Combining battery sizes in parallel.
Hi everyone. Old member that has been on a long hiatus. Our day has come and we are now retired so I am fortifying the camper with extra power in the form of solar panels and batteries. I removed t...
Forum Discussion
ticki2 wrote:ScottG wrote:
This is done every day in the commercial world. I would separate them into two banks and charge them together but use and store them separately. For best efficiency, I would only connect them all together when charging.
I am certainly not a 12v guru but it seems to me that any of us charging from the trucks alternator are doing this regularly . The truck and house batteries are almost never the same size or type battery .
Yep. When I ran my RV setup they were probably run in parallel (for charging and use) about 60-70% of the time. When you try to actually get into the technical specifics of why the "everybody knows" guidance is what it is, the information is somewhat fuzzy and the "damage" or "inefficiencies" you'll see tends to come from conjecture rather than actual testing or experience. Rather than depending on "dumb luck", decide what you want to do, do as much actual research as you can on the specifics, and then make your decision. Your results may occasionally not work out the way you want, but my experience says that you'll have more way winners than losers.
