Combining a 6v bank with existing 12v bank

RoyB,

Dang! That sure puts my Crayon® diagrams to shame.

Mena - Thanks I used to be real patient in my younger years and always enjoyed playing with the drawings... Was pretty good with AUTOCAD at one time. Its neat to draw in real size on things... Then I retired and of course no one has enough monies to keep all of these programs updated... The older programs would continue to work without KEY ID etc.. Now as soon as your open up the program it checks who you is. When I retired I just left all the good stuff at work. I thought I had a copy of VISIO here but can't find it haha... Thats another arm and leg to get validated again.

I then found LibreOffice Ver 3.4 and it does pretty good working with objects being a FREEWARE program... I have added a bunch of library drawings fixed up around what I am drawing... Some one on here recently told me they have a newer version but I haven't gone out and looked for it yet to see what the changes might be...

I like the LibreOffice as it works great with PDF drawings. I also have the fancy Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 which allows you to dissect almost any PDF drawing program and use their object components any way you see fit... So the two work together pretty good... I save everything in PDF format which allows me to CUT and PASTE in JPG format any part of the drawing I want to send along...

Now that I am retired I need to start up again and get my library looking better now...

I will around looking for the parts drawings of electronic things that go with trailers like BLUE SEA or alot of these electrical drawings. I can usually dissect them real easy and adapt to my drawings without a lot of effort. This lets me use their drawings components haha...

I get on roll here sometimes and spend days working on them to make them look pretty hehe... One good sneeze and all those components will go flying away...

When you zoom in real close it doesnt look as pretty as these cheap freebie programs wont lock the ends together like autocad does...

I will download one of their object drawings and start breaking it down. Pretty soon I have bunches of objects all over the pages.. Then you can start using some their fancy art work. Of course the real big guys have all of that locked up...

Roy Ken

As always, your diagrams are awesome!

This is my season to replace my aging battery bank. I am currently planning on using two groups of two each TROJAN T1275P 150AH 12VDC batteries. To spread out the weight of 82lbs per battery I am going to install two T1275P on the trailer tongue and two additional T1275P batteries in the bed of my truck. this will give me 300AHs capacit from each 12VDC bank. I have a requirement to use a battery bank with my Two way radios and well as when camping so having the two separate banks will work just fine for me.

When camping I will have the capability of combining the two battery banks together giving me 600AH battery capacity

My setup in the truck will look like this


My setup in the trailer will look something like this except only one battery bank will be used...


My OFF-ROAD POPUP floorplan will look something like this


I too may run out of monies as well and coulde possibly mix one bank being the cheaper GC2 6V batteries.

Just some of my planning
Roy Ken

jauguston wrote:
Hook them all together. Don't separate them into two banks. It will work just fine.

Jim

Hey Jim,

If you hook enough of them in series, you can make a model boat go over 100 mph! :)

It's been a few years.

PaulD

Hmm I thought there were pretty serious consequences to mislabeling a battery. Might be worth a call. The might ship some real 160 AH batteries out, or a matching set of group 27s to get te amp hours up to meet or exceed the label?

Jim

Harris battery northeast is clustered (coincidentally I'm sure) around the East Penn DEKA battery manufacturing factory in Pennsylvania.

Harris Battery west is clustered next town over (coincidentally I'm sure) from Corona home to U.S. Battery.

Another "Me Too" reseller

Truck batteries used to be "different". Now, even all but the rare and expensive true deep cycle 8-D are made with the exact same plate design as Wal-Mart group 29

McKenziek wrote:

HiTech wrote:
The 12v 20 hour rate 160 amp hour batteries I can find are really nice units. I'd be inclined to get 1 or more of the exact same batteries, though they do cost more per amp hour than GC batteries. For example you could add just one more and be at a 480 Ah bank for maybe a little less than replacing the two you have with 4 golf cart batteries to get a smaller bank.

What model number are these big guys? 4D AGM true deep cycles maybe? If they are AGM, it will be hard to get a charger set up that will do what flooded golf cart batteries need AND give the AGMs what they want, without hurting either by under/over charging excessively.

Jim

They are model 27D170's from Harris Battery.http://www.harrisbattery.com/deep-cycle-batteries-harris-deep-cycle-marine-series-27d170

Any comment as to their quality?

Anyone familiar with Harris batteries?

Jim

McKenziek wrote:

Mena, just checked out your sliding battery tray setup. Nice. Did you have to reinforce the compartment below to handle the weight? All my compartments are cheap plastic bins suspended by sheet metal screws so I have some fabrication to do.

Thanks. :) The compartment is steel but I did use two 1/4" pieces of plywood on the bottom of the compartment. Eventually I will probably get someone to weld a steel or aluminum plate on the bottom of the compartment cause I want to get longer slides (I want the batteries to slide all the way out).

McKenziek wrote:


False Advertising?

Hmmmm. Unless the info in the link is wrong. I would call the manufacturer and see what they say. Should be entertaining.

You do find group 27's at 105 (interstate SRM-27B) and even 115 Ah at the 20 hour rate, but you see more and more listing the 1 amp rate instead.

Jim