THAT DEEP CELL TO BUY?

[corps]

Hello,

I have a ice castle and want to buy two deep cell battery's for fishing.  Have had the house for years and have   been using crappy battery's that run out of power in the middle of the night.  This is what i would like the new battery's to do.  I run the generator in the day to charge them but at night I want to run on battery's.  My draw is a forced air furnace (the standard one on ice castle)  and six hole nights, sixty watts total on the lights.  I want 12 hours of run time on the battery's before i have to charge them with the generator.  How may battery's will i need (hopefully two) and whats the best deal.

[Lifeguard]

Time to do some calculations.  Here's a good thread to figure out what you need for battery power.

http://www.windpowerunlimited.com/batteries/Amp_Hours.htm

60 watts at 12 volts dc would be 5 amps draw.  Any chance you could shave some power off by changing to LED lights, etc.  It would probably pay off over the long run.

[Wiener]

Get the heavy duty deep cycle Optima. They run about $175 each.



Make sure you get the one with the yellow top.  It's made for deep cycle.
These batteries are very rugged and will take lots of abuse.

Hope this helps,


Wiener

[yoslick]

X2 on swapping them lights out with LED's, you won't believe the difference in battery life!

[Bellybuster]

maybe you could consider helping your batteries along with some wind power at night. You obviously have some serious coin invested in Ice fishing. You could easily add some wind power for under $600 for a 500 watt unit
  Just a thought

[michianafisherman]

Your power problem is with the furnace fan. I have a camper with forced air and it will drain a battery before morning. It would be cheaper for you to get a different type of heater without the fan. Then you could use battery just for lights without any trouble. I don't believe you could charge a deep cycle back up with the generator without running it all day. At least not to 100%. You might get it back to 60 or 70% charge.

[D-mo]

I will 2nd what Michiaanafisherman says, you are basically running your deep cycles down way too hard with the stove system you are using - and basically killing the battries. You are probably not completely recharging them from the genset either, which further kills batteries.   
I would be sell the genset, get a good sized solar panel, about 150 watt Polychrystaline Solar Panel.  Mount the Solar to your fish house's roof and forget about your problems (with a charge controller - usually included) - pointed sounth.  Recharges on a daily basis, no gas, no noise, even when your there or not.
I would also purchase either two new group 31 deep cycles wired in parallel , or better still, 2 new 6 volt golf cart batteries (perferred) - wired in series.  This should take you throught the night, with the polychrystaline recharging during the day (sun or clouds)

d-mo

Oh and get a multi-meter to monitor your usages.

[Lifeguard]

If going with D-mo's suggestion with the solar panel, I'd invest a little more and get a MPPT charge controller.  It will give you more charging amps for your panels output.  I'm a little sceptical about the panel being able to recharge your batteries in one day, I think you had better determine exactly how much draw you can expect to experience over night with all the equipment on and go from there.  If you are in an area that gets a fair amount of wind, a wind charger would be worth looking at too, but you are starting to talk about some serioius coin for solar panels, wind chargers, charge controllers, and deep cycle batteries.  I'd try to shave off as much current consumption as I could and then get a couple good of big, quality deep cycle batteries.

[ice dawg]

I invested in an on board charger. End of problem. I don't have a camper furnace with a blower though. I use a direct vent heater and a couple of computer fans.  I get away with using a couple of small 30 amp hr batteries. I usually run my generator for a few hours in the evening and a couple in the morning.

[Mainehazmt]

consider two 6 volt batteries   and if possible golf cart batteries   will out last 2 12 volt any day!

[Lifeguard]

Take a look, seems like a descent price:

http://store.solar-electric.com/cr225am6vode.html

And here is a great FAQ about deep cycle batteries, particularly the "starting, marine, and deep cycle battery" section:

http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm#Starting,%20Marine,%20and%20Deep-Cycle%20Batteries