mikeschn wrote:Your Koolatron cooler draws 4.5 amps per hour.
If you buy a 100 amp hour battery, and can only draw it down 50%, then in 11 hours you are effectively done!
Mike...
this 50% discharge thing is a bit misleading.. those numbers are given so people can get the longest possible life out of the battery.. back in the day all I had was a couple of deep cycle batteries for power and would regularly drain them until the alarm on my inverter would sound.. that brought me down 80% and those batteries lasted about 2 years of daily use or about 700 - 800 charges.. if a person is only using the batteries for occasional camping trip, then the batteries should give good service life even at deep discharge rates.. the trick is to get them fully charged again ASAP
btw, batteries only last so long anyway no matter how you use them.. it's about 5 year lifespan