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Promatic pigeon battery


Croohur
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I just bought myself a Promatic Pigeon after a few years of just using a manual trap on the farm it's a joy! I am using am old car battery at the moment that doesn't hold much of a charge. I was going to buy one of those leisure batteries. Is there a minimum power rating like the AH I would need to buy to make sure it's powerful enough to turn the motor? I have zero experience with these and there is a massive variety of leisure batteries with wildly different prices. 

Edited by Croohur
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The guy I bought it from also suggested using the Land rover I'd be bringing it up the fields with. Crack the hood use the battery with engine running and some jump leads running to the trap. Does anyone use this method as in theory this would be the handiest as you don't have to lug a battery around

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for personal use a 75 AH leisure Battery will prove adequate and will have enough to run it all day long.

If you can lug a trap around, the little extra weight of a battery will make no difference at all. I would not recommend running it off Jump Leads to your vehicle Battery as a ticking over engine does no good for the vehicle battery or fuel consumption.

You can buy a decent Leisure Battery for around £50-£60.   

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6 hours ago, Croohur said:

The guy I bought it from also suggested using the Land rover I'd be bringing it up the fields with. Crack the hood use the battery with engine running and some jump leads running to the trap. Does anyone use this method as in theory this would be the handiest as you don't have to lug a battery around

Not a good idea if you wanting to shoot a incoming clay from the trap .

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48 minutes ago, WalkedUp said:

Also, when clays break being thrown they can go any which way. If I still had a nice Landrover then I would not want it getting splattered with clays or distractingly in my eyeline as I swing through a shot. 

Point taken. Do you have to recharge leisure batteries after each use or will they last a number of shoots? 

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Unfortunately it’s “how long is a piece of string” - depends upon:

- capacity of the battery (given in ampere hours)

- age and condition / temperature of battery 

- extent that it is used (how many clays are fired in said session) 

Generally you have two batteries, charge one whilst you use one, take it to the shoot and if you need it is there to use. Swamp them over and repeat. 

 

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one reasonably local clay club to me has batteries and promatic traps permantly up on scaffold. They are now charged using solar panels. They use 85 amp hour leisure batteries with each one needing a 30 watt solar panel to recharge the battery over the two weeks between uses. The trap would typically fire 250 clays on a shoot day. Batteries are kept on a pad of polystyrene in a plastic box to protect from frost.

If you are not going to use solar then make sure you invest in a decent charger that is designed to input until full and then maintain.

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Having used all Pro-Matic traps at a shooting ground, we bought 85a/h batteries. Do NOT use a standard car battery charger though, it cooks them, as we found out to our cost. Invest in a decent trickle charger intended for leisure batteries. Shooting on a Wednesday and a Sunday, we left 2 batteries on trickle charge, then swapped them around on the Wednesday, they were then ready for use on the Sunday.

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7 minutes ago, Westley said:

Having used all Pro-Matic traps at a shooting ground, we bought 85a/h batteries. Do NOT use a standard car battery charger though, it cooks them, as we found out to our cost. Invest in a decent trickle charger intended for leisure batteries. Shooting on a Wednesday and a Sunday, we left 2 batteries on trickle charge, then swapped them around on the Wednesday, they were then ready for use on the Sunday.

Perfect. Thanks

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It is all down to usage, IF you are using the trap for several hours a couple of times a week, then I would suggest a leisure battery. On the other hand if the trap is only chucking around 100 targets on one day a week, then the smaller battery will fit the bill. We had a member who was a mechanic at the local VW agents and he could supply us with nearly new 12 volt car batteries. These were taken off cars that belonged to little old Ladies who went shopping once a week and had everything electric in the car going full chat, a new battery was fitted under warranty and the 'old' battery scrapped  ? Anyway we got them and they were like new. I think the longest they lasted was around 2 months. They just could not take the constant charge/discharge that a clay trap puts on them. The leisure battery, correctly charged, can. 

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12 hours ago, Westley said:

It is all down to usage, IF you are using the trap for several hours a couple of times a week, then I would suggest a leisure battery. On the other hand if the trap is only chucking around 100 targets on one day a week, then the smaller battery will fit the bill. We had a member who was a mechanic at the local VW agents and he could supply us with nearly new 12 volt car batteries. These were taken off cars that belonged to little old Ladies who went shopping once a week and had everything electric in the car going full chat, a new battery was fitted under warranty and the 'old' battery scrapped  ? Anyway we got them and they were like new. I think the longest they lasted was around 2 months. They just could not take the constant charge/discharge that a clay trap puts on them. The leisure battery, correctly charged, can. 

Well I have ordered an 110 ah leisure battery that should be delivered in the next few days. Will be used a fair bit in next 6 weeks as we are in lock down here in Ireland and then a few times a month. 110 ah should mean it can take a fair bit of use, I will have an old car battery as a back up but plan to use the leisure battery as much as I can. 

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13 hours ago, Croohur said:

Well I have ordered an 110 ah leisure battery that should be delivered in the next few days. Will be used a fair bit in next 6 weeks as we are in lock down here in Ireland and then a few times a month. 110 ah should mean it can take a fair bit of use, I will have an old car battery as a back up but plan to use the leisure battery as much as I can. 

Yes, the 110 will certainly do several shoots without a problem. We were advised to occasionally run the battery right down and then leave it on trickle charge  for over 24 hours. We tried to follow this advice and out batteries certainly lasted several years of being out in all weathers. The frosty weather seemed to take the biggest toll on batteries.

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  • 1 month later...

We have 10 auto traps with a mix of promatic and Laporte. All multi stack ones and find that 80Ah leisure battery’s work well, and only need charging a couple of times a year running 2 shoots per month. I charge them with a good battery charger that switches to sealed type battery’s . We do have some 110Ah battery’s but they weigh a ton and have to use barrow to move about.  

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