[Mike Copioli]

The packs are 24 volt 20 amp hour. The cells are 1.2V 10 amp hour cells. there are 40 cells total in series parallel. The Lion packs are 3x 3.6volt 2600mAh cells in parallel placed in series with three alike banks to equal 11.4v at 7.8 Ahr. We have been doing this for years without any issues. I know paralleling cells is an accepted practice. My truck has two lead acid batteries in parallel without any diode protection. Electric vehicles have several batteries in parallel and series. Our defibrilator packs are series parallel even my Lion laptop pack is series parallel. As long as the cells are of equal amphour rating there is no issue with placing them in parallel. They should be matched prior to assembling them but this is not required so long as the weaker cell is not overdischarged. We use a low voltage cutoff switch to ensure that the NIMH cells do not become over discharged and possibly cause cell reversal. Al Check out this link http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-24.htm