Fight: Water Pump vs. Battery - Page 3

rallypanam · 11-23-2014, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveb

There might not be any drain and to think it reads fully charged and a light load takes it down to 10 volts either means there is a battery connection problem or the battery is no good. When most AGM's die, if left idle left w/o load they slowly discharge over a few hours and why a light charge from solar can keep the battery monitor showing good voltage. A heavy load from a carbon pile type tester will usually instantly show the battery is bad. If there is a heavy draw or short and the battery was subjected to nightly discharges to below 10v daily for a long period, it could do what you're seeing. AGM's can go fast in that situation. Also when a batteries time is up, it's up. Some just fail for mechanical reasons, being overcharged or age.
What kind of battery tester do you have Robb? It should have shown the battery as bad when hooked to the terminals. As mentioned the only way to test it is to pull it out, charge it and test it on its own.
After you get a new battery (If it is bad) you can check for an amp draw with a clamp on amp meter. Disconnect and check each circuit. You can also pull all the fuses, check amp flow and reinstall each fuse checking flow on each install.
You should also pull that separator out of the loop, especially if it's a Surepower.

I didn't even get to the point of a load tester, as I can't seem to get it to a full charge, so it's not worth load testing. I have access to a Snap On one though, which I was going to use - and probably still will once I get this battery out of the van entirely.

I may try

**daveb** · 11-23-2014, 05:18 PM

Some of those automatic chargers won't bring a deeply discharged battery back to life. Sometimes if you parallel a fully charged battery with the dead one and put a 10A or larger charger on it, it's possible to recover the bad battery. I've done it several times on Optima batteries I use as power supplies. Sometime it doesn't work though.

rallypanam · 11-23-2014, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveb

Some of those automatic chargers won't bring a deeply discharged battery back to life. Sometimes if you parallel a fully charged battery with the dead one and put a 10A or larger charger on it, it's possible to recover the bad battery. I've done it several times on Optima batteries I use as power supplies. Sometime it doesn't work though.

Interesting.. Maybe I will try that.

rallypanam · 11-23-2014, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rallypanam

I may try

I have no idea what I was trying to say here.

**daveb** · 11-23-2014, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rallypanam

Quote:

Originally Posted by rallypanam

I may try

I have no idea what I was trying to say here.

Another beer bartender?

arctictraveller · 11-23-2014, 09:57 PM

Once you get charged as best as you can, put your volt meter probes directly on the battery terminals. Then add as much load as you can. If you see the big voltage drop, you can bet it's the battery,as you have eliminated any other possible wiring issues by measuring directly at the terminals (unless you have a large short drawing lots of amps, but then you would be bowing fuses) A/T...

rallypanam · 11-26-2014, 07:38 PM

UPDATE:

1der was picking up his van from BajaSportsmobile, and offered to pick me up a cheap battery. What the heck, it's only $150 and it appears my existing one is dead.

So I lower the old battery, try and charge it again, my cheapo charger says it's full. Same symptoms.. Shows 12.8+, turn on any significant draw, voltage drops way low.

I swap in new cheapo remanufactured. No problem. Everything works properly. Swap back in old one to doublecheck, same symptoms.

Put new battery in.. which meant mounting it lower as it was taller than the other, and I had to fab up some extra brackets to hold the battery tray (fun!).

Anyway, new battery in, new Fluke clamp meter says 0.0 amps coming out of it. Turn on fridge, jumps up to 3.0 amps coming out of it. Now I know the new meter works. Check lead to (potential) Surepower separator and it is drawing 0.0 amps.

So I'm stumped, maybe old battery just kicked it. I did run it low once, but it's less than six months old.

Oh well, ready for camping Friday morning! And I finally tried the furnace after replacing propane sensor.. and it also works! Which is good, cause it's supposed to be consistent rain and 40 this weekend. Woo hoo!

arctictraveller · 11-26-2014, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rallypanam

Anyway, new battery in, new Fluke clamp meter says 0.0 amps coming out of it. Turn on fridge, jumps up to 3.0 amps coming out of it. Now I know the new meter works. Check lead to (potential) Surepower separator and it is drawing 0.0 amps.
So I'm stumped, maybe old battery just kicked it. I did run it low once, but it's less than six months old.

Are you certain there really is a problem? I've never seen your van, nor do I know how it's wired, but I'm pretty familiar with 12V charging systems. I'm not exactly sure what your "Surepower separator"is, but if it's a set of split charging diodes mounted on a heat sink, it's possible you won't see any current draw from a house load. The diodes split the charge from one alternator to two battery's. ( https://www.bluesea.com/resources/58) (https://www.bluesea.com/products/catego ... ing_Relays) It sounds like you put a 3 amp load on the battery, and it ran fine. You probably wont see any current draw by putting the clamp meter on the wire from the separator, until you draw down the battery a bit, and then start the engine. The alternator regulator should sense the voltage drop in the battery, and begin charging it. The the more deeply discharged your battery is, the more current you should see on the meter. Then put your volt meter directly on the battery. You should see the voltage come up at the battery (14v or more) Again, the more the battery is discharged, the higher the voltage will be in the beginning. If you run the battery down, and after starting the engine, it doesn't come up, then the isolator may have a bad diode. You can check the voltage on the input side of the isolator too, it should be a bit higher under normal circumstances (perhaps .6V) but if you have a big voltage difference from one side to the other, it may be bad. Does Sportmobile have a wiring diagram anywhere? I got one for my van (GTRV) , and it really helps. (the one on this page is what I imagine you might have viewtopic.php?p=34665 ) Or look here for a good explanation viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8842
Anyway, hopefully, you will find out you don't have a problem after all, it just depends on where you are measuring voltage and current at. It is a bit disturbing though to hear the old battery was only 6 months old. Unless it sat dead for several of those months, it should not have died so quickly. Keeping the new one charged will prevent sulfation

rallypanam · 11-26-2014, 10:34 PM

I was just checking all wires leading to/from positive terminal.. trying to see if there was some reason the old battery would have died. Because it shouldn't have died to quickly.

But as far as I can tell there is nothing.

However, when plugged in to shore power, I'm not sure I'm charging.. Is there some reset switch I've read about on these things? I've got the normal Intellipower 9100..

gcvt · 11-26-2014, 11:30 PM

This weekend could get interesting