battery drain from bildge pump

[yourkiddin]

i already have a spair 800 gpm bildge pump that im wanting to use in a cooler to keep bait alive. i think i can mount it on the bottom of cooler then use tubing to recirculate the water back down on the surface. i have a spare cranking and trolling battery i want to hook it to. it will run at least 2-6 hrs. i think it said 8 amps. will the battery last that long?

 

[carcraze]

Re: battery drain from bildge pump

To answer that question you would have to know the capacity rating on the battery or the reserve capacity rating.

You can figure it out if you have a AH rating (amp hours) or reserve capacity at a specific amp draw then you can get a good idea, as I understand it.

Without that it would be hard to say but that is a pretty good load on a battery, not too mention I am not sure how they rate amp draw on a bilge pump. The amp draw would be much higher during pump start as that is the inrush current stage to get the motor going. As well I am sure it would draw more if the pump stalled for some reason.

 

[yourkiddin]

Re: battery drain from bildge pump

ok thanks for the info. i was wrong about the amps, it says 6 amps and to use a 8 amp fuse. also its gallons per hour. the battery says 75 amp hrs. what ever that means. i just tried it out in the garage and it works pretty good. i already have all the stuff to do this. i had previously been using 2 areators on this cooler and the d batterys will get expensive. im just trying this out to see if it is cheaper. down fall to it will be having to keep charging this battery.

 

[seabob4]

Re: battery drain from bildge pump

Read this, from Optima's website...

The Amp Hour rating tells you how much amperage is available when discharged evenly over a 20 hour period. The amp hour rating is cumulative, so in order to know how many constant amps the battery will output for 20 hours, you have to divide the amp hour rating by 20. Example: If a battery has an amp hour rating of 75, dividing by 20 = 3.75. Such a battery can carry a 3.75 amp load for 20 hours before dropping to 10.5 volts. (10.5 volts is the fully discharged level, at which point the battery needs to be recharged.) A battery with an amp hour rating of 55 will carry a 2.75 amp load for 20 hours before dropping to 10.5 volts.

So basically, if your drawing 6A, the batt charge should last over 10 hours...

 

[yourkiddin]

Re: battery drain from bildge pump

now thats why i like this site. i knew some one on here could tell me the correct anwser. thank you very much. looks like im going to have to go ahead and spring for an on board charger.

 

[seabob4]

Re: battery drain from bildge pump

Keep in mind you little 800 is going to put out quite a bit of flow, you may wnat to come up with some sort of choke for the discharge...

 

[Silvertip]

Re: battery drain from bildge pump

For 25-30 bucks you can add a livewell timer so the pump will not have to run continuously. It allows the pump to run for 30 seconds and off for three minutes. The problem with your plan is that the pump will be circulating ever increasing "old-warm" water which will likely not be much help in maintaining fish or bait. The best way to do that would be to replace the water by using a pump to add lake water, with the excess being plumbed overboard via a fitting near the top of the cooler. One could of course use a bucket to bail water out of the cooler and replace it with fress lake water.