Can some one help me with a 215 cat excavator It has a 6 volts with 4 6 volts batteries in it I would to change it to 2 12 volts batteries Can some tell me what i need to look for or what i need to do to chang it over to a 6 volts to 12 volts Thanks Ontario
I'm not dierctly experienced with the 215 cat, but have run lots of 24 volt equipment. I assume the 215 is 24 volt as well. ( You make sure, because that isn't exactly what you said.) Assuming you can fit the batteries in the place they go, and get the same cranking power out of the 2 twelve volt batteries , it's relatively straightforward. Your four 6 volt batteries are connected in series, to produce 24 volts total. Pos. (+) wire to starter--neg. (-) of that battery to pos. (+) of the next one, and so on, until neg. (-) of the last battery is connected to ground. Just treat each of the 12 volt batteries as one pair of the 6 volt batteries. Pos. (+) wire to starter--neg. (-) of that battery to pos. (+) of the next one--neg. (-) of that second battery is connected to ground. Oh, BTW, welcome to the site!
Digger is right (The machine should be 24V through 4 x 6 not 6V?) and I think the pic attached makes it simple to understand. As one who had the top blow completely off a battery (it was defective and making lots of gas) when trying to start a loader a few years ago, my advice would be not to mess around with batteries if you are not 100% sure how the machine is configured. I bet a local battery supplier would advise you if you give them the numbers off the battery and describe how they are configured
This is a simple setup as shown in the 2 other posts. If you don't know the differance between a 6, 12, or 24 volt system then I would suggest you have someone that knows what they are doing help you as this could be dangerous. Hooked up wrong could caus the batteries to explode and get acid on you or in your eyes. It could also cause electrical problems with the equipment that can get expencive. Parden my spelling it has been a long night. Dwan
Wulf, I'm not sure your diagram is entirely accurate. It shows that both set ups give you 100 AH and I think this is in error. The reason for using multiple battery arrangements is to gain amperage that you can't through a single battery, so in other words, I'm fairly certain the 4 x 6v set up would have more amperage available than the 2 x 12v. A few years ago I could have said for sure, but the equation to figure this escapes me at the moment.
I'm not sure you're correct, Steve. By going in series, you're only upping the voltage. That's not going to give you more amperage. If you connect batteries in parallel --all the positives together, and all the negatives together, that would give you more amps, but at the same volts. I have an IHC dumptruck that is 12 volt, but has it's 3batteries connected in parallel. (Actually, right now it only has two, and since they're almost new, and it's summertime, it starts just fine. Once it gets down to around 15 degrees, I doubt they'll turn it over.) On edit: Remember, all these batteries are simply a series of 2 volt cells connected to one another. That's why 6 volt batteries have only three cells, and 12 volts have 6 cells. Esentially when you connect them as shown in Wulf's diagram you just connecting more cells together. There's no reason you couldn't, if you wanted to, build a battery with 12 cells, that would give you 24 volts right off the terminals.
Understood. Like I said I used to know the formula, I probably should have looked it up before posting. If your description is accurate, it makes no sense to run the 4 6V batteries, it's added expense for no gain.
I think the gain of using four 6volt batteries that are similiarly sized as a 12 volt battery(so the (4)6volts total would take up twice the room as the (2) 12 volts) is that the 6volts would have larger cells, and thicker plates. They may not have much, if any, more cranking amps being run in series, but they would have a much larger reserve capacity. Together, they'de act more like a deep cycle battery than the two 12 volts. If each of the (2)12volt batteries are twice the size of each of the 6volts, then I wouldn't see why there would be any advantage to using the (4)6volts.
Yes be carefull when dealing with batteries they do explode. One guy I know had bunch of 8Ds hooked up he turned around and a bunch of the batteries blew their top and splattered acid all over his back. You can tell easily if you have a 24 volt operating system if the radio or any of the gauges say 24 volt on them.