I was wanting to get some personal views on a setup I saw this morning. For most installs I have seen and also done myself the inverter and/or charge controller cables are staggered between two parallel batteries. So the inverter and charge controller cables would be fed their positive cable from the positive post of “battery 1” and their negative feed from the negative post of “battery 2” hence neither battery would work too hard, they would share the load equally.  

This morning I saw a slightly different setup. On this install the charge controller was fed from positive of “battery 1” and negative of “battery 2” The inverter was fed from positive of “battery 2” and negative of “battery 1” 

I would like to hear some opinions on this very interesting cable staggering...

46 minutes ago, Solaris said:

I was wanting to get some personal views on a setup I saw this morning. For most installs I have seen and also done myself the inverter and/or charge controller cables are staggered between two parallel batteries. So the inverter and charge controller cables would be fed their positive cable from the positive post of “battery 1” and their negative feed from the negative post of “battery 2” hence neither battery would work too hard, they would share the load equally.  

This morning I saw a slightly different setup. On this install the charge controller was fed from positive of “battery 1” and negative of “battery 2” The inverter was fed from positive of “battery 2” and negative of “battery 1” 

I would like to hear some opinions on this very interesting cable staggering...

I'm confused, it doesn't sound like it will work. Can you draw a schematic?

21 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

Can you draw a schematic?

 Not a schematic, but a rough drawing from top view.

 

I can't think it will make much difference as the cables between the batteries are acting like bus bars.  The only difference will be two lugs on each terminal instead of three, which may cause a problem.

I think the only difference is going to be that PV power that is directly consumed will have to travel a bit further (through the battery links as well). Other than that, I don't think there is any difference. It's balanced for both charge and discharge.

On 2019/07/10 at 1:34 PM, DeepBass9 said:

  The only difference will be two lugs on each terminal instead of three, which may cause a problem

What sort of problem do you anticipate? 

I tend to agree with Plonkster. Balanced charge, balanced discharge. I don’t think the longer route of the PV power consumption will cause an issue. The batteries will likely be more evenly balanced. 

Just a stack of too many lugs on a bolt that is too short.

1 hour ago, DeepBass9 said:

a stack of too many lugs on a bolt that is too short

Oh, now I get it. 😂😂

But not a problem at all, there are actually only two lugs per battery post. All four of them are equal. 

I personally think this is a better setup that what I have done before. The customer who this belongs to has had no issues for the two years that he has used this system. I was there purely to see his system with the possibility of expanding it.