender, it showed low! So, I would assume 3 years is good expected life out of the battery even on a tender? I’m just glad it happened at the hangar and not while i was landed on a lake somewhere.

Also, is this something I can replace myself? I have been reviewing the manual to remove the right side cover since the battery is so far forward. Any tips or tricks would be helpful. I did order the new Concord RG-25XC that is listed in the manual.

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3 years out of the Concorde in the A5 is a good life. Ive never seen one just fall flat on its face after being put on a tender all the time though just very weak or needing to be charged all the time to keep the battery light from coming on.

As for replacing your self. All the procedures are in the maintenance manual. Replacing a battery is in the list of FAR 43 appendix A preventative maintenance.

So with that all said you need to determine that you are mechanically capable of performing the task. I can't help you there as I don't know you. I can tell you to get to the battery is a super huge pain in the ass.

You need to remove the right side Instrument panel top simple right? Nope... not even close. Here is what needs to be done from memory, read and manual for the real deal but this is just to give you scope of work.

1) You need to remove the two screws holding the bucket in (under the arm rest) disconnecting the cig lighter and USB ports (don't get the + and - backward when connecting it back up or it will cook a USB cable) and aux in connections
2) Remove the two screws holding the throttle bezel also disconnect the hobbs meter
3) Remove the screws holding the center stack bezel in place
4) Remove the GPS and bracket
5) Remove the screw under the GPS bracket that hold the Right IP top to the center console
6) Special tool to remove the right Eyeball vent to get to the screw inside holding the right aft side of the IP top
7) Finally the screw near the canopy weldment will allow the IP to pop up slightly so you can get to the worm clamp to the take the vent duct off
8) Reach way up with one arm to get to the two double nutted 1/4" battery hold down bolts the forward one is a real bitch
9) remove the battery hold down bracket and hope to God the forward battery hold down j-hook doesn't fall down under the battery box or a lot of cussing will ensue
10) Remove the leads from the battery noting which one went where (its in the manual)
11) Wrestle the heavy battery out with one hand (the other arm won't fit in there and I'm a small guy)
12) Remove the Foam spacer on the bottom of the battery you'll likely need to replace that as it probably won't come off in one piece.

Then wrestle everything back in there after dropping the hold down or battery terminal bolts several times with lots of cussing in between.

Also count how many time you hit your head on the canopy it will be 3 - 4 if you're lucky.

So if you think you can do all that, game on, if you don't think so probably call your service center have them come out and replace it a good technician can likely do the work in about 2 hours if everything goes swimmingly.

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I had Waterford Aviation, an ICON service center, replace the battery! They were very responsive, and drove up to my hangar to do the replacement within a week. I was very pleased with these guys. And, although they didn’t drop the J Hook they did manage to fumble an Allen wrench that took about 20 minutes to retrieve :-). But the BAD news is, it didn’t fix the problem, the plane didn’t turn over, just a single click when you turn the key! Time for Brent to pull something out of that EXPERT bag! And ideas?

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if you're getting a click at the starter solenoid that means it has power so that's good. Its likely the wire that connects the starter to the solenoid its about 12-18" long with yellow ring terminals. Remove the cowling and look down between the intake plenum and the engine you'll find the starter and solenoid. The solenoid is attached to the intake plenum left side of the oil cooler. That wire that connects the solenoid and the starter has a bad habit of breaking at the ring terminal. If that's not it, the starter is likely to blame. But if I'm a betting man I bet its the wire connector that severed.

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Winner winner chicken dinner.

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Do you recommed a different connector? Stainless steel?

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Winner winner chicken dinner.

I guess I'm living up to my "icon expert" status. I had seen and experienced a lot in 5.5 years at ICON. I have pretty good intuition at this point.

Do you recommed a different connector? Stainless steel?

I'm not sure there. I suppose you could try it. Might be tough to find that terminal you suggested. This is even the new version of that cable with the 90 deg connector previous versions were straight connectors that needed to be flexed in not great ways. I saw about 5 or 6 of these failures (all straight terminals) in my 5.5 years at ICON. One actually happened to me and I was lucky enough to be a friends hangar who happened to have the exact terminal we were able to just cut off the terminal carefully with some side cutters and not get into the conductor and crimp another back on. There is a chance you can just put the same (new) connector back on and give it a go and never have the problem again but who knows. Its all in the routing of the wire to make sure it can move with the engine but not load up the terminal.

