On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 8:02 AM, B Feddish <uprightbassghost@hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> My very unscientific experience has been this (keep in mind this is usyally
> 80 degrees or above weather):  1 battery lasts 24 to 36 hours. I have the
> fridge set on 5 and usually have the freezer full of ice pops for the kids
> too.   I have 2 group 42 deep cycles so I can usually camp for a regular or
> 3 day weekend just on batteries. I have 80 watts of solar. Cheap panels from
> eBay, probably $130 for the 30 watt and $170 for the 50 watt.   If it's
> sunny, and I rotate the panels with the sun, I can go indefinielty on solar.
>  As soon as it's cloudy the panels are worthless and the batteries start to
> drain.  Having 150 watts of solar would probably be best.
>

My experience with my Norcold, a Group 31 (110 AH) battery and 100 watts of
solar is virtually identical. With good Sun I went for a full week with no
problems back in early August.  No Sun and three days then fire up the
generator for about 2 1/2 hours. And my battery is not a deep cycle and
after 3 1/2 years of use is starting not work as well as when new, thinking
about replacing it.