How can I use a 36 voly battery system to my advantage

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Looking for advice on how to take advantage of some extra batteries. I have an old electric garden tractor. It uses 6- 6volt batteries for power.Much like a golf cart, been told this is a 36 volt system. Is there a way I can use a power invertor on this machine to harness some of this juice? Batteries are about two years old and have given me no problems. I'm not an electrician so please help with ideas!

-- Bob (pebbles@voyager.net), November 23, 1999

Answers

Most inverters work on either 12, 24, 48, or 110 Volts, so the best configuration for your 6-6 V batteries would be to wire them into 3 parrallel pairs of 2 batteries in series. Each pair being 12 V, will give you a nice storage system for your inverter to work on. Be very carefull during charging the batteries that all batteries do receive an even charge.

Malcolm

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), November 23, 1999.


Any inverter input voltage is specified (12, 24, 48 , etc.) Buy a 12 volt inverter, then do as Malcom suggests --

Each battery is 6 volts. Wire two of them together, + to -. Repeat this with the other two pairs. You now have 3 sets of batteries in series, producing 12 volts. Wire the 3 sets in parallel (+ to + and - to -). This give you 3 times the amount of useable current before the batteries need recharging.

Now, connect the batteries to the inverter -- being sure to use a hefty switch, so that you can shut the inverter off when needed. You also might want a 175 to 250 amp fuse in the line as a safety precaution. Don't use a switch like a wall switch, get one that will take several hundred amps dc.

Have you figured out how you are going to charge the batteries?

You might want to go to the Trace Engineering site -- www.traceengineering.com -- and download the manual for one of their inverters (PDF file, so you'll need Acrobat). They have some good wiring diagrams in them.

-- shocked (zap@charged.up), November 23, 1999.


Thanks for your guys help! Another question though, about charging them. The tractor has a huge built in charger on it with a timer. If I change how they are connected I will probably no longer be able to use this will I? I assume it is a 36 volt charger? Problem is they only made these tractors a few years in the mid 70's and there isn't much info on them, or at least I haven't found it yet.I do have a spare tractor with an extra charger on it. Thanks again, Bob.

-- Bob (pebbles@voyager.net), November 23, 1999.

Forgot to add I do have a generator that the charger can run off, want to use the battery setup for when generator is off such as night time.

-- Bob (pebbles@voyager.net), November 23, 1999.

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