Adding a 2nd battery (1 Viewer)

[Dazcaz]

Our new van (Bessacarr E769) only has one leisure battery, a 110Ah Calcium job. I want to add a 2nd. Do both batteries have to be identical? If I bought a new battery it would be another 110Ah one.
Does it matter that one will be older than the other? Do I have to buy two new batteries (this gets expensive if yes).

Our solar panel controller has outputs for 2 batteries. I'm assuming that I keep the connection as only one battery as I'm assuming the controller will see both batteries as one seeing as they will be connected in parallell..

Any thoughts and/or advice much appreciated.

 

[andy63]

The ideal situation is to have two batteries of same type and age... if one is older and not capabe of close to its rated capacity it will effect the newly added battery ..
as it's a new van you should be good to just add anothe of the same type..
You are right about your solar controller. .. you will only need the one output connected to your leisure batteries .. in parallel they are effectively one battery..
You could use the 2nd output to charge your start battery...(that's assuming it is a second output and not a load output on the controller. )
Andy.

 

[pappajohn]

Capacity doesn't matter, the charger only 'see's' one large battery.
Age does matter, an older one won't have the stated capacity due to age and sulphation and will pull down a new one as the two try to balance out so 2 x 110ah may only add up to 200ah total.
Less than a year or so old and kept in good condition should be ok but a 4 or 5 year old definitely not a good plan.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}