Going mobile - battery + charger advice needed (1 Viewer)

Hello,

After two years of trapping in the garden and at a local reserve, I want to invest in portable actinic heath traps. This will be used on the local reserve, but away from the office, meaning I can sample a wider variety of habitats.

I was thinking about buying it all from here http://www.angleps.com/mothtraps.php but for two traps, 2 batteries and a charger, comes to just under £500. Any idea on how to bring the cost down a bit? Other than just buy one :-O

Are there better batteries for the job from a different source? Or cheaper ones? I REALLY don't want to spill battery acid on the reserve, so this needs considering too. And they would need to run all night.

Thanks in advance.

Adam

Hi Adam, I know Jon at Angleps & would`nt want to do him out of business but if cost was a concern & your DIY skills are up to it you could build your own for c £90-£100. I built the trap in the attached photo earlier in the year. It is a 40W tube & runs on either mains or 12V car battery with an inverter.

rob lee said:

Hi Adam, I know Jon at Angleps & would`nt want to do him out of business but if cost was a concern & your DIY skills are up to it you could build your own for c £90-£100. I built the trap in the attached photo earlier in the year. It is a 40W tube & runs on either mains or 12V car battery with an inverter.

Click to expand...

That is a very interesting design. Would it be possible to power that trap from a Li Ion battery (12V - 14Ah)?

Could`nt tell you to be honest, but i would of thought that using an inverter any 12V power source would suffice, just a question of how long it would last perhaps.

rob lee said:

Hi Adam, I know Jon at Angleps & would`nt want to do him out of business but if cost was a concern & your DIY skills are up to it you could build your own for c £90-£100. I built the trap in the attached photo earlier in the year. It is a 40W tube & runs on either mains or 12V car battery with an inverter.

Click to expand...

My DIY skills are awful, as the skinner trap in my graden will support. But I know someone at the reserve who is pretty good at this kind of thing, so might run the DIY idea past him.

So for batteries, will any car battery and charger do the job? How long do they last, how many recharges do you get out of them and is there any chance of them leaking?

Adam

Hi Adam
What i did was get a 12v motor cycle battery much lighter than a car battery and you will need an inverter to convert the DC to AC and get a motor cycle battery charger and your away...........I`m running a 40w duel and its lasting about 11 hours.

Steve