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What is draining my battery?????? *UPDATE* THink ive got it figured out.

badmix

badmix

1/2 ton status
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I have a yellow top optima as primary batt. and optima red top as aux (strickly backup). I dont drive my Blazer that much, maybe once every two weeks. But I do go down in it a bunch and have to run the rear tailgate power window up and down sometimes. I also have an autometer clock (constant 12v) and an alarm. I do have some stuff hardwired in that can be turned on without the key, but this stuff is never left on by accident. Could me jus going in and out of it, turning the alarm on and off and running the power windows up and down kill my batt? I just drove the truck (had to start it by combining the batts, wouldnt start off the yellow top). When I drove it, the volt gauge was reading charging , so the alternator is working, i turned the truck off and check the batt, it was like 14.5 or something like that. So I know its charging, but would hate to have the batt sucked down for no good reason. Any thoughts?
Next is solar trickle chargers. I dont have access to be able to do the 120 outlet chargers, my truck is in a parking lot. ARe the solar ones worth the effort?
Thanks
 
I run a solar charger on my trailer and it maintains the battery really well. Mine is just a cheapy from Flying J, but it works well.

The alarm and other items could be draining the battery enought to make it not charge.
 
Well, one thing id like to do is disco the fac. clock, it never has the right time anyways, lol. How do I go about dico-ing power to it?
 
badmix said:
Well, one thing id like to do is disco the fac. clock, it never has the right time anyways, lol. How do I go about dico-ing power to it?
Click to expand...

You mean the analog one in the bottom left of the cluster?

IRIC it's an orange and black pair going to it, it's not wired as part of the cluster circuit board... just unplug that. Might be able to do it with the cluster still in place if you're talented.

-- A
 
That clock even being inaccurate shouldn't be able to draw enough power to kill the battery. I would think it would be something bigger.
 
Well electrical can be funny sometimes. Im going to pull the battery and take it to the place I got it from. I had a red top that they found to have a bad cell. If i have another bad cell in this one, than I dont know what to think. I dont understand what could be drawing the batt. down so bad. Im thinking its jus using the rear tailgate power window when I need something. but would that draw the batt down? What about the alarm or the clocks? What should I look for?
 
Window motors draw a lot, especialy that rear one.

Not to mention, weaker batteries will drain pretty quickly with even a small draw.

I was having a problem with the battery dying every week, and no joice after maybe 5 seconds of cranking, yet it "tested" good at the auto parts store. After hooking a 194 bulb up to the terminals for a week, it no longer "tested" good for them. At that point, I got the same size battery, that will now start the truck after sitting for 4 weeks.
 
Bad cell is a definate possibility. When you combine that with the alarm, and running that rear window, it will drain fast.
 
I have been having the same problem with my optima yellow tops. I have gone through three of them and not one has lasted more than a couple of months. Even if I disconnect the positive terminals, they die. I use an optima red top in my daily driver and it runs great. Not sure if I am doing something wrong with the yellow tops or what. I have checked the whole system (extremely simplified) and no shorts. The alternator is up to snuff as well. I have just about lost faith in the optimas, but I am refusing to lose the battle just yet. Sorry about the long post.
 
everything in there that is on constant power (except the alarm) to a run circuit. everything that is on all the time is basically a parasitic draw on the battery. as little as a few tenths of an amp draw can easily kill a battery over two weeks. even better, remove the alarm, and install a kill switch. its far more effective and wont draw power. what you want to do is a parasitic draw test. the dealership can do it, or you can do it yourself. go to napa, and buy a battery in line switch. basically it has a batery terminal on one side, and a cable connection on the other, with a screw in connector. attach one side to the battery, and the other to the battery cable. let the car sit for 30 min or so with the switch closed (complete circuit), attach a volt meter set to amps to each side of the connector, (it shouldnt read anything), open the circuit and watch the ammeter, it should read a few miliamps, (note make SURE the car has been sitting, you havent opened the door or anything, and the computer is "asleep".

if you get a reading of several tenths of an amp, or higher, go to the fuse block, and start pulling fuses, when you pull a fuse and the ammeter drops to zero, or close to it, thats the circuit that is drawing the current.
 
My truck pulls 15 milliamps at rest. My tahoe with the red top pulls 25 by contrast. The dealer told me that both numbers were acceptable.

-Alex

p.s. sorry for hijack
 
und bango, 25 milliamps is acceptable, thats only 2.5 hundredths of an amp, which would be .25 tenths of an amp. or, .025 amps. this is where i had said, if youre pulling somewhere around .1 amps, or higher, you should start pulling fuses to see where the current draw is coming from. keep in mind the dome light will draw only a few amps, but we all know it can kill the battery in a day or so. so take a draw of 1/10th of that, and then two weeks later, dead battery.
 
