Battery Banks

[edwmama]

Battery banks. Need they be the same?
Hi
My cal 46 has two battery banks and a set of two lifeline starter batteries

I have on board a xantrex MS 3000 which is a converter/charger combo

House battery bank 1 consists of 4 6 Volts batteries connected in series

And the bank 2 has two 4D 12volts bats connected in parallel

My question is 1) is there any advantage to this choice of bats

2) is it preferable to have two identical battery banks

Like two sets of 4 six volt batteries
Istead of two different banks

3) having two different banks would that in anyway adversely affect the

Performance of my xantrex MS 3000

Also my starter bats are also connected to the charging system. Is this advisable. My boat electrician installed a combiner with the wirings.

Ease reply. My email is edwmama@yahoo.com

Edwmama

[DeepFrz]

Well, you asked a whole lot of questions there.

1. no
2. are you sure they aren't wired in series/parallel? 4 x 6 volt batteries in series is 24 volts.
2 and 3. no. However that is not the preferred way of setting up a battery system. You are much better off with one larger house battery bank, plus your start batteries. It is preferable to have all batteries the same, the same age and even from the same manufacturing lot.

The battery combiner for the start batteries is just fine.

There is a whole lot of reading on this and other forums about batteries and battery banks.

[matauwhi]

G'day, mate. Can't disagree with the input that the DeepFz has given you. You might not decide to replace all the batteries at once, say for instance, the starting batteries needed replacing and the house bank was fine or visa versa. I use a battery combiner all the time, to run the fridge/freezer off the inverter which is wired to the house bank when motoring to replace the amps via the engine alternator. Cheers.

[noelex 77]

There is nothing wrong with your battery system.

I agree with DeepFrz that in an ideal world:

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

It is preferable to have all batteries the same, the same age and even from the same manufacturing lot.

But the advantage of 2 house battery banks is you can have 2 different batteries, as you have (providing their charging requirements are similar) without any problems.
This is great for a cruising boat as circumstances often dictate that batteries end up mixed