So that all said it looks like your wire was rubbing on something as there is a little bit of damage to the sacrificial expandable sleeving. So take a look there make sure the doesn't go past the wire insulator and into the conductor and route it better so it can move with the motion of the engine.

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BTW sorry for not suggesting that earlier, If I had read your initial post better I would have. I thought you were getting a weak turn over not just a click of the solenoid. shame on me for not reading it thoroughly would have saved you a week and a new battery.

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Yes, good eye, it was rubbing, it was pinched between the blue line coming from the radiator, and the silver line (oil cooler)[BOX][/BOX]

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I ask the guy at the electrical store for a stronger connector, he recommended this one that he referred to as a 10 lug…doesn’t bend easy but I should be able to shape to fit right. Ok to use?

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I was able to machine the other ring terminal off without any damage to the strands.[/BOX]

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I ask the guy at the electrical store for a stronger connector, he recommended this one that he referred to as a 10 lug…doesn’t bend easy but I should be able to shape to fit right. Ok to use?

I don't see what you're referring to, that said its a simple starter wire. You are unlikely to pick something that won't work.

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Back up and running.

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My A5 is now over three years old - so I thought I would be proactive and order a replacement. It would be kinda sucky to shutdown engine on the lake for a breather and not be able to restart because my old battery decided "no mas". Anyway, reading the maintenance manual it appears that Icon has transitioned from a 24 Ah battery to an 11 Ah battery. I can't really tell from the wording in the manual if the founder's edition planes are able to use the lighter 11 Ah battery or if we must stick with the heavier 24 Ah.

Can anybody shed any light on this?

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Hi Michael, The 11Ah battery (Concorde RG-12LSA) weighs 13 lb. The original equipment Concorde RG25XC is 23.5 lb. Most A5's are already tail heavy and removing 10.5 lb from the nose of the aircraft would make it a challenge to fly solo for most folks and remain in the CG envelope. Your situation may vary. The empty CG variability between planes is pretty significant and I would encourage anyone making this change to check your weight and balance before you do so. It could make it hard in some planes for a 200lb person to fly the plane in the CG envelope solo, YMMV.

The original reason for the battery change was of course to lose the weight, but we needed to balance that out by removing the 4lb rudder counter balance. This was all recognized Back in 2016 and we flew an additional set of flutter test flights to clear the aircraft with no rudder counter weight installed paving the way for the battery change. However, there was one additional test which was a cold chamber 75% charge battery start and some electrical analysis to make sure there was acceptable backup battery in the unlikely event of a dual alternator failure. Because the cold start and analysis was never done the change was never completed. Then 2 years ago the Garmin G3X touch with Autopilot option came along which would significantly increase the empty weight beyond the ASTM maximum empty weight of 1088 lb for the A5. The average empty weight of the A5 is ~1081 lb (so not a lot of room). This is a calculation required by ASTM and to make sure planes have adequate useful load. The G3X system and servos pushed the aircraft over the maximum empty weight required by ASTM so the light weight rudder and battery came back into the fold and they completed the cold wx start testing, the electrical analysis, and engineering drawings to remove the counter weight from the rudder for those planes.

Anyway the G3X touch with Autopilot planes come with a rudder without the 4lb counterweight. This allows the aircraft weight and balance wise to run the smaller battery. So in essence you could potentially lose 10.5 lb out of you plane but just check your CG or conversely I suppose you could all the company and ask them to build you a rudder without the 4lb of counter weight to balance the change out and lose 14.5 lb out of your plane.

My understanding was that all airplanes now come with the light weight battery and rudder as stock configuration.

You will need a few new parts to make the battery restraint work.

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Thanks for the detailed information Bret.

So what you're saying is that IF I switched to the lighter battery I might have to eat doughnuts for breakfast for a full month to keep the solo CG in the envelope?? Sounds like a win-win to me!

Seriously - do you happen to know the battery arm length?

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I don't remember the arm off the top of my head based on the POH station drawing is approx 70 in or so call the company to verify for certain. This should be good enough for a quick idea of what the cg change will be.

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After working the W&B I can see that just changing out the battery could put you on the edge of the CG envelope very easily.

Icon tells me that they are looking into making the change to the light-weight battery & rudder an option for owners- but no specifics yet.