Ok, ill try that when I get a chance.

I disco'd the factory clock , wasnt too hard, plus it didnt keep accurate time, lol. I disco'd my CB that I had hardlined in at Constant On. Here are some things I have connected that arent factory

Hellroaring dual battery isolator - constant on
Alarm - constant on
Autometer clock - constant on
Painless wiring aux fuse panel - keyed
Aftermarket gauges - keyed
Aftermarket guage Lights - wired into factory lights - constant on (doesnt need key to turn them on, but they dont stay on, lol)
Off road lights - keyed , wired thru aux fuse panel (3 sets, two up front and one rear ward)
Winch - direct wired to battery
Aux fuse panel - direct wired to battery (main fuse panel)
Relay for lights - direct wired to battery (but have keyed switched, so lights can not be turned on unless key is on)

I do have a mean green alternator. when its running, im putting out around 14.5 v. When I just went down and checked the redtop battery, it was 12.35v after sitting since Saturday. Is this acceptable? I was told that it should be 12.75 or so. I switched the red top and yellow top around, The red top is my primary start battery now. I did check the yellow top and it was 12.45v.

So anyways. what ya'll think? Anything else I can test or check? What about alternator connections, could they draw it down somehow, I dont suspect its that, jus trying to sort this out.
 
Personally I would say try the alarm, that would be a good place to start. They draw a decent amount of power to run the sensors.
 
Ok, I just yanked the alarm, I dont mean jus pulled a fuse, etc. I ripped the whole entire thing out. They actually did a sh!ty job of splicing it in. They either used Tap connectors (T connectors) or stripped the wire bare and wrapped the alarm wire around it. :confused: , So anyways, I pulled that out and I disco'd everything attached to the battery. The only non OEM stuff still connected is my Dual Batt isolator and my autometer volt gauge, everything else is either direct fed off battery or thru the AUX fuse panel which is now disco'd.

So, I took the Blazer for a nice 30min. drive up and down the interstated running from 55-75mph. Brought it back and turned it off and checkd volts in both batts. 12.89-12.90 , 2 min. after shut down. Ill check it every hour or so and see. ANd if it stays good til tomorrow, than Ill hook one item up at a time and see where im at.

Question, if i had a bad battery or cell in the batt. would I even be able to get it to fully charge like this? OR will it take the charge but short itself out (bad cell) and slowly discharge?

Thanks for all the help thus far.
 
I don't know for certain if they would show a full charge. I have never dealt with these batteries myself. Some others here could probably tell you more.
 
Welp after 36hours of nothing really extra hooked to battery, im holding a charge of 12.6v. So I hooked up my aux fuse panel and wait a day or two, than ill hook up the lights and the winch later on. Im thinking of getting some large aligator clips for the winch cables instead of direct wiring. not sure yet.
 
Well Sat. I had 12.6 Today after hooking everything back up, ive got 12.25, something is suxing my battery. I dont mind fixing something that I know is broke, but how trying to find out what is wrong with the wiring is going to be a chore. Is it possible there is nothing wrong and my system jus draws that much?

I was going to do that amp test thing like on page one, but not sure how to do that, my volt meter is a cheapo and not sure how to use it other than take voltage readings. lol.
 
Well, I think I figured it out. I hooked up the amp meter between neg. cable and neg. side of batt. I had a draw of .75mA. I pulled one of the fuses to my aux fuse panel and it went down to .18mA, Then I figured out that the fuse I pulled goes to my Autometer TACH. I need to actually check the wiring, but I figure Ive got the tach on a Constant ON circuit. So, Ill move the tach off of that circuit, make it a key on circuit and see how it all goes. But im very hopefully this is all it is. Nothing else effected the amp draw until I pulled that particular fuse. It was getting late and I was tired so atleast I know more than I did previously. lol.
 
Glad you found something. It can be really hard to find battery drains:mad:

It could be a couple of things. You didn't mention how many times you open & close the window between driving. You also didn't mention how far you drive it when you do. If you take a 5 minute drive to the grocery store & back you really haven't charged your battery. It's very likely a 5 minute trip would not be sufficient time to recover from the drain of starting it.

A solar panel might help but it could make the problem worse:mad: A poor quality solar panel could drain your battery:eek1: Solar panels absorb light during the day but they can work backwards at night:eek1::mad::doah:The panel needs circuitry to keep it from working backwards. I don't know what to tell you to look for other than it may say in the owner's manual only use during daylight. You might be able to find what to look for if you look at RV systems. They certainly have this curcuity.
 
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