I have an old battery operated mattress inhalator pump. Here is a link to the new updated version:

http://www.campingcomfortably.com/coleman-rechargeable-quickpump.html

The pump has stopped working. The battery seems to be charged but does not run the motor and battery voltage goes to zero volts when I hook the motor to the battery.

So I hooked the motor to my homemade PSU. The motor ran. I could see the voltage start to drop (which is I am assuming the regulator going into thermal shutdown) and the 1.5A fuse blew.

So I am guessing the motor is requiring somewhere over 1.5A.

Now since the battery is old and worse the charger lacked any kind of charge controller, the battery is probably bad but I am curious why this motor is requiring so much current to run. Is this normal or do I just have a bad motor?

 

My guess is that the motor is OK--since it took a while to blow the fuse, the current is probably around 2.5A--sounds reasonable to me

 

Thanks Jim.

Looks like it might be just a bad battery then. As expected, as expected, it being so old.

Instead of investing in a new battery and replacing it again a few years from now, I might just invest in a new AC only air pump.

 

I got a large double action hand pump for blowing up kiddie swimming pools (4") cylinder--really pumps lots of air