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 illustration below show how these 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.

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 do you connect a battery in series?

To connect batteries in series, you connect the positive terminal of one battery to the negative terminal of another until the desired voltage is achieved. Don’t cross the remaining open positive and open negative with each other. It will short circuit the batteries and may cause damage or injury.

Why do we connect batteries together?

batteries together to support a single application. By connecting batteries into connected strings of individual batteries we create a battery bank with the potential to operate at an increased voltage; or with the potential to operate with increased capacity and runtime, or with the potential to operate both at an increased v

How do you connect multiple batteries?

There are two ways to connect multiple batteries: series connection or parallel connection. Most battery chemistries handle either type of connection, but sealed lead acid batteries have been the battery of choice for creating high voltage or high capacity battery banks for many years. Series Connections