Wiring your battery bank in series, parallel and series-parallel

The basics of wiring up your battery bank

There are many ways to wire batteries to attain the kind of bank that you need to suit your needs. For instance commonly RV’s and Marine applications run off a 12v DC type of system. In order to build up your battery capacity you will probably need more than one battery in order to attain the storage that you need. Also you may run into space or cost issues with the larger 12v batteries. Often people will use two 6 Volt batteries wired in series to get to the 12 volts that they need.

Wiring in series

When you wire batteries together in series you will increase the voltage while keeping the amp hour capacity the same. For instance the two 6V 150Ah batteries pictured here, if wired in series will give you a total of 12V at 150Ah.

Wiring in Parallel:

Wiring batteries together in parallel has the effect of doubling the capacity while keeping the voltage the same. The setup pictured here, of two 6V 150Ah batteries connected in parallel will allow you to double the capacity, producing 6V with 300Ah out the end.

Wiring in Series and Parallel:

Batteries can be wired both in series and parallel, this increases both the amperage and voltage available. In this example here two “Strings” of batteries are wired up in Series to essentially make two 12V Banks, these are then wired together in series (doubling the 150Ah) to eventually provide 12 Volts at 300 Ah.