whats draining the battery?

[dank]

ok well the zook is pretty standard electrically except for the 540cca exide, magnum winch and 150mm hellas on the front, sony cd player and GME TX3200 uhf in the dash. Went for a wheel last weekend....everything is fine. left the car in the garage for the week...went to start it next weekend....completely dead...batt read under 9v so it was stuffed...took it back and got a warranty replacement on it as it was only 6months old...

I'm thinking my winch might be draining power from the batt but how can it when everything is off? I am planning on putting an isolator switch on it soon and also i'm checking the charge on my alternator...

anyone got any ideas?

[84ZOOKSTA]

Dank, The best way to find the problem it to get yourself a multimeter ($10 from dick smiths) and use the Milliamp setting to find where the current drain is by disconnecting all the positive supplies and putting the multimeter inline. The max drain you would want on your battery while everything is off should be around 50-100 Milliamps which should be the clock and memory for the stereo etc, any more and you do have a problem.

Cheers
Simon..

[bazooked]

ur winch shouldnt drain power i got duel batts in mine and checked for drains and there is nutin there, its gonna be a process of elimination.

[DamTriton]

Dank, I dont think the origin of you problem is your battery.

I think the alternator may not be up to the task of both powering the ignition system (10-15 amps), running your lights and accessories (25 amps with driving lights), and charging your battery. Then trying the occasional winch, for good measure... IIRC the altenator is only good for about 35 amps output maximum, less at low revs.

What appears to be happening is the battery is being drained by all the accessories, which is fine when you have that car running and the altentor putting current into everything as well. As soon as you stop the vehicle and try to impose starting loads on the battery again the battery is flat from not actiually having charge going into it previously.

By all means do the inline current drain test, but I would be looking at a serious alternator upgrade (80 amp+) if you want any hope of running a winch.

[Goatse.AJ]

Dank, I dont think the origin of you problem is your battery.

I think the alternator may not be up to the task of both powering the ignition system (10-15 amps), running your lights and accessories (25 amps with driving lights), and charging your battery. Then trying the occasional winch, for good measure... IIRC the altenator is only good for about 35 amps output maximum, less at low revs.

What appears to be happening is the battery is being drained by all the accessories, which is fine when you have that car running and the altentor putting current into everything as well. As soon as you stop the vehicle and try to impose starting loads on the battery again the battery is flat from not actiually having charge going into it previously.

By all means do the inline current drain test, but I would be looking at a serious alternator upgrade (80 amp+) if you want any hope of running a winch.

X2

[chimpboy]

Dank, I dont think the origin of you problem is your battery.

I think the alternator may not be up to the task of both powering the ignition system (10-15 amps), running your lights and accessories (25 amps with driving lights), and charging your battery. Then trying the occasional winch, for good measure... IIRC the altenator is only good for about 35 amps output maximum, less at low revs.

What appears to be happening is the battery is being drained by all the accessories, which is fine when you have that car running and the altentor putting current into everything as well. As soon as you stop the vehicle and try to impose starting loads on the battery again the battery is flat from not actiually having charge going into it previously.

By all means do the inline current drain test, but I would be looking at a serious alternator upgrade (80 amp+) if you want any hope of running a winch.

X2

x3, but you can check this with a multimeter too so do that first.

Check voltage with engine off, engine on, accessories off, accessories on, etc.

[bazooked]

Dank, I dont think the origin of you problem is your battery.

I think the alternator may not be up to the task of both powering the ignition system (10-15 amps), running your lights and accessories (25 amps with driving lights), and charging your battery. Then trying the occasional winch, for good measure... IIRC the altenator is only good for about 35 amps output maximum, less at low revs.

What appears to be happening is the battery is being drained by all the accessories, which is fine when you have that car running and the altentor putting current into everything as well. As soon as you stop the vehicle and try to impose starting loads on the battery again the battery is flat from not actiually having charge going into it previously.

By all means do the inline current drain test, but I would be looking at a serious alternator upgrade (80 amp+) if you want any hope of running a winch.

X2

i dont qite agree here im running a duel bat system in the zook and still runnin the standard alt with no problems at all, and both batteries charge at 14v, but then again it could be cause its a zook.

[dank]

hey boys thanks for the replies.

when i pulled my 550cca battery out i put my old battery (305cca, pre winch days) back in to see if it would do the same thing. i left it for five days and went to start it and the thing was fine. But i hadn't done any driving so that might have been the difference.

I went and got a multimeter and these were the following measurements i recorded.

engine on, no acc: 14.1v
engine on, acc on: ~13.9v +- .1v
engine on, acc on, 2500rpm: 13.8v
engine off: 12v

I think i will be putting in a new alternator at some stage and have been thinking about it for a while now.

Over the last 6 months i have been wheeling and have run the winch about five or six times (mostly pulling out GQ patrols...hi there rochrd ) and the zook has been fine, so hopefully it was just a battery issue and not a charging issue....i guess time will tell...

[DamTriton]

hey boys thanks for the replies.

when i pulled my 550cca battery out i put my old battery (305cca, pre winch days) back in to see if it would do the same thing. i left it for five days and went to start it and the thing was fine. But i hadn't done any driving so that might have been the difference.

I went and got a multimeter and these were the following measurements i recorded.

engine on, no acc: 14.1v
engine on, acc on: ~13.9v +- .1v
engine on, acc on, 2500rpm: 13.8v
engine off: 12v

I think i will be putting in a new alternator at some stage and have been thinking about it for a while now.

Over the last 6 months i have been wheeling and have run the winch about five or six times (mostly pulling out GQ patrols...hi there rochrd ) and the zook has been fine, so hopefully it was just a battery issue and not a charging issue....i guess time will tell...

What you have done is prove there is no parasitic load on the battery.

I would expect a bit more voltage under load at 2500 rpm, Should be in the order of 14.4 volts.

[bushy555]

Have seen a few winches suck upwards of 900ma when _everything_ is turned off.
Something funny goes on with the solenoid packs. One was a warn 9000 and another was one of them el-cheapo bits from china, so a good name vs a bad name and they had the same characteristics. Dunno why.l But they still both sucked heaps of battery when they shouldn't have.

[claud]

im havn similsr problems ,could be the alt. has just 1 diode broken out of up to 8,so its charging but not to full potential.all it takes is a qick short somewhere and bang a diode can blow.its a bit fidly testing them,but my dad used to replace them 4 me ,now its easiest to goto ingrams electrical supplier and buy the diode brace for 60$ and solder the whole thing in place copying the exact wiring.one by one. save 200$! but it does take a few hrs.good option for out bush. soldering doesnt use much wattage. and its heaps lighter than a spare alternator. i usually kkeep a regulator in my glovebox too.