How to wire 6- 6volt batteries-Help

2oldman wrote:
He's gone.

I'd be gone 2

He's gone.

time2roll wrote:


https://www.usbattery.com/info-center/configuration/

This is what the OP asked for and is probably all he wanted.

And then followed all the technical mass confusion !!

I will only say that you should pair the batteries by age I will use the example of batteries 1-2 and new years old

1-1
2-2
N-N

WHY. Well when you put the two six volt in series to make 12 you basically make one BIG 12 volt battery Now even though there is a lot of refuse about what happens when you mix old and new 12 volt batteries (nothing bad the batteries work it out) if you mix new and old six volt in the same pair bad things DO happen This is where the Refuse comes from (its nto refuse with the pair).

Think of each pair as a single 12 volt battery.

Would you want a 12 volt battery that was half old and half new (NO)
Half agm half flooded wet (NO)
Half small half large (NO)

let your converter/or charger work out equalizing the first time.

To stress how important this is wrt AGMs and the 0.5a/100AH rule-- if you have 6 batteries so your bank is worth say, three times 225AH or 675AH, that means you want your charging amps to taper to 3.375 amps for the bank, still at 14.4ish volts
.

The problem is you have no idea if some batteries are down to less than 0.5 and some are more. Perfect balance is very hard to achieve. But you can't afford to have some batts not get to that 0.5a. It is ok if they go lower than that. (But when the amps start to rise again after bottoming out, stop the recharge! (Now you are just heating up the battery)

So to do it right, you have to separate the batteries, and do each at a time. With 6s that means two 6s as a 12 at a time

I have one 12v 250AH AGM in parallel with two 12v 100 AH AGMs in parallel, for 250 in parallel with 200. To do a full recharge, I have to separate the 250 from the 100s and do it, then I even have to separate the two 100s and do one at a time. They don't act the same.
so that is three goes at it, each one getting to 0.5/100.

Now I can bank the whole bunch again as 450AH and put them on their one Float. AGMs are NOT the same as flooded.

Try this page

You just add the two new batteries on the end of that daisy chain. But you should group batteries by age and so multiple battery banks would be a better solution.

Dutch_12078 wrote:
If you consider each series connected pair of 6's as a single 12, it's easier to visualize.

Yes, visualize each pair of 6s as a 12, and go from there. Parallel the unconnected negs and pos's.

I had 6 6s and I had to draw the wiring and follow that. It's one place you do not want to screw up.

You have three 12s in effect. Wire the three 12s in parallel and put your load/charging wires on the outside batts. Not ideal for balancing but easiest. You can swap out the middle pair for an end pair every six months or every year to even things up over time as a way of balancing.

You have to separate the pairs for recharging to full at home before going to Float, but leave them as one big 12 for recharging while camping. The middle pair will not do quite the same as the outer pairs.

AGMs have to be recharged until they are accepting 0.5 amps /100AH at 14.4ish volts. You need an ammeter and voltmeter, and a charger that can hold its voltage at 14.4ish all the way down in amps as they taper. I use a Trimetric and an adjustable voltage converter/charger (PowerMax) to achieve that with my AGMs.

John beat me to it with his excellent diagram, but I'll leave my text in case it helps you to understand the hookup.

Picture it as 3 banks of two 6-volt batteries. Each bank of two is wired in series for 12-volts, and then each bank is wired in parallel with the others. That's exactly what you have now except with just two banks of two 6-volt batteries. If practical, connect the positive cable for the "house" to the positive post at one end of the set and the negative cable to the negative post at the other end to equalize the load across the set. If you consider each series connected pair of 6's as a single 12, it's easier to visualize.