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Battery minder, tender


hex0rz

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I had a thread on this subject at one time but it is so old now is been archived and it won't let me resurrect it. 

 

At the time i had some issues with the truck but they should be fixed now. I also had replaced my batteries as they were still giving me problems. It may be because of the issues i had. 

 

So i have new batteries, but it seems like they are still getting drained. I'm thinking the recent cold sub Zero weather has something to do with it. 

 

I was going to purchase a minder, tender but didn't know which one to get. Amperage wise i mean... i can get the Jr tender but it's .75a. So is that enough to maintain a float in two large batteries?

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If the batteries have been drained of capacity low enough to not crank the engine then thats never good.  But if they're drained like that more than a few times and the odds are that the cells are toast and wont hold a decent charge.

 

If your batteries are draining as fast as you say then something is clearly draining them and needs to be found.  A tender wont help. :thumbup2:

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I just got the "Battery Tender Junior", and I love it so far. Didn't get it for the Cummins, as I can let that one sit for weeks without starting and it still never takes more than 2 cranks to fire up. So to that point - yes you should definitely figure out where your juice is going, because these trucks don't suck the batteries dry as normal behavior.

 

I rotate the tender between batteries in the cars that sit in the barn over winter, and it works great. I should really get more of these so I don't have to rotate it, but I switch it from one to the next about once a week or every other week, and it seems to work great so far. Spring will tell for sure, as I usually have to replace the battery in the Chevelle almost every year after I neglect to take care of it over winter.

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 Overnight i lost 10% charge. Had the battery charger on to top it up before heading to work. Over the weekend it was down to 70% after sitting 3 days. 

 

50ma? At least that gives me something to benchmark off of...

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Keep in mind too that voltage at the battery only drops about 1.5v from a fully charged to fully dead battery. You should only see this amount of fluctuation on a good battery. I don't remember the exact cut off number, but if you ever see voltages lower than 11 - there's a good chance your battery is toast.

 

Sorry, "fully dead" is probably the wrong way to describe it, but if a battery measures lower than that threshold it will be dead enough to appear to be dead to a vehicle anyway.

Edited by jokra
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  • 2 weeks later...
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Check see if the glove box switch is working sometimes those leave the light on and can't tell because it is shut..

 

How old are those batteries anyhow?

 

I know they loose voltage thru the dirt built up across the top of the battery so I keep mine clean around the posts too.

Edited by JAG1
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18 minutes ago, KATOOM said:

Charge the batteries and then leave them disconnected and see if they hold their charge.  That would help you understand if the batteries are the problem or if there's something draining them. :thumbup2:

 

That right there will test if there is a internal short of the batteries. If there is a internal short the battery with the problem will continue to go dead without being hooked up. So charge the batteries good for few hours. Then disconnect both batteries for the night and measure the voltage of both batteries while disconnected. 

 

Remember if one battery is bad you have to replace both anyways. 

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I had a battery in a car that went bad and acted like this.  I could charge it up and then with a DVM I could watch the volts drop before my eyes--nothing hooked up to it.  Internally it was bad.  New battery and I was good to go.

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