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Re: Battery or drain [Re: Pkeel] #2688070
08/15/19 03:16 PM
08/15/19 03:16 PM
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 2,603
Stuttgart, Arkansas
rickseeman Offline
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Stuttgart, Arkansas
Originally Posted by Pkeel
This is beyond my ability and I will be taking it in to a mechanic to look at.

I could not find the voltmeter. I might have tossed it, I don't know.

I work on my vehicles as relaxation from my regular job, this would not be relaxing to me.


If that's the way you feel I understand, but Harbor Freight has multimeters for $5 (you need one anyway). And when you find the drain you will be proud of yourself.


2011 Drag Pak Challenger
Re: Battery or drain [Re: rickseeman] #2688263
08/15/19 11:10 PM
08/15/19 11:10 PM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 10,486
Freeport IL USA
poorboy Offline
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Freeport IL USA
We just ran into a problem with the battery in my wife's car. She started the car and went someplace and it worked fine. When she was ready to come home, the car did not start. I jumped if off and she drove home. I put the battery charger on it (30 Amp charger) for a 1/2 hour, then disconnected the charger and went to start the car, but it wouldn't crank at all. I had to jump it to start it to get it into the shop.
I pulled a battery cable thinking there must have been some kind of draw to take the battery down so quickly. Nothing! I pulled both cables, and put the charger back on for another 1/2 hour. After I removed the charger, I checked the voltage with my volt meter, I could watch the digital volt meter reading drop! In less then 2 minutes, the voltage went from 12.85 volts down to 10.75 volts! The 5 year battery developed a dead cell a day after the 5 year warranty expired!
I've been around a lot of car batteries before, this is the first battery I've ever seen die so quickly. Usually they give you a little warning, not this one, good one hour, dead the next.
It was kind of cool watching the battery voltage drop so fast. The new 5 year battery cost $64.79 out the door. Gene

Re: Battery or drain [Re: poorboy] #2688297
08/16/19 07:32 AM
08/16/19 07:32 AM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 21,050
Niles , Ohio
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therocks Offline
oh wait.but hey.lets see.oh yeah.
therocks  Offline
oh wait.but hey.lets see.oh yeah.
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Niles , Ohio
Poorboy had prety much same problem with my 65.Went to cruise started just fine.Got ready to leave and nothing.Got a jump and it ran bad even with alt charging good.Got home shut it off.Checked batt volts and was at 5 volts.Hooked up the charger and alt was 14.3.Battery was at around the same when I took charger off.Opend the door and watched it drop to like 3 volts.Battery went bad that fast.Rocky


Chrysler Firepower
Re: Battery or drain [Re: therocks] #2688298
08/16/19 07:37 AM
08/16/19 07:37 AM
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 11,678
W. Kentucky
justinp61 Offline
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W. Kentucky
A battery load tester is your friend.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: justinp61] #2688396
08/16/19 12:46 PM
08/16/19 12:46 PM
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 43,007
Bend,OR USA
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Cab_Burge Online work
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Bend,OR USA
All new vechicles with computer have a steady need for voltage to keep the computer ready to run, some draw more than others scope
You can disconnect the negative lead at night in the dark and then touch it back to the battery post to see if it sparks or not. If it sparks the car is drawing current scope


Mr.Cab Racing and winning with Mopars since 1964. (Old F--t, Huh)
Re: Battery or drain [Re: Pkeel] #2688715
08/17/19 12:16 PM
08/17/19 12:16 PM
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 597
Maine
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Pkeel Offline OP
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Maine
The old battery was 6 years old. I was going to take it in to be tested, but figured it wouldn't hurt to replace it.

Put the new battery in and started no problem. 2 days later. Nothing.

Charged all night and bought a $7 tester. This morning battery tested and read 13, All good. I disconnected the negative and tested for a drain. I don't know what I am doing but it reads 13 as well. Pretty sure this is only measuring the battery not the drain. I have no clue what I am doing and all the youtube videos start with the assumption that you have some basic idea of what you are doing.

So far it has been 4 hours of my time wasted. That is far more of my time than I would have paid a mechanic to do this.

and you don't even want to know how much this was not relaxing, go inside watch a video, go outside and try something else, back to video, back to truck.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Pkeel] #2688793
08/17/19 04:38 PM
08/17/19 04:38 PM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 21,050
Niles , Ohio
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therocks Offline
oh wait.but hey.lets see.oh yeah.
therocks  Offline
oh wait.but hey.lets see.oh yeah.
T

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 21,050
Niles , Ohio
Get a cheap test light that uses a 12 volt bulb.Disconnect neg cable.Install light bettween cable and post.Should not be lite.Might have a real dim light if there are accessorys that you have.Make sure all items are off and doors closed.If its lite start pulling fuses.Easy way to test draw.If you have volt meter start and test to check alt output.Should be over 13 volts running at say 2ooo RPM.Rocky


Chrysler Firepower
Re: Battery or drain [Re: therocks] #2688863
08/17/19 07:28 PM
08/17/19 07:28 PM
Joined: May 2019
Posts: 6,175
nowhere
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Sniper Offline
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A test light is useless on a newer vehivcle, there will be a drain but the test light cannot tell you if it's too much.

