brulaz wrote:
MudChucker wrote:
I did thjs once...you will suck down the bank faster than if they are seperate. Yes you can charge together but the 12 will pull down nearly twic as fast as the sixes and most of the power of the sixes will go into topping up the twelve. I dont knkw or care what the theory is here, in my case i bet the bank lost about a third of its run time.
Heard this before, and I believe you and the others here, but I've never understood it.
So the combined bank loses maybe 1/3 of its Ah during discharge. Where does that energy go?
Perhaps because battery charging is not 100% energy efficient, the re-charging of the smaller bank by the bigger bank loses some energy. But a third?
EDIT: just read the 2010 link Oldman2 provided above and it provides a lot more info. Maybe I'm beginning to understand ... maybe. A lot depends upon battery type I guess.
where does the energy go? well, the 12V with lower AH will discharge faster than the 6V combo. so the 6V will be charging the 12V as well as supplying part of the load with the 12V.
Now if all the batteries are the same AH rating and similar construction, not an issue.
and when charging, probably not as much an issue either. It's the discharge cycle and different capacity and battery chemistries that gets ya.
