Next message: Lee Haefele: "Re: lv-ab: batteries parallel - summary"
Dear All,
thank You for your informations about connecting the batteries paralell.
I got quite a lot info.
1. It's not a bad idea to connect the batteries parallel, to get a bigger
battery bank.
2. Any shortcircuit on the system can cause severe damage/fire because of
the high current.
3. This can be especially serious, when a battery becomes shorted, because
the battery can explode. However nobody heard, that ever happened, and the
chances are very very low. To be on the safe side, one can install
breakers/fuses for each battery, however in this case you have to be sure,
that if a breaker opens, no spark will ignite the flammable gases coming
from the battery.
4. Another problem with connecting the batteries parallel, if 1 cell of 1
battery goes bad and shorted, a current will flow from the other batteries
to this bad battery. The current is relative low, so no real danger of an
exploding battery, but the whole battery bank will be discharged. It is not
possible to protect the other batteries with breaker/fuses because the
current will be probably less, than the current for a normal consumption
(eg. bowthruster).
So I decided not to install individual breakers for each battery. For the
info#4 I'm still thinking. Grouping the batteries to 2 separate banks can be
a not so good cure, but I would rather avoid that type of configuration.
With 2 banks, if 1 cell fails, only 1 bank will be discharged.
If somehow I could meter the current coming out from each battery and
current on the boat's main cable, that can be a solution. If the 2 amperage
differs, that would mean a bad cell.
Any ideas? What is your solution for info#4?
Cheers
Geza Szabo
www.rotorman.hu
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