Battery Question


leon54173

New Member
We do a lot of dry camping and currently have 2 x 12v batteries in parallel. Batteries are approaching end of life and I’ll be replacing them shortly. I have the space for a third battery, and am thinking of going with 3 x 12v to maximize amp hours. However, I’ve never seen or read about such a configuration. Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this?
 

In the Doghouse

New Member
We do a lot of dry camping and currently have 2 x 12v batteries in parallel. Batteries are approaching end of life and I’ll be replacing them shortly. I have the space for a third battery, and am thinking of going with 3 x 12v to maximize amp hours. However, I’ve never seen or read about such a configuration. Is there any reason I shouldn’t do this?
Leon-
We have 4 deep cycle marines in our 5th wheel; no issues last year. As long as you hook them up in parallel and not series, you would be fine. The reasoning being that if they're in series, you end up with 24v system and anything with a max of 12v in your unit MAY get fried. The other thing you should do is hook pos. up to first battery and ground to last, which will drain all batteries equally
 

Bigbillsd

New Member
Doghouse is correct. Keep them in parallel only. Triple the Amp Hours at the same voltage. Basically + to + to + and all the negatives connected together.
If you want real power, you need more amp hours, look for true 6 volt deep cycles, I have 4 of them connected with each set of two batteries serialized to get 12 volts and then those are paralleled to double the amperage. They are Crown CR-260 6 volt batteries. They were $131 each last December.

That setup gives me 520 Ah, Crown rates them for 750 charge cycles when you discharge them by 80% Better to stay at 50% of above, but nice to know these are true deep cycle batteries. And they are very heavy, lots of thick lead plates!
 
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