Battery issues

[jms]

Ended up w/ yellow main, red aux.

 

[bugspray]

Before buying new ones, try dropping them from waist height. I heard the plates will "freeze" together, and dropping them will break em free to take a charge.

 

[mrk5]

Before buying new ones, try dropping them from waist height. I heard the plates will "freeze" together, and dropping them will break em free to take a charge.

I've heard that several times before too.

 

[mrk5]

I'm only running one red top right now. I plan to get a yellow top if I ever get an electric winch. So I would say one red and one yellow. Some where I've gotten the impressoin that the deep cycle battery will work better with a winch.

 

[mrk5]

Summit has always treated me very well.

Maybe someone in the evening crew can give you some more opinions.

 

[spearchucker]

It seems odd that both batteries die at the exact same time. Are you sure your alternator is working correctly or you don't have a short somewhere?

 

[greg mgm]

Im a noob to the site, but far from it with trucks.. What worked for me was to pull the positive cable from the battery and hook up a ohm meter from ground to the open cable. Turn off everything, and close the doors, and the reading should show high resistance. (I use a non-digital meter) If there's a low resistance, start pulling fuses one at a time to see what circuit has the draw. My truck battery died also, and turned out to be that the radio drew too much from the battery (it was from the radio memory, even though it was off), but in my case the truck sat for a couple of months.

 

[spearchucker]

Turn off everything, and close the doors, and the reading should show a lot of resistance . (I use a non-digital meter) If there's minimal resistance , start pulling fuses one at a time to see what circuit has the draw.

Fixed it for you, you had it backwards. Minimal resistance would be close to a short == bad.
A better way to do the same sort of test is to check the current draw while the battery is hooked up.

 

[greg mgm]

Doh!! OK you got me!!! I corrected my post. Thanks for simplifying the test also.

 

[seschev3]

So: I'll use this new one as starting battery; question is what to use as auxiliary battery? I looked at Odyssey deep cycle models, but don't like the price, so I suppose it'll be Optima again - can't make up my mind whether red or yellow? Winch is in the future plans but probably not close - don't have a suitable bumper yet.

Stay with optima and get a yellow top. I run 3 yellow tops in my rig and never have power problems. I also use a 3 way isolator to seperate all 3 of them. If any of them die, I can jump off the others at the isolator. I have used optimas in my rigs for at least 13 years and love them.

 

[MOABDADC22]

I am sold on Optima's. I will never, ever buy any other battery brand again. I run dual red tops in my Blazer and I love them. Dropping them from 3-4 feet will bring them back to life most of the time.

 

[Roz]

if u are sightly familiar with dc then i wouldnt worry about the new batts, just make shure u use a multimeter to check ure resitance in line. i have had an isolater stick(?) before (after i rolled about 30' into a creek)so it wasnt very effective isolator (that confused me-i thought they were solid-state?), so possibly test leads to make shure u have isolation. i agrree with optimas

 

[mudhog]

if you have a winch or plan on getting one get the yellow top as the second bat

 

[Boondocks]

I have had an Optima fail as well, but they have an 3 year free replacement warranty. My local battery shop replaced it on the spot, no questions asked, and I didn't have a receipt.

 

[Blue85]

Found out yesterday that both my Optimas are dead... and I mean dead as in 3 Volts...

(had one on the trickle charger over night - nothing)

When a battery is really dead, you don't want a trickle charger. You want to hit them with a lot of current. If you don't have a big charger, jump it from a running vehicle.

 

[Storm Trooper]

Sorry to hear about the problem. I have two yellow tops and they seem to work good. I also use the PM 140A alternator. Maybe Blue is right and you should try it. Isolators can go bad as easy as anything else so make sure you recheck it after you get some good batteries in there so you don't have an unexpected relaps of the dual dead batteries again. I dumped my isolator and just doubled them up. Hope you get it figured out bud.

 

[mrk5]

I'd also search over at Pirate. You can find a lot of good info on stuff like this that is not vehicle specific.