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Do you have something wired into that side that is an accessory? Like a 12v item? radio? Fan? lights?
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All that you said "can" be true, but (there's always a but) if both batteries are the "same" and bought and installed at the "same" time they act just like "one" battery if the connecting cables are good and of the proper capacity. Working in the trucking and bus industry for 4 decades I've seen many systems. Some good, some bad but if there installed correctly they all work fine. At the transit department where I worked for the last 25 years all our buses had 4 batteries connected in series/parallel . At no time did I ever hear of a battery going bad from "under charging" because it was the "last" battery in line. Our batteries were all the same make and model and all cables and connectors where "above" capacity needed. I check my batteries every year, and every year they check out fine. Of course I use 4/0 welding cable to connect them and they are exactly the same batteries.OK U say FRONT batt, I am going to talk about the FIRST batt in the charging line here,,, YES! Charging batterys are like filling a pool, the charging system would have to over charge your first batt to fully fill the second, The resistance from the batts that turn the charging system off is set as NOT to over charge the first batt, Oh yes it is,. So the facts are as U suspect the Batts down the line never fully charge and there fore sulphate faster than the first batt,,, The charging systems in our and all trucks are NOT smart chargers, Batterys in ALL military vehicles should be pulled cleaned and fully bench charged and ROTATED and re installed if you want MAXIMUM battery life,At least once a year/
Simple TRUE facts, U can charge em in truck with a 12 volt charger on each and do not have to disconnect anything, between rotations, Batts will start a vehicle in good running order at 70 percent full, so it gets deceiving that people think there batts are full when they are NOT! ...
U noticed something many never get, Good call, Oh and when U need a batt, U do not need to buy 2 , if U only need one, almost ALL of these trucks are running with lower batts down the line so to speak, Just put the newer in the back, and rotate em, Now This is assuming U know how to test batts , and If the first is holding its current in the test No reason to replace it. I try hard to rotate em twice ayear, I have more than 10 years out of older Mil batts a few times,
Remember when your batts go prematurely , Its not the batterys fault, Its like everything else 90 percent Human error
As said above about never having a batt fail, I believe is not the question, The second and last batts in line do not fail, But do die faster than the first because of increased sulphation, Most see a batt die and replace both, And do not realize the second or last batt is the one dying first and putting more strain on the first..
Using a 24 volt charger is fine , But if U want ALL your batts FULLY charged u MUST charge each of them with 12 volt chargers, remember filling a pool. The first batt will stop the charging process so not to over charge the first batt, and leave the later batts wanting,
Oh and remember these batts need at least 13.6 volts to fully charge , a good variable charger does this, Trickle chargers will NOT fully charge these batts even though they will say it is, BECAUSE The resistance level is telling the charger it is full, It is not, but it will run the truck , But will sulphate faster than batts that receive regular FULL charges, All Facts.
Rusty,
There "Lithium-Ion" batteries in sealed 2volt cells. They are cooled by hydraulic oil coolers. The same buses are in service in Hawaii (they piggy-backed their bus order on ours) but they have AC units cooling them. The Alison transmissions are extremely expensive and we were the first transit agency in America to use them. The problem with the whole battery pack is their life expectancy of ten years max. At the time we first got them, a battery pack cost over $50,000.00 . Of course a Hybrid bus costs over 1 million dollars each. In my opinion a waste of tax payer money. "NeoPlan" had a bus that was based on a electric train engine design. A power plant ran a generator which ran electric motors to power the bus. It had the capability of using batteries also to go through the Seattle Tunnel . Instead they went with the "New Flyer" Hybrid bus. All that money spent on buses and training and special tools. I personally went through 320 hours of training and many others had over 600 hours of training. The few who went to the Alison transmission training school had another 3 months of training. Then there was the special technicians from Alison who worked with us for over a year. All payed with tax payer money. According to Federal Law, if a vehicle is bought with over 50% Federal Funds then it must be in service for a minimum of 15 years. The batteries will fail before that time of course, so add another $50,000.00 to the tax bill. That's not counting all the other systems that will fail and need repairing before that time is up. Now I don't know if this is true but one manager once told me the total cost of a bus over 15 years was in excess of 5 million dollars. We have over 1400 buses here in King County Seattle.
Our id**ts here can beat that! They also bought the "New Flyer" hybrids, then discovered that with maintenance costs and eventual pack replacement they made no sense, whatsoever. Their fuel savings were also much less than expected. so they converted them back to diesel only. However, the "Hybrid" stickers stayed on....as to not upset the "green" public!
Yeah I forgot to mention the "fuel savings" these buses were suppose to have. Did you know all these buses need coolant heaters to keep the engines at operating temperatures ! The stupid Cat C-9 engines do not produce enough heat in a bus system with the hundreds of feet heater hoses for the passengers heating system. Including all those heater cores ( 8 on a average bus) . So these little heaters using diesel fuel are just pumping away to keep the bus warm. Even at idle. Plus the Cat C-9 is not that great or fuel efficient of an engine anyway. So the average Hybrid bus is getting 3 to 4 MPG ! It's a real winner of a combination !