You cannot use voltage to test for a drain, you have to set your meter up for current measurement. I will offer, one more time, to tell you how to set your meter up to read current if you will me what make and model meter you have. The current draw test is very simple and a meter will give you hard numbers to use in comparison.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Sniper] #2688984
08/18/19 08:52 AM
08/18/19 08:52 AM
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Posts: 597
Maine
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Pkeel Offline OP
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Sniper,

I do appreciate the offer. The multimeter doesn't even have a brand name. It is the $7 item from Harbor Freight.

I hooked the black to common and the red to the milliamp. I disconnected the negative lead and put the multimeter in series with the battery connector and the negative post. I don't really remember, but at 250 it either read nothing or 1 and I had to move it down to the lower settings. At 20 it read 13.

I then reconnected the connector to the battery and tried testing the fuses. It was pretty difficult to get the pins in the right spot and so I gave up. I then put the multimeter back into series and started pulling fuses. I went through all the fuses in the engine compartment. From there I went and pulled the fuses from the dash panel. The reading on the multimeter did not change. There were three fuses I could not disconnect as they have some kind of funky covering. Two of them were yellow and I wasn't going to pull them as i believe they go to the airbag. Even if those two are bad, they aren't something I am going to mess with.

Oh, yes, I blocked the door switch closed when I did the dash panel fuses.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Pkeel] #2688989
08/18/19 09:00 AM
08/18/19 09:00 AM
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Did you put the knob on the meter in "DCA" 200M?

Might be easier to just put the red lead in the 10A plug and put the knob on 10A.

Then remove the negative battery cable, put the red lead of the meter on the battery cable and the black lead on the negative battery terminal. You should then be able to read draw, to test just open the door and you should seethe draw from the dome light on the meter.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Sniper] #2688991
08/18/19 09:07 AM
08/18/19 09:07 AM
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Maine
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Pkeel Offline OP
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I honestly cannot remember.

I kept watching different videos and running inside and outside.

Give me a minute and i will run out and try it right now.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Pkeel] #2688995
08/18/19 09:18 AM
08/18/19 09:18 AM
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Maine
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Pkeel Offline OP
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That gives me a reading of 128 with the door closed and 148 with the door open

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Pkeel] #2689004
08/18/19 09:50 AM
08/18/19 09:50 AM
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Now it's working, 128 is way high. normal draw for a computer controlled setup is something like 35. Now withte h meter setup start pulling fuses one at a time till the draw drops.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Sniper] #2689008
08/18/19 10:05 AM
08/18/19 10:05 AM
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Posts: 597
Maine
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Pkeel Offline OP
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Trying to, but I think a big part of my problem is the connection for the pins won't hold for me. It keeps getting dislodged and takes a while to reconnect. I need some decent clamp types.

Also Noticed a small draw on both front headlights and that reminded me that I turned those on at some point, so I shut those off but the reading stayed up at 125 after.

Gonna get a friend to give me a hand if I can.

Thank-you, it is nice to finally be able to have a little confidence that the meter is at least set up properly.

Re: Battery or drain [Re: Pkeel] #2689011
08/18/19 10:13 AM
08/18/19 10:13 AM
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Sniper Offline
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If you have a battery charger you can use those clamps to hold the meter leads in place (don't plug in the charger though).

Re: Battery or drain [Re: poorboy] #2689412
08/19/19 02:29 PM
08/19/19 02:29 PM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 8,005
Tulsa OK
Bad340fish Offline
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Originally Posted by poorboy
We just ran into a problem with the battery in my wife's car. She started the car and went someplace and it worked fine. When she was ready to come home, the car did not start. I jumped if off and she drove home. I put the battery charger on it (30 Amp charger) for a 1/2 hour, then disconnected the charger and went to start the car, but it wouldn't crank at all. I had to jump it to start it to get it into the shop.
I pulled a battery cable thinking there must have been some kind of draw to take the battery down so quickly. Nothing! I pulled both cables, and put the charger back on for another 1/2 hour. After I removed the charger, I checked the voltage with my volt meter, I could watch the digital volt meter reading drop! In less then 2 minutes, the voltage went from 12.85 volts down to 10.75 volts! The 5 year battery developed a dead cell a day after the 5 year warranty expired!
I've been around a lot of car batteries before, this is the first battery I've ever seen die so quickly. Usually they give you a little warning, not this one, good one hour, dead the next.
It was kind of cool watching the battery voltage drop so fast. The new 5 year battery cost $64.79 out the door. Gene


You can't really do any good with a battery charger like that. To properly charge a dead battery it will need to charge at 6-10 amps for 12-24 hours-usually 24. When you try to charge it with high amps like that you stand the chance of overheating the battery and doing more harm than good. That can sometimes get you moving though but that is not a good way to charge a battery. I will say this though, from what you are saying your wife's battery just died, it happens with age. When they are several years old they usually don't give much warning.

Anytime you pull a battery off of a charge, especially a high amp one you will have a "surface charge" where the voltage reading will be higher than the batteries true state of charge. This will fall of gradually, and sometimes quickly depending on the circumstances. For instance you charge a battery all night long you might have a reading of 13.3 volts right off the charger. After the car sits for a few hours or longer it will settle down to the true voltage which would be around 12.7 for a fully charged 12v battery at rest. You can also just turn the headlights on for 30 seconds or so and it will knock the surface charge off. When possible a hydrometer is the best way to determine state of charge but less and less batteries these days have access to the cells.


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