Car Battery dead? Barely over a year old.

[KYTGuy]

Edwood - Depennds on the leaakage of the particular battery that you have, whether 1.6 waatts would keep it up, but you would sure do no harm to the battery with that one.

Yeah, the Harbor Freight one that is 6 watts is a good one.

Careful starting and running your car with a shorted or dead battery, Edwood - the current draw can cause alternator failure, and then you might have two problems. The way to check is to take a good battery and start the car, then measure the system volts - with the car running, you should see around 14 volts. If you can measure amps, you should see a high spike just after starting that is at or near the capacity of the Alternator, then a decaying ramp down of the amperage, as the battery approaches full charge.

Easiest way to measure that is with a dc clamp-on ammeter, something most people don't have...after that, the way is to watch the ammeter, if your car is so equipped. after that, don't bother - too expensive and troublesome to get an ammeter and mount it inline with the alternator output wire to the battery.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYTGuy Edwood - Depennds on the leaakage of the particular battery that you have, whether 1.6 waatts would keep it up, but you would sure do no harm to the battery with that one. Yeah, the Harbor Freight one that is 6 watts is a good one. Careful starting and running your car with a shorted or dead battery, Edwood - the current draw can cause alternator failure, and then you might have two problems. The way to check is to take a good battery and start the car, then measure the system volts - with the car running, you should see around 14 volts. If you can measure amps, you should see a high spike just after starting that is at or near the capacity of the Alternator, then a decaying ramp down of the amperage, as the battery approaches full charge. Easiest way to measure that is with a dc clamp-on ammeter, something most people don't have...after that, the way is to watch the ammeter, if your car is so equipped. after that, don't bother - too expensive and troublesome to get an ammeter and mount it inline with the alternator output wire to the battery.

Only my expensive benchmeter can measure amps. So I'm not going to be lugging that thing over with a 150 foot extension cord.

I can at least measure the volts with my portable Fluke DMM.

One thing, I didn't notice that the Check Battery light was on, isn't that normally supposed to be lit up if the alternator is bad?

-Ed

 

[KYTGuy]

Yeah, check battery should have been on, but the lamp might be out, the idiot circuit may be fritxed, or the alternator may be failing - probably you didn't notice it , and all is well with the charging circuit.

2ndedit - Oh yeah, to all who are monitoring this thread - don't take your fine meters to measure the amps - most meters can only handle intermittent 30 amps or less, and the charging circuit on some vehicles can go over 100 amps, and would fry your meter.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYTGuy Edwood - Depennds on the leaakage of the particular battery that you have, whether 1.6 waatts would keep it up, but you would sure do no harm to the battery with that one. Yeah, the Harbor Freight one that is 6 watts is a good one.

What about this solar charger?

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=44768

-Ed

 

[KYTGuy]

that'll do the trick - after you get whaatever you want to use, and have it in service, give a look to the battery electrolyte levels a week after in service, then a month, then every six months of so - if the regulator (if so equipped) isn't adjusted just right, even a weak solar charger can use up battery water.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYTGuy 2ndedit - Oh yeah, to all who are monitoring this thread - don't take your fine meters to measure the amps - most meters can only handle intermittent 30 amps or less, and the charging circuit on some vehicles can go over 100 amps, and would fry your meter.

Well, my old Fluke 110 is the only other Meter I have.
Guess I'll have to hope it doesn't get fried.

-Ed

 

[KYTGuy]

Your Fluke will have a fuse - it will survive

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYTGuy Your Fluke will have a fuse - it will survive

True. It wouldn't be the first time it blew a fuse.

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

Thanks for all the advice and input, everyone.

I'm heading out to buy a new el cheapo battery. Going to go with the cheapo battery while using a solar charger to trickle charge when the car is not being used for a long time.

Since the battery is pretty much gone, I'm going to just replace it, then start it up and measure the volts to see if the alternator is doing well.

That way I guess I reduce the risk of killing my alternator.

Any cheap battery brand recommendations?

I have a Pep Boys, Autozone, Costco, Target, and Sears nearby.

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KYTGuy that'll do the trick - after you get whaatever you want to use, and have it in service, give a look to the battery electrolyte levels a week after in service, then a month, then every six months of so - if the regulator (if so equipped) isn't adjusted just right, even a weak solar charger can use up battery water.

Never done that before. What tools would I need. I'm making a trip to Harbor Freight, so might as well pick em up there.

-Ed

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

I've had good experiences buying batteries from Autozone, they are very good about following up on their warranty if needed. I hate Walmart, but the battery my mother bought there has worked out fine.

 

[warubozu]

I've had batteries from Costco and Sears, for what they're worth they're pretty durable batteries.

 

[KYTGuy]

I like Costco, then Schucks/Checkers/Chief Auto.

Don't worry about adjusting the regulation of the trickle charger - I never have either! Just topped off the battery when necessary - usually once a season.

 

[AuroraProject]

Sounds like the alternator is fine, the battery sounds like it's done. Optimas have gone downhill recently, they used to make top notch batteries, now they have a high return rate. AutoZone sells the Duralast batteries, they have the best warranty in the business, they are also top rated by Consumer Reports. The gold line has an 8 year warranty, the first 3 years are free replacement, the remaining 5 years are pro-rated. The warranty process is smooth and friendly, no hassles.

By the way, Chief Auto is no longer in business and was never affiliated with Shucks/Checkers/Kragen.

 

[Edwood]

Oh, What.

What a major PITA this day was.

In a nutshell, turns out that the battery connectors were severely corroded and the negative connector was cracked open. So it was barely making contact with the negative pole. Hence the battery was barely connected.

I measured the battery itself. 12.06V. So the battery is perfectly fine.

Good news is the alternator is fine. Measured 14.47V across the battery terminals with the engine on.

The real fun part was replacing the corroded battery terminals. They were bad. I had to cut them off, but the problem is that the wires are really short, so even cutting them off flush to the old connectors made them a little shorter and much more difficult to work with.

Now here's the kicker.
The MotherF#$^$ing positive post is larger than the negative terminal. Yet all the so-called "universal" ones DON'T REMOTELY FIT THE POSITIVE TERMINAL!!!! Argh!!!! I tried two different ones and they would not fit. Even when trying to hammer them into place. Which only made the bolt not fit.

So I ended up buying a heavy duty car audio gold plated one that fit perfectly, and get this: They have different ones for the Positive and Negative terminals. Go figure.

Put a heavy duty brass one on the negative terminal.

So now my battery looks nice and riced out. At least my amplifier power wire has a nice firm connection now.

-Ed