Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2015 18:14:38 -0400
Reply-To: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject: Re: Aux battery Woahs
In-Reply-To: <285B2D41-109D-4202-A6F8-AFEE469FBCE7@yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Hullo Jeremy,
Edward is correct that you must unhook it. But always unhook the
ground side of a battery like this first, because otherwise if your
wrench slips you have just created a welding machine in action with a
seat at the action.
Get it out of the circuit, charge it with your charger, measure the
voltage and record it 24 hours later and then on subsequent days. If
you're in a hurry, put a stoplight bulb across it for a fifteen
minutes to get rid of the "surface charge" and record the voltage
after that at intervals. Once it stabilizes it should change very
little -- single millivolts, maybe? -- over a few days.
Draw out the diagram of what's hooked to it.
Measure the voltage between the positive and unhooked negative leads
with engine off (expecting 0.00 volts) and with engine running
(record voltage and compare with voltage across the starting battery
immediately afterward).
If voltage on the AUX harness was zero as expected, record ohms
reading from positive to unhooked negative.
Report.
Yrs,
d
At 01:31 PM 6/21/2015, Jeremy Stovin wrote:
>Wiring is not standard by a long shot.
Start drawing a diagram of it.
>The problem from last season is the battery seems to run down way
>too quickly. I have multiple things powered by it, but I thought
>when the car runs, the alternator would charge it through the main
>battery. (There is an isolator between for when it's off.)
>
>So, the battery, which I bought last summer, was dead. So my plan
>was to charge it, then try to figure out which connection has the
>draw when everything is off (top guesses are radio and truckfridge).
>Before hand, I disco once everything from the aux battery. I test it
>and it was like a 5v. I plug the van into an electricity source
>(home outlet) then plug my charger into the outlet inside the van,
>and then clips to positive and negative. I leave it overnight.
>
>I go out this morning, disconnect the charger and test. 12.26v with
>some fluctuations. I leave it. I come back 20 min later, and test it
>again and it reads 11.14v. This, I think, is telling me the battery
>is not holding a charge. This was a new battery when I bought it.
>How could I kill it so badly, if I did? I bought this battery new
>because I wanted to take the old previous battery out of the
>equation. But do I have such a draw that I'm killing batteries so quickly?
>
>I'd like to get more info before I buy a new battery. The current
>one is just a basic from Car Quest. My next one may be the expensive
>deep cycle.
>
>Can some patient people try to tell me what I'm doing wrong, and
>maybe walk me through some next steps.
>
>Any other info needed on this, let me know
>
>Jeremy, '87 Westy
>
>Sent from my iPad
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