battery power (amps)?

Anonymous-0 · Apr 5, 2012

Just was in the right place at the right time and had scads of gel batteries given to me from security/emergency lights...
12v/26AH and 12v/16AH is the most common and then some 12v/7AH.

Is it as simple as hooking 3 26AH in parallel and have a 78AH battery pack? Neighbor kid that is always helping me has been using one battery between several vehicles and a normal 80AH battery runs close to 200 bucks...

Any reaqson it shouldn't work?

Thanks, Dave

Errin OH · Apr 5, 2012

Yes and no, depends on what you want to do with it. Batteries are rated for specific draw over a specific time. A 26AH battery will not hold a 26 amp draw for an hour. What it will do is hold say a 1 amp draw for 26 hours. That is why car batteries are like 500 CCA rated they will supply 500 amps for so many seconds (most fall in the 50Ah rating). So, you need to figure the draw and then how long you want to draw it. From there determine the AHs. If you want to say draw 1 amp for 100 hours you need something like a 100AH rating. At 10 amps the time is reduced to like 10 hours (the higher the draw affects overall rating).

So yes you can put three in parallel and have a 78AH battery, but it will not hold a 78A draw for an hour. May do something like 6-7 amps for 8-10 hours. Make sense? There is a lot more to it (voltage levels, draw rate, temp, charge times, etc..) and these numbers just examples of the relationship between draw and rating. You need to have a little more data to compare the batteries.

Jon Hagen · Apr 5, 2012

One problem I can see if they are really gel cell batteries,instead of sealed AGM, is that gel cell is designed for a slow, low amp, discharge and recharge rate.

Discharge or charge them at too high a rate will cause bubbles to form in the gel electrolyte, which can not be removed. The bubbles will greatly lower the batteries output, renedering them useless.

If you parallel enough of them so they are never overloaded in either a charging or starting situation, they may go for a long while

Anonymous-0 · Apr 5, 2012

Forget the brainstorm of a starter battery then.... But they should be real good canditates for a solar panel and LED (or florescent) lights tho huh????

John T · Apr 5, 2012

If a battery has an energy storage rating of 26 AH then YES three in paralell would amount to 78 AH. The AH rating has to do with how much TIME a battery can supply x AMPS before the voltage drops to a certain level.

Unfortunately if all the ones in paralell arent equal in their capacity/condition the weaker can suck power from the stronger ones which is why when multiple batteries are used its best if they are identical in size and type and age and rating etc.

ALSO the AH rating is only one of other design considerations. A battery designed for starting can deliver high amperage for a short duration while one designed for deep cycle is more for slow lower amperage discharge over a long time period, so I have no idea of the type of service the batteries you have were designed for so I just cant say how well they will perform in whatever your application requires

Soooooooooo yes it can work (depends on your application and the application the batteries were designed for) but the more connections you have the more chances for problems remember

John T

Jon Hagen · Apr 5, 2012

yes, it should work

Indiana Ken · Apr 5, 2012

The amp-hr rating for large car/tractor batterys is based on a 20 hour rate. Smaller batterys, for example motorcycle batterys tend to be based on a 10 hour rate. Assuming a 10 hour rating, the 26 amp-hr battery would put out 2.6 amps for 10 hours at which time the voltage would have dropped to 10.5 volts. The 20 hour rate would work out to 1.3 amps for 20 hours before the voltage drops to 10.5 volts however, in your case I believe the 10 hour rate applys.

Since you have a stash of these batterys I do not see why you would not take a set and try it for starting use in a small vehicle. The sealed lead acid batterys I have run across are typically the AGM type. I plan to use a 14 amp-hr motorcycle battery (sealed AGM) for my lawn tractor - I am tired of buying lawn tractor batterys. I tested the MC battery under a 100 amp load for 10 seconds and the battery maintained 10.3 volts. The good battery in my new lawn tractor maintained 10.4 volts. I believe it should work - go for it.

battery power (amps)?

Anonymous-0

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Errin OH

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Jon Hagen

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Anonymous-0

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John T

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Jon Hagen

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Indiana Ken

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