Drain on battery

[primemover]

My Ty just upped and developed a problem. My battery is bone dead after it sits over night. I know my charging system is working because it charges at over 14 volts. I checked this with a meter. Also I disconnected the negative terminal of the battery when it had a good charge on it, let it set over night, and reconnected it in the morning and it was able to start no problems.

So that means it's a load happening that's not supposed to happen. I know its not the air shocks pump because I took that fuse out a long time ago due to the pump running all the time.

I can't see that any lights are on when the doors are closed etc.

other then randomly pulling a fuse and checking it every day to isolate the curcuit is there anything I can do to track this down faster? Maybe this is a problem with ty's and it's usually something I can check first? Thanks in advance.

 

[powercat6]

Re: Drain on battery

The first circuit I would check is the Fuse labeled HORN DM. It contains the horn, radio, dome light, cig lighter, rear window release and fog lamps. I had a drain on my battery coming from an aftermarket head unit.

 

[primemover]

Re: Drain on battery

Pulled it...Ill check in the morning b4 work and see what happens. I'll keep you posted here. Thanks.

 

[bundie]

Re: Drain on battery

put a 12v light bulb between the negetive of he battery and cable...it whil going to burn when your leaking power.

pull fuse's one for one to check wich circuit it is

 

[jimmyz79]

Re: Drain on battery

Parasidic drain, had the same thing a couple of years back.

In my case, everything worked fine, found out my stock radio developed a short and would kill the battery overnight.

Put a microamp meter on the battery, and start pulling fuses one at a time until the amps go down to nothing.

 

[bonesdmz]

Re: Drain on battery

Put a microamp meter on the battery, and start pulling fuses one at a time until the amps go down to nothing.

This.
BTW microamp connector on simple multimeters is usually fused, for smth like 200 mA. You'll fry it in a sec. Use bigger scale.

 

[The Bronze]

Re: Drain on battery

BTW microamp connector on simple multimeters is usually fused, for smth like 200 mA. You'll fry it in a sec. Use bigger scale.

Once you open up a door and it turns on the dome light! I use the 10-20 Amp circui that's on the meter unless I need a lower resolution.

Most people's mA fuse is already blown anyways. If you are attempting to use this low current circuit and are not getting a reading, then the fuse is most likely toast.

 

[Bad Ass Black Trucks]

Re: Drain on battery

Do you have your ALDL cable hooked up? I have had that cause a drain on my trucks.

 

[0966Sy]

Re: Drain on battery

First of all you need to list all the additional electrical add ons you have, guages, alarm, cig lighter phone charger. Does your battery pass a load and electrolyte test? If you cant answer that then your working backwards.

 

[The Bronze]

Nah, it's faster and more accurate to verify the current draw first. If you are using an inductive probe, in the time it took to type this you would already know.

If you are a slow typist, then you would know about......now.

Checking the battery and even looking for a single weak cell, although good to do, doesn't narrow down the culprit. Of course if you wanted to disconnect the battery overnight to watch for a voltage drop (internal battery short) you could do that. But then you even have to wait for the surface charge to dissipate. I stand by my first (two) sentences. If you aren't seeing a draw over ~100mA then you start chasing battery.

Don't forget to disconnect the alternator if pulling the fuses don't reveal the culprit.

 

[primemover]

Re: Drain on battery

It was the horn dm fuse... I'll get around to narrowing it down when I get some time. thanks a lot guys! FYI... I have no aftermarket add ons. I even have the stock crappy radio. lol