Alternator-Powered Skeet thrower

[k0ua]

Buy smaller batteries, and use the AC powered chargers to keep up the batteries.. the chargers could be something like 10 to 20 amp chargers or even smaller, the batteries could be something like 40 amp hours or even maybe as small as 20amp hour.. They just need to provide the 40 amps of current when the target is thrown. So it is intermittent duty.. The reason you have such large batteries now with the solar setup is because you must have a battery that can throw targets all day.. The solar "chargers" for lets say a 15 watt panel is less than a 2 amp charger a 45 watt solar charger is something like 4 amps.. so you have to have a big "flywheel" in the form of the large battery to be able to make many throws, because the solar charger will take a long time to charge it up. But with a good regulated AC powered charger it will charge back up a smaller battery in minutes, and the battery will take the "hit" of the 40 amp draw which I believe will be in the form of only seconds. I have made several assumptions here about how the throwers work, but I believe I am correct.. you could check with the manufacture of the throwers to confirm the current draws and durations. Good Luck.
James K0UA

 

[k0ua]

For battery chargers, I just searched for 40 amp battery charger. For a 12 volt supply the sites I linked to had directions and sources, but it appears that there are those selling them on Ebay for under $50: RC Power Supply 575 Watts 47 Amp 100 240V AC to DC 12V Efuel CB 20 30 40 50 60 | eBay At that price, I would just get power supplies and eliminate the batteries altogether.

Aaron Z

That might work, but it might not., It depends on how much onboard electronics are in these throwers.. and how clean those switcher power supplys are. They mention using them for CB and Ham equipment, which would indicate they would be suitable, but I would buy one and try it first. They are probably fine.. And the throwers may be mostly electromechanical. and not have any sophisticated electronics on-board anyway.

James K0UA

 

[aczlan]

That might work, but it might not., It depends on how much onboard electronics are in these throwers.. and how clean those switcher power supplys are. They mention using them for CB and Ham equipment, which would indicate they would be suitable, but I would buy one and try it first. They are probably fine.. And the throwers may be mostly electromechanical. and not have any sophisticated electronics on-board anyway.

Those started life as hot swappable power supplies from rackmount servers, so I would hazard a guess that they put out fairly clean power. My worry would be that they might not be able to handle a sudden spike in power very well. I agree that trying one first would be a good idea (I might drag out a bunch of extension cords or a small generator and try it with that before pulling power).

Aaron Z

 

[k0ua]

Those started life as hot swappable power supplies from rackmount servers, so I would hazard a guess that they put out fairly clean power. My worry would be that they might not be able to handle a sudden spike in power very well. I agree that trying one first would be a good idea (I might drag out a bunch of extension cords or a small generator and try it with that before pulling power).

Aaron Z

Yep that is what I would do, drag out some good extension cords, and get one of these supply's and run it for a day on a thrower, and go from there.

 

[aczlan]

Yep that is what I would do, drag out some good extension cords, and get one of these supply's and run it for a day on a thrower, and go from there.

I would make it a very hard day... Get everyone shooting off of that station for a couple of hours straight to see how it handles heavy use.

Aaron Z

 

[hr3]

8 to 9 amps of power for each charger would be about 40 to 45 amps on 110v,, Might want to look at another way.. #12 wire an't gona cut it,,

 

[Wilky]

8 to 9 amps of power for each charger would be about 40 to 45 amps on 110v,, Might want to look at another way.. #12 wire an't gona cut it,,

Did I miss something. 9 amps of 110 is 80 amps at 12 volts

 

[aczlan]

8 to 9 amps of power for each charger would be about 40 to 45 amps on 110v,, Might want to look at another way.. #12 wire an't gona cut it,,

Where do you get 8-9 amps per charger? 47 amps @12DC is ~590 watts. If the power supply is 80% efficient, it will pull 740 watts at 120VAC which is ~6 amps. That gives you 18 amps at 120VAC on one side of the 220 20 amp leg and 12 amps on the other side IF all 5 are throwing at the exact time. The continuous draw has to be less as otherwise you might get 2 hours continuous use out of a fully charged 100ah battery.
Looking at the Atlas throwers, Nativeoutdoors.com says that the Atlas AT50 & AT250 models pull "up to 30 amps for a 1/4 cycle" and per the Atlas site one cycle is 0.6 seconds for the AT-50 or 1.2 seconds for the AT-250 so I would hazard a guess that this one is 40 amps for a similar amount of time and it should be possible to avoid tripping the breaker.


Aaron Z

 

[hr3]

Where do you get 8-9 amps per charger? 47 amps @12DC is ~590 watts. If the power supply is 80% efficient, it will pull 740 watts at 120VAC which is ~6 amps. That gives you 18 amps at 120VAC on one side of the 220 20 amp leg and 12 amps on the other side IF all 5 are throwing at the exact time. The continuous draw has to be less as otherwise you might get 2 hours continuous use out of a fully charged 100ah battery.
Looking at the Atlas throwers, Nativeoutdoors.com says that the Atlas AT50 & AT250 models pull "up to 30 amps for a 1/4 cycle" and per the Atlas site one cycle is 0.6 seconds for the AT-50 or 1.2 seconds for the AT-250 so I would hazard a guess that this one is 40 amps for a similar amount of time and it should be possible to avoid tripping the breaker.


Aaron Z

The OP said he had a 120v outlet to run this from.. He never mentioned that he had 220v anywhere ???

Your assuming the battery's are fully charged to start with,, If the battery's are in a discharged state the charger will try to draw more,,,

 

[aczlan]

The OP said he had a 120v outlet to run this from.. He never mentioned that he had 220v anywhere ???

Good point, I am assuming that there is a breaker box with 220v not overly distant from the location where they have 110v as this should be on its own circuit and its hard to get 220v from 110v... Being as the OP didn't say anything to the contrary, I assumed that this was the case.
That still doesn't explain 8-9 amps/charger at 120VAC to get 40ish amps at 12VDC

Your assuming the battery's are fully charged to start with,, If the battery's are in a discharged state the charger will try to draw more,,,

As for charging: If using the 47 amp power supplies I linked, a battery should not be needed as they have enough juice to run the throwers all by themselves. Might be worth putting in a capacitor (like you would use on a car subwoofer amp) though if they have problems.

Aaron Z