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Battery Dieing round duece.

Stomis

Stomis

Professional Amateur
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Ok so havent driven the truck in a week because it needs a steering box. I go to pull it into the driveway to install my front locker and once again... DEAD battery. Not even a faint glow. I replaced my old battery (optima red top) last time because I got one from the bad batch and it wouldnt charge up. So now I drained my new one all the way down again (not happy about that).

But now heres the funny thing. I think after searching a little I've been really overlooking something. So my question is, will my cellphone charger with a light on the plug plugged into my always on 12v outlet be enough to drain my battery dead?

I think I already know the answer is yes because people were saying that an underhood light is more than enough to kill a battery in a short period of time.
 
Yip, thatll do it. anything with a draw , even slight draw will kill it. I had my battery drained from my Tach being plugged into a constant HoT circuit. Not sure how or why the tach would be drawing juice just sitting there with key off, but it was. I moved it ot a keyed on switch and havent had any issues since.
 
An underhood light is an incandencent bulb, which draws about 20watts. It should take at least 24hrs to drain a properly charged healthy battery that wasn't produced in China.
The bulb in your cell phone charger is a single LED. This draws about 0.1watts. It should take months to drain a battery on that.
Many cars today have leds, or blinking leds on all the time. I've had an LED on in my K5 for 4 months straight and still read 13.5 volts, not a noticible drop. My '04 GTO has a solid LED and a blinking LED on all the time while the car is parked. That car is parked for a good month at times, no noticible drain.

You probably have another wiring issue drawing power somewhere.
Next time you park it, start pull a couple of fuses and see if it still drains. If not, replace those, pull a couple more. Keep pulling some to narrow down which circuit it's in, then you can trace those wires.
Or, if you have access to a proper ammeter, you can see if you have active drain on which circuits.
 
73k5blazer said:
An underhood light is an incandencent bulb, which draws about 20watts. It should take at least 24hrs to drain a properly charged healthy battery that wasn't produced in China.
The bulb in your cell phone charger is a single LED. This draws about 0.1watts. It should take months to drain a battery on that.
Many cars today have leds, or blinking leds on all the time. I've had an LED on in my K5 for 4 months straight and still read 13.5 volts, not a noticible drop. My '04 GTO has a solid LED and a blinking LED on all the time while the car is parked. That car is parked for a good month at times, no noticible drain.

You probably have another wiring issue drawing power somewhere.
Next time you park it, start pull a couple of fuses and see if it still drains. If not, replace those, pull a couple more. Keep pulling some to narrow down which circuit it's in, then you can trace those wires.
Or, if you have access to a proper ammeter, you can see if you have active drain on which circuits.
Click to expand...

See thats the thing my charger isnt a single led. Its a regular bulb backlighting a .5in by 1.5in verizion logo. Or so I think. I left it for a week and it was dead. I dont have a cheap ass battery either its a dual post optima red top.

I will be checking the battery with the ammeter (gonna try the test light technique first). Which setting on my multimeter am I looking for? I'm not to good with electric...
 
if the diode in the alt goes bad it will drain the batery also . easy check un plug power for radio pull fuse hook batery cables up no spark no draw.plug in charger and repeat if youget a good spark then it drawing a considerable amount doubt it though.
you can also use a volt meter to read draw dont know if you have one the method i described is a little back woods.
 
mnstrburbon said:
if the diode in the alt goes bad it will drain the batery also . easy check un plug power for radio pull fuse hook batery cables up no spark no draw.plug in charger and repeat if youget a good spark then it drawing a considerable amount doubt it though.
you can also use a volt meter to read draw dont know if you have one the method i described is a little back woods.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have a multimeter just trying to figure out which setting it is... I'm not to good with electrical.
 
Most general purpose meters, if they have an ammeter setting, have a max rating around 10amps dc. It should be labeled right on the meter itself.
A slow battery drain should not be greater than 10amps, so you should be ok with most meters.
In order to do it with most meters, you will have to hook the meter inline with the load. In your case, the load is unknown, so with everything off, pop off the + battery cable and hook the meter inline with the + battery cable and post. If you see anything greater than a couple of milliamps, then start popping out fuses until you see the load drop.

If you post your meter model number and brand it would help to tell you exactly how to set it. Meters vary widly on how to set them up.
 
Ok, take the red probe wire, plug into the middle port labeled V/Ohms/mA.
The the black probe, plug it into the bottom port (COM).
Set the dial to the 20m or 200m in the A section on the right, mabey the 200 or 2000 ranges on the top, but that would be a big draw if you started into amps of draw as oppsed to milliamps, your trying to guess the range of your suspected draw.

With everything shut off, Break the circuit as explained a little above, start with disconnecting the pos. battery post, and connect the red probe to the pos. battery post and the black probe the the battery cable, in this way the meter is hooked inline with the circuit.
Take a readout, you might have to change the range dial a little to get a proper reading depending on how much drain you have.
If you have anything more than a few milliamps, start popping fuses out until the drain drops. Then you know which circuit to blame, and you'll have to trace it down furthur from there. If the drain never drops after you've popped all the fuses, then your problem is between the battery and fuse box, there's a couple things in there, but you should be able to trace it down.

