What inflatable would you recommend?

[clydeoutboards]

Originally Posted by Nos4r2

As for the electric motor, no. You'll have to carry a car battery to power it.Generally they're utter pants unless you want to pay megabucks for a Torqueedo, which are bloody expensive. Oars are better.

That was very understated.

remember you can get a 2.3hp 4 stroke that will run for an hour on 1L at full throttle and weighs only 12.3kg or 3.5hp at around 18kg i.e tohatsu/ mercury/ mariner which are all the same.

Dave

[Bazmondo]

Arrrrghhhhhh!!!

Went to pick up the yamaha, on Friday and suprise suprise it woudn't start!!!

The pump was squirting petrol out its side, so I said I would come back tmrw when it was fixed.

Went to pick it up yesterday but the although the pump was fixed the dealer said the coil needed replacing and it wouldn't be ready till thursday at the latest.

Not a happy bunny at the mo. Thought I was paying a decent price for a serviced quality engine from a dealer.....mmmmmmmmm

Re the pump situation, I'm still being a bit thick. Here's one I was looking at but I can't see how I can charge it at home, it doesnt say it can be charged on mains : BRAVO Inflatable Boat Rib 12v HP Air Pump Inflator BP12 | eBay


Baz

[Nick Hearne]

No you can not charge this one, but run it off your car battery or as I do use a power pack/jump starter

[Bazmondo]

Originally Posted by Nick Hearne

No you can not charge this one, but run it off your car battery or as I do use a power pack/jump starter

something like this you mean?

12-240V Power Station with JumpStart and Inverter: Amazon.co.uk: Car & Motorbike

What one do you use? Just want to get one that is good, and will do the job.

cheers
Baz

[Nick Hearne]

Originally Posted by Bazmondo

something like this you mean?

12-240V Power Station with JumpStart and Inverter: Amazon.co.uk: Car & Motorbike

What one do you use? Just want to get one that is good, and will do the job.

cheers
Baz

I just have a cheep one same as this portable power station jump start | eBay still going stronge after 5 or so years!

[Bazmondo]

Originally Posted by Nick Hearne

I just have a cheep one same as this portable power station jump start | eBay still going stronge after 5 or so years!

and these will get the boat up to max pressure or do you need to finish off with the stirup?


cheers

[Nick Hearne]

Originally Posted by Bazmondo

and these will get the boat up to max pressure or do you need to finish off with the stirup?


cheers

No I just use this to power the Bravo pump, to use this to blow anything up other than tyres would be useless!

[Devs Ad]

Bazmondo, for the short time it should take to largely inflate your boat, you should find that your main boat's battery will be fine without any risk of it being 'flattened'. I know you only have a trickle charger (PV?) on it, but 10 minutes of pumping isn't going to be too much of a drain. So I'd be tempted to use just a cheapo 12v pump (less than a tenner) to get your boat 'into shape', and then use a foot or stirrup pump to get it up to the correct tension - a few minute's pumping will do that. (I reckon a 'manual' pump should be part of your on-boat arsenal anyway in case of emergencies?!)

Or, go for the powerful - & expensive - 'Bravo' which will do it all - right up to the required pressure. This thing draws 20 amps which is a fair amount, but even then it should have the job done in way under 10 minutes so your boat's battery (is it a 'car'-type battery?) should be absolutely fine, and will recover soon enough.

(A word on batteries: these will have 2 important figures on them; the voltage (12V?) and the Ampere-hour (Ah) rate. The Ah is the 'capacity' of the battery - how much it can deliver and for how long. For example, a 50Ah battery should be able to deliver 50amps for one hour before it goes 'flat'. If you only draw 25 amps from it (half the amount), the same battery will instead last 2 hours (twice as long). If you draw just 1amp, it'll last 50 hours...!)

So, your Bravo - at 20amps - would drain a 50Ah battery if run continuously for two and a half hours. I suspect your battery is a greater capacity than 50Ah, and your Bravo would only be run for 10-odd minutes, so you should be absolutely fine. A reasonably bright day with your PV trickler will have it back up to full capacity in a few hours.

Bear in mind that, unless you also buy a 'portable power-station', your Barvo won't be any good out on the water...

[Bazmondo]

Thanks Dev.

great advice!!

Will check the boat battery which from memory is a normal car battery and a decent one.

Will have a go at using a a pump connected to that and see what happens. At the end of the day the boat battery only powers a couple of fluresent lights (no fridge or anything important) if it runs it flat I can always bring it home and recharge it and then upgrade and get the compressor thing.

Cheers mate, very helpfull

Baz

[lightning]

I have a 12v sealed lead-acid battery that I use for my Bravo 2-stage air pump to inflate my 2.85m SIB.
The battery is rated at 7Ah and is fairly small, so it's easy to carry around. In fact it's smaller than the pump.
I find that I can fully inflate my SIB to 3.4psi twice on one charge of the battery, without it running flat. This also includes using the pump to fully deflate the boat so I can roll it up.

[Devs Ad]

You're welcome, Bazmondo.

Good to have 'real-life' experience of battery use, Lightning. Your results make sense - a 7Ah battery would, in theory, deliver 20 amps (a typical Bravo's drain) for just over 20 minutes. So, provided each inflation/deflation doesn't take longer than around 5 minutes, that's a good solution.

One possible word of caution - a 20 amp drain on such as small battery is quite tough going for a wee fellow. Does it get warm in use? Also, if it isn't designed as a 'deep-cycle' battery (one designed to cope with large discharging/recharging cycles), then you may find its life will be reduced.

Its portability is great, tho'.

[lightning]

I've had the battery for two years, it doesn't even get warm in use. I use a trickle charger to recharge the battery after I've been using it.
It says on the battery "valve regulated sealed lead acid battery"

I tested the current draw of the Bravo pump and it does draw about 20 amps but only when the piston pump kicks in at about 1psi.
Before that it's about 12 amps.

Before I got the Bravo pump I used it with my Rule pump.

The battery only costs £15 on ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NP7-12-12v...item1c1e1456d7

[Devs Ad]

Sounds ideal!

[lightning]

You'll need some sort of charger to go with it, such as this one at £8


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-SILVER...item4d03f51967

[ianshotton]

Hi Bazmondo,
I have the above for sale on this forum if you are still interested and would definitely consider offers.

http://www.rib.net/forum/f21/bombard...0-a-50272.html

Cheers
Ian