Battery power

[urbanminer]

This something I brought up on the old site and is still an idea whirling in my head. A battery powered dredge. I know, everyone said I would be better off with a gas engine, but there are some areas closed to motorized equipment yet allow battery power.

I have found a lawnmower battery (deep cycle) for cheap, I have a 12 volt pump that pushes 2500 gph (approx.) with 1 1/4 discharge. I know that there will be some fluxuating (sp?) in the volume of the pump as the battery runs low and have thought of adding a solar panel charger. My question is this: Will this pump produce enough pressure to run a 2" dredge?

Battery power would be great as it would be essentually silent. I'll make more noise than it will.

Marc

[Gold Seeker]

Marc,

I don't think the pump mentioned will do the job for a 2" dredge, the pump for my 2" does 100 gals a minute, your electric pump equate to approx. 42 gals per minute, also a dredge needs pressure to create the suction, my pump for my 2" does around 75 to 90 PSI and has around 160 ft. of head pressure, I don't think you are going to find an electric pump that will run off a battery that will come close to the volume and pressure you will need for 2" dredge.

A guy did post on the old forum a year or so ago a 1" electric dredge with a very small sluice box that he built, and it ran off a small 12v electric utility pump he got from Harbor Freight that had 50 PSI, I don't remember the volume, but he said it seems to be the only pump that he could find that had the right specs and would run for a couple of hours and work with his 1" small dredge, the entire setup beside the battery and some of the hose would fit in a 5 gal bucket, it also seems to be very hard to find the same pump after his posting as it seems to have been discontinued, Harbor Freight does still sell a pump that looks just like the one he was using but the PSI for this pump is only 10 PSI and that is not enough even for the small dredge he made.

This is the pump that only has 10 PSI...

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/d ... umber=9576

You would have to search the old site for the post, I think I have pictures of the dredge and pump on my computer, if I can find them I will post the pictures that I copied (I got his permission to copy the pictures) from his post.

Skip

[Hoser John]

You can outproduce a miniscule 1" dredge with a gold pan and a suckertube and a sluice box just kills that in production and no batteries or pumps to haul for just a couple a hours of limited usage. I'd love to get a hold of the new batteries for electric cars but the price no way jose-John

[urbanminer]

I agree, I can out produce a 1" with my sluice easily. I wasn't considering that small. I was thinking 2". I did find a battery powered submersible dredge on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230461638603&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:VRI
It's a 2 1/2", but uses 24 volt batter and pump. Does 24 volt make a difference over 12 volt?

I like sluicing, but I love dredging. Also, my back lasts a lot longer when I dredge and a battery gets me into areas closed to motors. Since I have just about everything I need from other equipment, I think I'll give it a try.

Marc

[Hoser John]

Party on--new inventions were never figured out by giving up. That tinkertoy almost made this'ol'dog pee his pants from laughter. YOU CAN DO MUCH BETTER EASILY. Think new toyota style(honda too) car batteries --not in the water pump--and your on a much better track. I am not a electrical engineer but more v=faster battery depletion and instant regeneration is the holy grail to performance(or at least partial) as the only thing that has saved the auto industry and they've spent many TRILLIONS and utilized many 10's a 1,000's engineers for over 50 years working on the problem. tons a au 2 u 2-John

[TRJ]

Could you pull a fast one and use an electric dredge powered by a generator that is sitting on the bank, not down in the water like a normal dredge engine? If you had to, you could always hook the generator to a battery which you could then claim was powering the dredge.

T

[russau]

EXCEPT for the places that say,"no mechanised equipment" that would include battery/generator powerd equipment aswell! that really narrows down the places to use it. but it would be kinda neat to make a small scale 1 inch dredge for school displays or when you give gold panning demonstrations. my grandkids got me a battery powerd ATV (1/24 scale?) and i made a little dredge and trailer for it to be towed around behind the ATV it looked cool. but to make one that actually works on a small scale for demonstrations would be neat also! maybe even a power sluice and other equipment. as you can see, cabin dever has completly take over my life for now!haha

[Hoser John]

Spreading the fever again russau--luv it, a tiny dredge for the kiddies-COOL-John

[russau]

ya just gotta do something to move that cabin fever around!

[Gold Seeker]

Here is a miniature highbanker water fountain, this was made by a guy in Canada for his daughter, I love it and it has ribbed rubber matting in it so it should catch some gold I would think, this guy makes full size "boiler boxes" as he calls them, and he has them for sale.

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