How do amps add up when wiring in series?

Question

If I take, say, twenty 3.7v 10Ah batteries , and wire them in series, I get 74v right? How many Amps do I have? (10,000mAh = 10Ah right?) Thanks!

Thanks for the answers so far. They help a ton. A follow-up: how do Amps compare to farads? I am wondering how ultracapacitors compare to batteries.

also, in clearing up the confusion between amps and amp-hours, if a car battery (lead-acid, i believe) is rated at 800 cranking amps, does that equal 800Ah? (as in 1 amp per hour for 800 hours, or 800 amps per hour for 1 hour.)

Answer 1

The amps and the amp-hours will be the same as for one battery. All the batteries need to be the same. You only gain voltage and watt hours. (37 wh for one, 740 wh for 20). (Yes. 10,000mAh = 10Ah.)

Re Additional Details
The energy stored in a capacitor is Joules (watt-seconds) = 0.5 X C (farads) X Vsquared. The energy stored in a battery is Watt-hours = volts X amp-hours. You can divide the joules by 3600 to convert to watt hours or multiply the watt hours by 3600 to get joules. When you start to use the energy in a capacitor, the voltage starts to drop immediately and drops steadily until it is too low to be useful. In order to use a capacitor as an energy storage device, you need a switching power supply which will provide a utilization voltage that is much lower than the initial capacitor voltage.

The cranking amps is a maximum current capability. A car battery has an amp-hr rating of 50 to 80. If that rating held up at 800 amps, which it probably won’t, an 80 Ahr battery would last 1/10 hr cranking (80 Ahr/800A).

Note that your series of batteries will only be rated 10Ah if the current supplied at 74 volts is within the normal current range of the batteries.

Answer 2

Amps In Series

Answer 3

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/av3Ff

This is very dangerous for a hobby, I would suggest you look at the theory but don't realise it in practise. You are talking about 66kW of power there which could easily kill you if applied in the wrong spot, or kill someone else. Permenant injury is a real possibility too if some of the connections cant take the power, you may end up with molten metal on you. Theory wise you cant really get 8 12V batteries up to anything higher than ~96V without additional circuitry. The voltages add in series while the currents add in parallel. So the maximum voltage you can get with just the batteries and basic wiring is 96V, with the current being the rated current for one of those batteries. The maximum current you can get with 8 batteries is 8* the max rated current for the batteries with the voltage of the parallel circuit equal to 12V. You might be able to get more current but don't exceed the manufacturer's maximum current ratings. Combinations of series and parallel wirings will yield different currents and voltages. Make sure you have the same number in series for each parallel connection though (e.g. 2 parallel connections of 4 series batteries each etc) So to get ~133V you would need 11 batteries in series (133/12V = 11.08 batteries, will actually give 132V but the batteries wont exactly be 12V each in reality) the current I would say three banks, which will give you more than 500A (195A * 3 banks = 585A) in theory but you can limit the current that the batteries provide. So 33 batteries total to to accomplish that in theory but don't do it in reality ever, its way too dangerous and can kill you and others.

Answer 4

There seems to be some confusion between amperes and ampere hours. Ampere hours is a measure of the time that which a battery can supply a given current(in amperes). The ampere rating on a battery is determined at this current draw. It will change for different current draws.

In your example, more current will flow as you add batteries in series, if the load remains constant. The ampere hour capacity of the battery will be less, because of the increased current flow.

If you had put the batteries in parallel, the current would have remained the same, but the ampere hour capacity would have gone up by more than 20. This is because the current per battery has gone down.

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
How do amps add up when wiring in series?
If I take, say, twenty 3.7v 10Ah batteries , and wire them in series, I get 74v right? How many Amps do I have? (10,000mAh = 10Ah right?) Thanks!

Answer 6

You end up with 74 volts at 10 Ah.
Current is always the same in a series circuit.

Be careful. 74 V dc is high enough to be lethal. OSHA requires insulated gloves when working on anything over 50 volts.