Fuel tank pumps

[crowbar032]

I have two fuel tanks; one for diesel and one for gas. Both of them are meant to be clipped onto a battery to run. Most of the time this works well, but I think I'd like to get a dedicated deep cycle marine battery to run them. To keep from having to periodically charge the battery, I'd thought about running a solar panel and have it charge the battery. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Feasible? Bigger pain than it's worth?

Alternatively, I'll take suggestions to convert the 12volt to 110volt plug in.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I used a 13.6 volt output @1 amp solar charger to keep my lawnmower battery charged for a couple of years. It worked fine and didn't overcharge.

I have a 12volt fuel pump that I run with a regular car battery. I keep a battery minder on it full time to keep it charged. It has been running that way for about 3 years now. If you have 110V available, just get a 12 volt battery and hook it up permanently (I put screws into top of the poles and fastened my pump power supply and the battery tender to it). For years I just let it set on top of my fuel tank but later built a shelf over the tank where my battery now sits.
I never messed with raising the hood on my equipment to hook up the fuel pump leads, too much trouble when I had an old jump start battery laying around. This worked for a couple of years but eventually quit so then I got a new smallish car battery for it.

 

[crowbar032]

I have a 12volt fuel pump that I run with a regular car battery. I keep a battery minder on it full time to keep it charged. If you have 110V available, just get a 12 volt battery and hook it up permanently

I hadn't considered a battery minder. I do have 110v available, but I don't want to overload it. That circuit runs the lights in this particular building.

 

[TractorGuy]

Solar will work fine if you have sun available. I have a 10w panel I leave on my lawn tractor in the shade and it starts every time. You can probably get by with a small lawn tractor battery. I have a $25 lawn tractor battery I keep charged with a 30W solar panel on my gates that is over 5 years old and going strong. Keeping them charged extends the life a lot.

 

[Fallon]

I put a 5 watt panel & charge controllerin the infrequently used F250. It stopped my dead battery issues.

I just put a 20 watt panel & controller on my new power tilting deck over. My hope is that it will recharge the battery in a few days without me bothering to plug it in. It's new enough I can't say for sure if it's working as hoped, but so far it seems to have.

I actually robbed the Battery MINDer off the F250 for the trailer. Going to replace that one on the F250 with a cheap $20-30 controller. Well, that is if the solar on the trailer won't charge the trailer battery & truck battery. Need to do some probing with a multimeter on the truck & trailer plugs.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

I hadn't considered a battery minder. I do have 110v available, but I don't want to overload it. That circuit runs the lights in this particular building.

The draw is minuscule. A Battery Minder and a deep-cycle battery should work just fine for you.

I'm in the same position you are, and that's exactly my plan once I run the 120v out there for some other things.

 

[Texasmark]

I have two fuel tanks; one for diesel and one for gas. Both of them are meant to be clipped onto a battery to run. Most of the time this works well, but I think I'd like to get a dedicated deep cycle marine battery to run them. To keep from having to periodically charge the battery, I'd thought about running a solar panel and have it charge the battery. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Feasible? Bigger pain than it's worth?
Alternatively, I'll take suggestions to convert the 12volt to 110volt plug in.

Depends on how frequently you use your fuel pump. If seldom should work just fine. Solar fence chargers are popular so there should be parts out there. However fence chargers use minimal power usually and it takes a lot of panels to generate much power.

I use old batteries that won't drive a starter and charge them when I think.....been a long time since I charged the battery....maybe I'll get to it today type thing. Really doesn't take much battery to run my pump.....cheapest one TSC sold so I don't have to charge very often.

"Alternatively, I'll take suggestions to convert the 12volt to 110volt plug in." Cheapest solution to that would be to put an old battery charger on a timer under some sort of protective cover or if the pump is seldom used, just plug in a trickle charger.

 

[tonyq60]

Yes it will work.

A VRLA or lead acid battery float charges at 0.1% of 8 hour labeled rate.

Float is same as trickle for general conversation.

Trickle charger is the RATE of charge and float charge is the voltage of the charge.

So consider a 100 amp hour battery which would be about a group 27 size.

1 % of 100 is 1 then 0.1 of that is 0.1 amp.

The lawnmower float chargers at harbor freight are a bit more than 1 amp output so they can easily handle most batteries for float use.

But they are not diode isolated so if left attached but not plugged in will drain battery.

Our forklift uses these to float charge it ...36 volt and 300 amp hours...

We have 3 in series charging the 12 volt bricks and only use seldom so it works.

We added relays powered by same cord that connects the chargers when plugged in.

The typical farm tank pump draw is not much so a typical alarm gell cell style can be used or jump start batteries as they can be 20 amp hours and good size.

Can be mounted in any position so can be placed in box with charger.