What is the correct way to hook up a Battery Inverter/Charger

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

Which is correct method?  

Diagram A  or Diagram 2?

Click on image to enlarge.

[Oonrahnjay]

   Diagram 2.

[luvrbus]

Number 2 if not it over charges the first 2 batteries

[neoneddy]

I think is one of those trick questions.  Other than visual, electrically they are the same.

Both are parallel.

Only way you might have some measurable difference is if each battery had it's own + and - cable ran to the inverter.   You'd get less line resistance, but those would essentially be giant post extensions.

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

This is not a trick question.  The difference is in how they are hooked to the Inverter/Charger.

[neoneddy]

Ok, I  see it now.

It balances the differences resistance  to charge, so it's  negative and positive loads are at opposite ends of the bank.   I'll need to keep this in mind when I add more 24v banks.  Right now I run a single 4x6v arrangement in series.

[buswarrior]

Diagram 2.

Electricity is lazy, takes the easiest route.

It has to be forced, like a kids' gym class, to go the whole route.

In diagram 1, the closest battery does most of the work, the furthest battery does less, and when charging, the closest gets all the charge, the furthest gets under charged.

Highway tractors are notorious for being wired like diagram 1. Three or 4 batteries in parallel, the furthest battery is first to die.

Often to save a foot or two of heavy cable...

Gary, is the Trace equipped with the optional battery charger?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Iceni John]

More pertinent wisdom from SmartGauge:  http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html   (And no, I don't have shares in their company!)

John

[buswarrior]

I also like the Balmar Smart Gauge.

Idiot proof, no shunts, stays accurate over time, just attach wires and away you go.

There is a marine how-to site / vendor who sells them at good price.

edit (newer link, site is moving:  https://shop.marinehowto.com/products/balmar-smart-guage )

http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/balmar_smart_gauge

Lots of helpful electrical articles on there for a busnut too.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[chessie4905]

How does that differ from the trace remote monitor if you are familiar with it? Curious if Trace one is same, since I have the 2512 with charge and remote monitor.

[buswarrior]

The Trace remotes I am familiar with are just remote controls for the Inverter/charger, some with simple multi-meter functions built in.

A State of Charge (SOC) meter acts like a fuel gauge for the battery bank by monitoring the energy leaving and returning to the battery bank.

A voltmeter alone cannot readily tell you how "full" or "empty" the battery bank is.

A SOC meter takes all the guess work out.

These questions have immediate answers, that without one, you have no idea:

How much battery capacity did I use overnight last night?

How much battery charging did I do while running the generator this morning for breakfast?

How did the solar panels perform in today's cloudy sunshine?

Am I getting enough charge during my 50 mile drive today?

Should I think about spending more/less on a bigger/smaller battery bank?

When was the last time I am sure that the battery bank reached full charge?

The accompanying article on the Compass Marine site  https://marinehowto.com/smart-gauge-battery-monitoring-unit/ goes into great technical detail as to why the Smart Gauge is the latest greatest, having to do with the changes in batteries as they are used, and how older style SOC meters drift in their measurements due to it, without periodic load testing and calibration that none of us want to do $$$.

FWIW, the military are users of this Balmar technology.

No matter which way you want to spend your money, living off a battery bank gets unnecessarily expensive if you can't "see" how much power is going in and out. Put the SOC meter of your choice into your system.

Imagine a world where every busnut gets a decade out of a battery bank?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[bobofthenorth]

Trace monitor uses a shunt so it is completely different.  This is the first I've heard of the Balmar product.  The referenced website does a good job of sounding like snake oil but coming from Balmar that is unlikely.  Balmar makes really good stuff.  The pluses I see are that it would be dead simple to install and requires no setup.  Setting up a shunt meter requires some indepth understanding of what you are doing.  The only negative I can see is that the Balmar unit doesn't display amps.  That probably doesn't matter in the long run as long as the SOC information is accurate.  However having owned several monitors that did display amps I would - at least initially - miss that feature.  

[Stormcloud]

Diagram 2 is the best way to connect. It is the best method of the 2 choices to balance the charge and discharge among the batteries in the bank. It makes allowance for variables which may include the slight resistance in each wire that interconnects the batteries.

Electricity takes ALL paths to ground.....that's why you can plug in multiple devices to many outlets connected to the same circuit breaker in your home, and they will ALL power up. If electricity took only the easiest or shortest path, just the device closest to the electric panel would power up.

I hope you get the boiling issue under control. I would be looking for a shorted battery.

[Oonrahnjay]

       I need your help and suggestions, please.  I have an unusual sized and shaped battery storage box (my bus has no bays under the floor).   I was able to purchase some AGM batteries that would have cost me about $250 each, delivered but my price was $12 each - they are cell-tower "takeouts".  My problem is that with the limited space I have, there appears only one way to fit the 9 battery units into the space available.  I am trying to figure out a way to do the "balanced resistance" battery cable arrangement.
       It appears that the only way to link negative poles is with a copper bar ground bus -- which is fine with me, they seem to work very well and many heavy trucks use them for severe service.  So, my sketch shows the ground bar bus between the two rows of batteries.  The only area of concern with this is that it sort of groups adjacent cells into a single negative path resistance.  So, the real problem is to arrange the positive linkage so that the resistance on the positive side is balanced with the resistance through the ground bar to the chassis ground.  My first proposed layout would have had a single cable into the battery at lower right in the sketch but that would have left the upper right battery with a very long positive resistance path and a fairly short negative resistance path.  Not good, the batteries on the lower line would be getting a stronger charge and a stronger power draw than the ones on the top.  So, my real question is:

"Is it possible and good practice to make the positive feed to/from the inverter set up as a Y-connector, making the positive connection into the parallel battery setup a loop with low resistance into the right side of each bank, with ground being taken from the collective ground bar at the left side of the battery group?"

Here is the sketch of the way I propose to fit positive cables and the ground bar to the battery bank:

https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_/photo/AF1QipPH-B3uDXn-2FCd8lMUE9p_B3V2dATAazaqZRM

[usbusin]

Bruce, your link does not work.  Here is what comes up:

404. That's an error.

The requested URL was not found on this server. That's all we know.