Ok as I understand it the O/P has a bunch of batteries.. What he wants to know is;
Should I wire half of them in parallel, then wire the other half in parallel then put the two halves in series -OR-
Should I wire them 2x 2 in series then wire the pairs in parallel.
IN THEORY: and in this case I stress the word THEORY. It makes no difference.
IN PRACTICE. I'd go with option 2.. Wire them in series pairs making a bunch of 12 volt batteries then wire them in parallel.
WHY> If one battery gets a shorted cell very bad things will happen to many batteries in the parallel first configuration.
But in the series first you only take out the mate.. not the rest of the bank. And by simply dropping that one pair out (till you can replace) you are good to camp.
