Electronic question - running mains air pump of battery

-Exodus-

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OK so basically, I have an aquarium air pump and it runs off the mains, but it uses so little power I was wondering could it run off a battery?

Using one of those plug in electricity cost monitors I can see it is using 6W, 240V and 0.026A

If you could, what sort of batteries would it need and how long do you reckon they'd last? (running 24/7)
 
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What voltage does the actual pump need? I'm presuming there's a step down transformer to a much lower voltage in there?
 
I honestly have no idea, it says 230V on the box and the pump, my knowledge doesn't go much further than Power = Voltage x Current
 
If it uses so little power then why bother? Doesn't make much sense to me doing what you're thinking of doing, I bet batteries will actually cost more and also be much more unreliable, I don't see what you hope to achieve by trying to get battery power?
 
The pump motor would be wound for 240v volt A/C mains, putting a battery on the pump would do nothing, but you should be able to use a inverter.
 
RJC said:
The pump motor would be wound for 240v volt A/C mains, putting a battery on the pump would do nothing.
Click to expand...

it would if you put an inverter on the battery first.

totally pointless though just plug it in the wall like a normal human being ;)
 
Suppose you had a car battery. One for my car will keep going for 44Ah (Amp hours) at 12V. This works out to be 44*12 = 528Wh (Watt hours). Now, your 6W heater would therefore last for 528/6 = 88 hours = 3 days 16 hours.

What you'd need to do would be to hook up a 20:1 step-up transformer to your battery to transform the 12V it is rated at to the 240V necessary to power the pump. An inverter would do the job nicely.
 
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