Charging 6v battery's

Not simultaneously.

I think.

Cheers

Could I not connect the charger parallel to each battery using diodes somehow

No - but you could use four separate chargers, one connected to each battery.

Try to draw the circuit. It just won't work. You will need a 24V trickle charger unless you charge the batteries one at a time.

But using a 24V charger is highly unrecommended in this case, as he is planning to draw power from the 6v and 12V points in the combined battery - this will result in the "bottom" two batteries being under-charged while the "top" two will be overcharged.

I have 2- 12 volt trickle chargers I could put in series.

If I had 2 -12 volt battery's wired in series One fully charged and the other half drained. Wouldn't the fully charged battery level out and bring the second one up so both batteries are about the same Rick

Perhaps he could use a step-down Buck converter, and convert the 24V from the batteries in series down to 6V and 12V?

This avoids having some batteries work harder than others...

Michael

If you have two 12 volt chargers and put one on each half of the 24 volt bank, then each charger should keep "its own" battery charged.

However, since you also want to get 6 volts out of this system, that won't keep the two "bottom" batteries balanced.

The best solution would be to connect the batteries as required to directly supply the highest current load, then use DC-DC converters to operate from that voltage, and produce the other two voltages. If the power required at 6 volts is very low (perhaps a few 10's of mA) a simple linear regulator (such as an LM317) operating from the 12V supply may be practical.

Since you haven't mentioned what current is required at each voltage, it is impossible to make any firm recommendations as to the best solution.

It could probably theoretically be done with 4x isolated wallwarts (and proper charging circuitry), but it'd probably be a PITA, and there are always "gotchas" with this sort of thing.

Good Luck! Rich

You need an isolated charger for each one, or you can charge one at a time.

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JANA _____