Marine battery

elkymutt

elkymutt

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Need some help looking for a marine battery. It would be used for our propane fridge up north. Nothing fancy or expensive as it would only be used for a week at a time after which we would charge it properly.

What should I be looking for? CCA? It won't be used in the cold...

Anyone seen any car/marine batteries for sale in Costco recently?

Cheers
 
I guessing your looking for a deep cycle not really a marine since its for fridge? walmart, CTC, costco all have them, check online who has the cheapest and away you go.
My propane fridge has no battery, whats your battery doing?

elkymutt said:
Need some help looking for a marine battery. It would be used for our propane fridge up north. Nothing fancy or expensive as it would only be used for a week at a time after which we would charge it properly.

What should I be looking for? CCA? It won't be used in the cold...

Anyone seen any car/marine batteries for sale in Costco recently?

Cheers
Click to expand...
 
I have one of the $90 walmart deep cycle batteries in my trailer. It runs my stereo litterally all weekend long (it's a car deck with 4 decent speakers and it's cranked most of the time it's on) Runs my lights inside the trailer and I have my inverter hooked up to run my laptop for a movie or two, charge my gopro, phone and transponder and I have still not run out of juice in a weekend.

I need to get a propane fridge though...
 
What does the propane fridge need power for? Any idea how much power it needs?

Basically you don't care about CCA, you care about Amp-hours for this. As you say it needs to work for a week, if it were on all the time (7x24=168 hours), based on a quick search, a Group 31 battery has 115 amp-hours, so your fridge would have to average less than 0.68 amps for the battery to survive. That seems unrealistically low. Also, if you want many cycles out of the battery, completely discharging isn't the best way to go, so it would be good if the fridge drew even less power to give the battery some reserve.
 
You can also get some solar panels to help keep the charge during the day. Or running a battery bank is usually a good way to keep the batteries from running all the way down.
 
does the battery power a thermostat or gas solonoid? or a power venting fan? I'm just really curious since our 35yr old propane unit at the cottage is just gas.

It had a AA battery light so you could see what you needed but since there is only ever 56 cans of beer and a jar of mustard in it we havent changed that battery since 1992.
 
Just make sure you save that Warranty card that comes with the battery - Canadian Tire and Walmart (if not all stores) sell batteries with a 12 month free replacement/30 month Warranty.

I bought a 100 Ah marine battery (class 27 I believe) from CT last August, but misplaced that card. This year my battery won't charge past 8 volts, and CT refuses to honor the warranty without that card :(
 
most boat fridge / stoves are converted to run off a 12v marine batt ... i had 3 marine battery's in my boat. 1 was simply for starting use and the two others operated fridge/ stove/ water tank for Off shore power...
 
What's your current draw?

What's your budget?
 
Thanks for the info!
The fridge is from an rv, and I believe the battery is needed to spark the propane as there is no pilot light. So as the temp. Is reached, the propane shuts off until the thermostat tells the electronics to spark up the pilot to get the fridge running. I don't imagine it takes much draw from the battery to do this except that the cycle occurs quite often as the fridge is older and the camp itself is heated with wood (some like it hot!).

Can anyone confirm if cost still sells deep cycle/marine batteries?
 
I think walmart everstarts are in my boat right now, work well enough . In that $80-99.00 dollar range I'm going to guess all those batteries will be pretty similar, I'd buy on price for your application.
 
crankcall said:
I think walmart everstarts are in my boat right now, work well enough . In that $80-99.00 dollar range I'm going to guess all those batteries will be pretty similar, I'd buy on price for your application.
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Ya, most other places are well into the hundreds for a battery of similar spec. Walmart warranty is decent too.
 
For future battery needs, give Great Northern Battery in Hamilton a shot. They are a family run business with great prices and I haven't found a size they don't sell yet. I am not sure they can beat Walmart prices, but I am sure they can beat walmart quality (for your application, price may trump quality).
 
GreyGhost said:
For future battery needs, give Great Northern Battery in Hamilton a shot. They are a family run business with great prices and I haven't found a size they don't sell yet. I am not sure they can beat Walmart prices, but I am sure they can beat walmart quality (for your application, price may trump quality).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info.!
 
A marine battery is usually designed to take a physical pounding and possibly to minimize hydrogen build up in the boat. Neither would likely apply to a camp situation so spend the money on what you really need.
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