New batteries

[BT Humble]

My brother-in-law works for Vodaphone here in Australia, doing maintenance on cellphone base stations.  The other day he called and asked me if I wanted some free batteries - a dozen 2V cells rated at 250Ah.  They'd been moving them for some reason and snapped a terminal post off one, so the boss decided to install new ones.

Since each cell has two positive and two negative posts, this isn't a big deal to me.  The bank had been used as the starting battery for the backup diesel generator, which was probably a bit of overkill.

Anyway, added to my existing bank that gives me 1370Ah of storage @24V. Should be adequate. ;-)

BTH

[jubalearly]

      Are these batteries the same type (chemestry wise) as your existing battery bank(s)?

If not, it may have somewhat different charging characteristics that would make it desirable to isolate it (or make it a completely seperate bank). If the voltage characteristics have much (pretty small) difference for charging or discharging then you could waste a lot of power circulating between banks. That's the same reason it is normally recommended not to mix age, lot or type batteries in the banks.

[BT Humble]

They're all Exide Faure X batteries.  2 banks of 560Ah 2V cells, and this new one of 240Ah 2V cells.  They're all roughly the same age.  I think they'll be OK.

BTH