Im in the need for some advise and hope one of you can help?
I am in charge of our Varsity Tunnel the football team runs through every Friday here in Texas. We have a Train horn kit that we mount on a cart and operate with a Viper Alarm to turn it off and on.
My question is for the past 2 years we have use Jumper cables that have a charge on them, the kind you get from Walmart or Auto Zone. I know they are only intended to just start a car but we were able to get about a full game in on one and I have a back up (If we score a lot of touch downs)
Anyway last Friday it seems that both these jumpers either don’t work or only get 2 good blast out of it.
Is it possible to just get a Reg Car Battery installed on this cart to operate everything and then HOPEFULLY hat the end of the season just pull that Battery out of the cart and put it on a Trickle Charger for the following year? Or if I have to take it out every game then charge it for the ext that wouldn’t be too bad either? I just dont know if this would work and what size battery needed. We have a 3 gal tank and the compressor draws around 23 Amps.
Any help or advise would be great!
Thank you
David
So your jumper cables must be the portable kind with a built in battery?
I think a good deep cycle battery would be more appropriate than a car battery.
All the sealed AGM car audio batteries would work. You could go to a battery store where they could figure the required ah (amp hours).
You could get a charger that also has trickle / monitoring features. I use a Battery Tender Plus trickle charger over the winter, but it’s only 1.25amps.
How many minutes would you say the compressor actually runs?
Yes they are the portable kind. Not anything special prob about $30-$60 kind. I have seen some as high as $200 or more but not sure the difference.
I would say an average of 3-6 touch downs a game? The current compressor takes about a good 2-5 mins to fill the 1.5 gal tank I think? Haven’t timed it really. I’m glad you mention the deep cycle one, I totally over looked that. I guess any Boat or RV one would be good.
Here are some pics of the cart, maybe that will help?
As you can see i dont have a lot of room but a reg size battery would fit.
Thanks
Haha that’s pretty cool. Yeah I don’t see why an RV or boat battery wouldn’t work - or an Optima. It’s got to have more / longer lasting power than a car jumper meant for quick bursts.