Strange Battery hook-up?

[wijames]

I just purchased a Tracker party hut and when I looked in the battery compartment I noticed that I had two batteries chained togeather positive to positive and negative to negative. I believe this produces setup still produces 12 volts but not sure why someone would hook them up this way. I thought doing this would overcharge one of the batteries if one of them was low as the charger equalizes the charge in the batteries. Any ideas?

[k5guy38]

You will be fine. The way thats hooked up it will just give you more amps. Almost all you diesel pickups and what have you are wired this way.

[GXPWeasel]

Yep, you should be good. Just make sure both batteries are equally (fully) charged, so one battery isn't a sacrafice for the other battery.

[pond tuuunes]

The only problem with this is that, if one battery is going bad. It will draw down the others. A lot of vehicles that parralell the batteries have an isolater. For the most part it will be fine, but both batteries need to be identical, in age and output. JT

[jrolin1]

While it will work as long as there is not a problem. I would get a switch or an isolator to make sure you don't drain both batteries through using them or a battery problem.

[babock]

I agree, I would get a 1/2/both battery switch.

[chopper6358]

If you continue to run the batteries in this configurations with out an isolator then the positive cable from the load should be on the positive post on one battery and negative cable on the negative post of the other battery. This makes one large amp battery and they will charge and discharge equally as long as both batteries are good