12v Dinghy inflators

  • Thread starter Thread starter jac
  • Start date Start date
I have three pumps- a £5 Aldi one, a £12 Coleman, and an LVM that came with the previous boat.
We blow up the (Avon) dinghy after every passage, and never tow it- as we cruise with dogs we must go ashore every night.

The pump that gets the most use is the Coleman. It has a tube that fits into the dinghy valve, and you can plug it in, switch it on, and get on with something else whilst it inflates the dinghy. The others all require you to stand and hold the pump to the valve.
The LVM only gets used when inflating a dinghy beside the car, as you can clip onto the battery terminals. The cable simply isn't long enough to reach from the boat's battery to the foredeck, which is the only viable place to blow up a dinghy on my boat. The Aldi one is perfectly good and is just a backup.
 
You can buy a bravo with an inbuilt battery. No need for wires and 25A draws.

If you can't find one, they actually just run off a small 12V alarm battery. They draw loads of current but for relatively little time. Lets assume 10 minutes (but should be less) - 20A draw. 3.3Ah - so a 7.5Ah battery should be fine. (I think they only draw the 20A for the last high pressure part anyway).

Just pop the 7.5A back on to charge when back underway with engine on or on shore power.

Decathlon seem to have a much cheaper pump that would seem to cover the pressure range, but runs on a cig socket so I assume is <10A. Guess it will take longer.
 
Oh... and if you want 25A 12V sockets...

- 20A seems to be the highest rated cig socket you can get. Never been a fan of the cig socket design though!

If you want industrial grade then search for Anderson Sockets - thats what recovery vehicles often have on the back that they can plug a jump lead onto to jump start you. Think they are rated to 300A or something crazy! You can get water resistant ones. Not cheap.
 
Another solution is to remove the croc clips and wire into a small Marinco plug which if you have a socket in cockpit seems to work . For more mobility power off one of the car starting portable packs from Halfords or suchlike
 
Interesting. An LVM pump was something which came with the boat but I'd never used until a few weeks ago when I tried it at Newtown Creek. Per prv's comment the anti-social noise factor would dissuade me from using it somewhere like that again but it did work in the time suggested. I was using it with croc clips attached via a dodgy couple of trailing wires through the dri-plug I installed for the suitcase solar panel thingy. Oh but hang on...what are those dri-plugs rated for? 10amps apparently. There's some hefty cable between it and the battery but what fuse did I put in? (scrabbles about in the electrics to check...) 30amps. Fine for the wire, not for the dri-plug. Thanks for making me re-evaluate my set-up...
 
I use a Bravo from Force4 with a 20Ah golf cart battery. The result is very portable if you want to launch the dinghy from a beach. Beware of the cheap electric pumps - many of them are only fans and cannot get up to a decent pressure. The top of the range Bravo pumps have both a fan and a piston pump - they use the fan to get the bulk of the air in, then switch to the piston to top the best pressure off. Our Bravo can get my wife's inflatable SUP all the way up to 1 bar.
 
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This one maybe specific to my dinghy, but it does the sides and floor in about 5 minutes.

http://www.excel-inflatables.co.uk/boats/options/inflatable-boat-options.php

12v-pump-direct-valve-fitment-th.jpg
 
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This thread is a few months old but as I'm looking for a pump I thought I'd revive it. Nigel, that Excel pump is inexpensive and fits the correct dinghy fitting. Is it powerful enough to do the floor or do you you have to finish the job with a foot pump?
Is it rechargeable or a clips or 12v socket type?

Thanks.
 
You really have to be a masochist to pump a dinghy manually or footually. My LVM pump has worked for 15 years - about 4 mins to inflate. Delighted to hear that you can get the equivalent for much less than £70 today. Noisy, but just for a few minutes. You cannot hope to get near enough pressure with the output of a vacuum cleaner or the like. My Avon dinghy is much older than the pump. In truth, if you are rowing the dinghy you want it damned hard. If it is flaccid your energy goes into flexing the dinghy rather than propelling you. You can harden it manually. I never bother. Since the pump draws a lot of current you want a fat connection to the battery. I wouldn't use banana plugs or a cigarette lighter socket. I use the crocodile clips on to the battery, but keep meaning to set up a more sensible plug. You can extend the cable, but make good joints and use fat wire.

NB. 30 amps for, say, 6 minutes = 3 amp hours, so not a huge drain on your battery if you don't do it too often.

And finally - the ability to deflate the damned thing completely is a real boon - and is much quicker than inflation.
 
I use one of these ... many uses and takes domestic 3 pin plug or cigarette lighter plug ... does all sorts of tricks, starting small engines, pumping up tyres and inflatables, running lights etc etc .....

s-l225.jpg
 
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