battery for outages and camping

[roadkingrick]

well just for report back , I got a 32 amp sealed AGM battery, 20lbs fits in a little cooler playmate. I used it two nights , about 8 hours each on my s9 w/o the humidifier. it was still reading 12.3 volts the 3rd night so I know another night was easily doable. That was with a dc to dc converter , 89 bucks . The battery I got for 32 bucks at battery specialists used but with one year warranty. I looked at the harbor freight battery 60 bucks and wasn't really impressed. Got a battery tender at Costco for 29 bucks on sale. And just for giggles I picked up a 1.5 amp solar charger at harbor freight. So with the battery alone I figure easy 3 nights an a camping trip, if I use the solar charger during the day to refresh the battery who knows? I suppose I could plug it into the car or bike and let it run for 30 mins also , but I'm real impressed with this little battery. light enough to put on my bike and sealed so it wont spill. I'm kind of jazzed about going camping again.

[Guest]

it was still reading 12.3 volts the 3rd night so I know another night was easily doable.

Was this 12.3V measured under a load - with the machine powered on?

[CapnLoki]

well just for report back , I got a 32 amp sealed AGM battery, 20lbs fits in a little cooler playmate. I used it two nights , about 8 hours each on my s9 w/o the humidifier. it was still reading 12.3 volts the 3rd night so I know another night was easily doable. That was with a dc to dc converter , 89 bucks . The battery I got for 32 bucks at battery specialists used but with one year warranty. I looked at the harbor freight battery 60 bucks and wasn't really impressed. Got a battery tender at Costco for 29 bucks on sale. And just for giggles I picked up a 1.5 amp solar charger at harbor freight. So with the battery alone I figure easy 3 nights an a camping trip, if I use the solar charger during the day to refresh the battery who knows? I suppose I could plug it into the car or bike and let it run for 30 mins also , but I'm real impressed with this little battery. light enough to put on my bike and sealed so it wont spill. I'm kind of jazzed about going camping again.

Sounds like you got a good deal. Recently I purchased a U1 AGM battery, slightly bigger than yours, twice as expensive, but new. I was able to measure the load of the pump, and based on that I would guess your pump uses about 6 Amp-Hours a night, so two nights would leave it still above 50%. My Battery Tender Plus is able to fully recharge if I run it full time, essentially in UPS mode, but I'm thinking that adds undue stress to the system. The Tender is quite happy to run full time keeping the battery topped off.
Your 1.5 solar panel should add (assuming temperate USA in summer) about 6 amp-hours on a sunny day, so your battery might go indefinitely ias long as you have good weather.