Thanks @jremington. Yes, the thought was to put the batteries in parallel to increase the amp hours. You said no balancing charger was needed in that arrangement, but I would have thought that if, as they degrade, one battery ends up with a different charging capacity than another, it might cause a problem similar to the one you might get if you were to parallel them while they are at a different charge state - one battery might be trying to charge the other. Not so?