Marine starting/Trolling v deep cycle bat

[AlaTex]

Planning a six night trip to Elkmont CG in Smoky Mt. N. P. in October.  No electricity.  Will use furnace at night and water pump a little.  Will not use pup lighting.  Question - I have 3 G24 Marine Starting/Trolling batteries - would these provide adequate power.  Or should I consider getting a deep cycle battery?

[Tim5055]

My gut feeling is that if all 3 are fully charged up you will be fine.  I would suggest a weekend outing using the batteries to see what kind of time you get out of them.  Obviously you would not be running the furnace in July/August but you could run lights and fans to keep simulate the power use.

[Johnowolf]

Planning a six night trip to Elkmont CG in Smoky Mt. N. P. in October. No electricity. Will use furnace at night and water pump a little. Will not use pup lighting. Question - I have 3 G24 Marine Starting/Trolling batteries - would these provide adequate power. Or should I consider getting a deep cycle battery?

Sounds like that will likely be OK ... I think I saw an estimate somewhere that off a Group 24 Deep Cycle you can expect to get about 64 usable AH (80% of the rated AHs). Their figuring was at aboug 4 hours run-time/24 hours that's probably going to run about 20 AH per 24 hr period(or about 3 nights worth). Pump won't run a whole lot more than that. The G24s probably won't be quite as efficient, but running the three in PARALLEL you should be able to get 6 nights out of 'em. Just be sure to rig them in Parallel (so you're getting 12V from the three batteries) NOT in series (which would give you 36V ... NOT what you want, obviously).

[AlaTex]

Sounds like that will likely be OK ... I think I saw an estimate somewhere that off a Group 24 Deep Cycle you can expect to get about 64 usable AH (80% of the rated AHs). Their figuring was at aboug 4 hours run-time/24 hours that's probably going to run about 20 AH per 24 hr period(or about 3 nights worth). Pump won't run a whole lot more than that. The G24s probably won't be quite as efficient, but running the three in PARALLEL you should be able to get 6 nights out of 'em. Just be sure to rig them in Parallel (so you're getting 12V from the three batteries) NOT in series (which would give you 36V ... NOT what you want, obviously).

Thanks - rather than hookiing them to gether - my plan was to use one at time - checking the voltage every morning to keep from killing them.  Thoughts about this?

[Diplomat]

While 3 battery's might do the job to run the furnace all night for 6 nights, FWIW I find that a good sleeping will keep me warmer and without all the noise!  Run the furnace in the evening as you get ready for bed and in the morning as you get up and about for the day, guarantee that 3 batteries will last 6 days that way.  The Smokies in October aren't all that cold, you shouldn't see it dip too far into the 20's at night.

[Johnowolf]

Thanks - rather than hookiing them to gether - my plan was to use one at time - checking the voltage every morning to keep from killing them. Thoughts about this?

I'm not sure ... my gut feeling would be you'd have less risk of running one of the batteries too low if you run 'em in parallel, but I'm not an expert. I'd be curious to hear from some of the more proficient electrical wizards out there. Which is better (more efficient): use each battery individually and switch 'em by hand as each gets low, or run multiple batteries in parallel? IIRC running them in parallel will draw down each battery roughly equally (i.e. usage spread across batteries at the same time). Like I said, you have less risk of running a single battery too low, but you do have the risk of running all THREE batteries too low at the same time.

[MtnCamper]

You may get more life from them running them together, yes. BUT they all need to be really close to the same age and power. The stronger one, will try to charge the weaker one. If they are all in good shape, I would jump them together, and use them. But keep an eye on them with a voltmeter, so you know how you are doing on power.