What Voltage Should I Use for Gate – 12v or 24v?

It’s always been a question whether to use a 12v or 24v for a battery-powered system. The simple answer is 24v. To explain it further, let us think about power putting it in car terms, if you want to accelerate harder or have a higher top speed then you need more horsepower. So as in electric gate, the power comes from the battery and is converted by the motor into energy.

Electrical power is volts multiplied by amps so that 40 amps from a 12v battery is 480 watts. But 480 watts can also come from a 24v battery at a current of only 20 amps; so, for any particular power, the higher the voltage, the lower the current will be. Electrical current causes heating. The motor, controller, and wiring will all get hot that could waste power. The heat wasted is proportional to the square of the current multiplied by the resistance. Other things being equal, that would cause losses on 24v to be half those on 12v.

It is clear from this that a 24v system is always better than a 12v system – provided you can physically fit two batteries.

That is why Gatehouse Australia’s No.1 electric gate supply company, only uses 24v systems for swing and slide gate kits.