How do I connect a lead acid battery?

There are three ways to connect your lead acid batteries—parallel, series, and a combination known as series/parallel. We cover each of these battery configurations in greater detail in our Battery Basics tutorial section of the site should you want to delve in a little deeper or reinforce what you already know.

How do you wire a battery together?

There are two ways to wire batteries together, parallel and series. The illustrations below show how these set wiring variations can produce different voltage and amp hour outputs. In the graphics we’ve used sealed lead acid batteries but the concepts of how units are connected is true of all battery types.

How do you wire a battery in series?

For more information on wiring in series see Connecting batteries in series, or our article on building battery banks. The basic concept is that when connecting in parallel, you add the amp hour ratings of the batteries together, but the voltage remains the same. For example:

Should a lead acid battery be positive or negative?

Safety Rule #2 -- When Installing a Battery Start with the Positive There is a serious amount of stored potential energy available in a sealed lead acid battery. A shorted car battery, for example, can deliver several hundred amps in the blink of an eye. To put that in perspective that is more than an arc-welding machine.

How to connect batteries in parallel?

Connecting batteries in Parallel is normally performed to increases capacity. This can be done by connecting the positive terminal of the first battery to the positive terminal of the second battery. Likewise, the negative terminal of the first battery is connected to the negative terminal of the second battery.

Can a 12V battery be connected in series?

When creating a lead-acid battery bank with a higher voltage, like 24 or 48V you will need to connect multiple 12V batteries in series. But there is one problem with connecting batteries in series, and this is that batteries are not electrically identical. They have slight differences in internal resistance.