KD4UPL wrote:
Dusty R wrote:
I always looked at it this way.
Two 6v batteries is series may give a you more power but if one battery dies while you are out in the boonies, you are out of power.
But if you are using 2-12v batteries in parallel and one dies, you can keep going, you just need to run your generator more often.
Dusty
I'm not trying to pick a fight, I'm genuinely curious about this view I've heard from others.
The way I see it, if you have 2 12v in parallel and one dies (which I guess you mean develops a shorted cell) the bad battery will be 2v lower than the good battery. This will cause the good battery to try and charge the bad battery which will kill it in the process.
I've often wondered if people operating with this theory periodically disconnect their parallel sets of batteries to test them individually to make sure one isn't shorted. The thing is, I don't know how long it would take for the shorted battery to take out the good one but I'm thinking not very long at all, maybe a matter of a few hours?
I think the difference is you can recharge the remaining 12V battery and be up and running even if one shorts out which you cannot do with a pair of 6V. That’s what Dusty was suggesting by running the generator more often.