Keep in mind, these meters are not really designed well for measuring amps in a car situation, they are really designed for small circuit designers so they can measure milliamps on thier design. If you start getting more than a couple amps reading, then you will need to use the 10a port for the red probe. Some meters, if plugged to the milliamps, when they get above 1 or 2 amps have a self-resetting circuit breaker, others have a small fuse inside you have to take apart to replace. Make sure everything is off and only attempt this if you suspect you have less than 10amps load, 10amps would be a huge load, your battery would be dead within a couple hours at most.
 
73k5blazer said:
Ok, take the red probe wire, plug into the middle port labeled V/Ohms/mA.
The the black probe, plug it into the bottom port (COM).
Set the dial to the 20m or 200m in the A section on the right, mabey the 200 or 2000 ranges on the top, but that would be a big draw if you started into amps of draw as oppsed to milliamps, your trying to guess the range of your suspected draw.

With everything shut off, Break the circuit as explained a little above, start with disconnecting the pos. battery post, and connect the red probe to the pos. battery post and the black probe the the battery cable, in this way the meter is hooked inline with the circuit.
Take a readout, you might have to change the range dial a little to get a proper reading depending on how much drain you have.
If you have anything more than a few milliamps, start popping fuses out until the drain drops. Then you know which circuit to blame, and you'll have to trace it down furthur from there. If the drain never drops after you've popped all the fuses, then your problem is between the battery and fuse box, there's a couple things in there, but you should be able to trace it down.

Keep in mind, these meters are not really designed well for measuring amps in a car situation, they are really designed for small circuit designers so they can measure milliamps on thier design. If you start getting more than a couple amps reading, then you will need to use the 10a port for the red probe. Some meters, if plugged to the milliamps, when they get above 1 or 2 amps have a self-resetting circuit breaker, others have a small fuse inside you have to take apart to replace. Make sure everything is off and only attempt this if you suspect you have less than 10amps load, 10amps would be a huge load, your battery would be dead within a couple hours at most.
Click to expand...

Alright thanks alot man. I'm gonna check it out tomorrow but it seems good now after unplugging that charger.
 
I would like to see such a charger that sucks so much juice while not charging a phone. You meant in your first post, the charger was not charging a phone right, just plugged in with it's status light on, right, no phone actually charging?

I know you explained it's not just a little led status light, but, I still maintain, a single incandencent bulb should take at least a few days to drain a battery. But, alas, I'm not immune to being wrong.
 
73k5blazer said:
I would like to see such a charger that sucks so much juice while not charging a phone. You meant in your first post, the charger was not charging a phone right, just plugged in with it's status light on, right, no phone actually charging?

I know you explained it's not just a little led status light, but, I still maintain, a single incandencent bulb should take at least a few days to drain a battery. But, alas, I'm not immune to being wrong.
Click to expand...

Well it was a week. I just went to startmy truck after it sat since yesterday and its at 7volts. Grrrrr I'm starting to get pissed. Guess I'm gonna call my buddy and break out the ammeter finally. I couldnt be so lucky to have it jus tbe the charger...
 
pull the altenator and have it checked or remove the wires from the back and let it sit see if it still happens.
 
mnstrburbon said:
pull the altenator and have it checked or remove the wires from the back and let it sit see if it still happens.
Click to expand...

Did that before I dropped a new battery in... Alternator is fine. I'm going to start with the test light between the neg cable and battery to see if its a short. If I get nothing there I'm onto ammeter between pos.
 
Ok finally got off my lazy butt and got around to doing some digging on the trucks electrical. Since I'm dumb with the meter I just opted to run a test light inline with my pos wire to check for a pull. Well low and behold when I ran it inline it lit up like a christmas tree!

So I started pulling fuses and ding it goes completely out with the pluck of one fuse. Turns out that it was actually something that I wired into my fuse panel that the fuse actually shared a circuit with. So heres what I think happened. I accidentaly plucked an ignition wire from my fuse panel, I aimlessly plugged it back in, but into a constant :doah:. That what I plugged back in just happened to be my o2 sensor heater I wired up which has a hell of a pull to it.

I've got zero pull off of my battery with the ignition off now :D I'm smitten with joy that it was so so easy to find. Tomorrow I'm gonna test the negative and setup some fresh grounds off my battery just to be double sure.
 
Glad you've got it figured out. Electrical gremlins can be a nuisance.
 
Yeah I was really happy that I wasnt hunting down something rediculous. Now to wire my radio correctly so it will hold memory :-/
 
Stomis said:
Ok finally got off my lazy butt and got around to doing some digging on the trucks electrical. Since I'm dumb with the meter I just opted to run a test light inline with my pos wire to check for a pull. Well low and behold when I ran it inline it lit up like a christmas tree!

So I started pulling fuses and ding it goes completely out with the pluck of one fuse. Turns out that it was actually something that I wired into my fuse panel that the fuse actually shared a circuit with. So heres what I think happened. I accidentaly plucked an ignition wire from my fuse panel, I aimlessly plugged it back in, but into a constant :doah:. That what I plugged back in just happened to be my o2 sensor heater I wired up which has a hell of a pull to it.

I've got zero pull off of my battery with the ignition off now :D I'm smitten with joy that it was so so easy to find. Tomorrow I'm gonna test the negative and setup some fresh grounds off my battery just to be double sure.
Click to expand...

Good going, I know everyone hates electrical work, but alot of times its that simply. Glad it was in this case. Lesson learned. I think the test light is easier as well. Sometimes it a pain to figure out the numbers (amps, etc).
 
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