Finally swapped to electric over hydraulic on my service truck

Last month I got tired of replacing leaking hoses on the old PTO setup and bit the bullet on a 12v electric pump for the crane. Took about 3 hours to install and I can already run the boom without the engine idling. Anyone else made the switch and found a good battery setup for continuous use?

3 comments

3 Comments

hunt.shane5d ago

Took about 3 hours to install" - I gotta say, that's way faster than I figured it would go. When I did mine I spent half a day trying to figure out where to ground the pump without sparking everything out. For battery setup, I've had good luck with a standard deep cycle marine battery and a small solar maintainer on the roof, keeps it topped off even when I'm not running the truck every day.

paige_harris5d ago

Stumbled onto that same grounding nightmare myself once. Ended up running a temporary jumper wire to a fence post just to test the flow. @hunt.shane your solar maintainer idea is smart, I might steal that for my camper setup since my truck sits for weeks at a time and the battery always seems dead when I actually need it. Last time I tried a cheap trickle charger, it cooked the battery in two months flat. Lesson learned.

harper2545d ago

Heard a story from a buddy who ran his whole electric setup off a pair of 6-volt golf cart batteries wired in series and said they lasted way longer than a regular marine battery under heavy use. I guess the thicker plates in those deep cycle batteries handle the constant draining and recharging better. Been thinking about trying that myself since my current setup drains pretty quick when I'm running the boom all day. Just gotta figure out how to cram two big batteries under the service body without losing all my storage space. Might be worth the hassle if it means less time swapping batteries or waiting for a recharge.