Am I missing something?

[Robertmangrum.rm]

OK I'm late to the party. I had a similar problem on my old Escort EXP. After months of jumping it and parking on hills to roll start it (manual trans) I found that it was a short in my dimmer switch on the column. I was an intermittent short so didn't show up all the time. But if it sat for a couple days it would be down to 7volts or so. When I would drive it to work every day it would work fine. But after it sat all weekend it wouldn't start. Finally one day I couldn't get it to work. Swapped switch ring thing and never done it again. I was not smart enough back then to check for a parasitic draw. But swapping the headlight dimmer fixed both issues. Just some food for thought.

 

[19Walt93]

Normally, you still have to change between volts, ohms and amps and often move a meter lead to a different hole for amps

Obviously but once the function is selected, may meters will switch the range based on what they see. If I set my ohm meter, for example, to read in 1000 ohm increments to test plug wires, I don't want it to switch to a different range. It's easy to miss that it changed and get invalid results.

 

[19Walt93]

Upgraded, improved, above standard...

Who gets to decide the aftermarket part is better than OEM?

 

[Uncle Gump]

Who gets to decide the aftermarket part is better than OEM?

China

 

[Curious Hound]

Obviously but once the function is selected, may meters will switch the range based on what they see. If I set my ohm meter, for example, to read in 1000 ohm increments to test plug wires, I don't want it to switch to a different range. It's easy to miss that it changed and get invalid results.

You are correct. But, most times, the meter will default to the most appropriate range for the signal it is receiving.

In Gumps case, though, it was not a range selection issue. It was a FUNCTION selection issue. Autorange really had noting to do with it. Inadvertent operator error.

 

[Ranger850]

Who gets to decide the aftermarket part is better than OEM?

the consumer

 

[Jazzer]

Having the same battery problems. My 25 month old ACDelco took a dump but I got the original purchase price under warranty (3 yr).

The duplicate was 20 bucks more but that's okay for two years of use.

Problem is, this new one will only charge up to 12.48v after all night on a 2 amp charger (that says it's fully charged.) Just checked it after coming home from work, with flash charge it was only 12.78v. I'm not sure I'm reading mA correctly on my cheapo Harbor Freight multimeter, so I'm going to test voltage in the morning, then unhook the neg cable tomorrow night, read voltage again, then again in the morning.

It's raining/snowing now and temps are set to dive so I ain't doing crap right now. I've got a fully charged spare if it comes to that.

 

[Uncle Gump]

So... some follow up on this thing. Between snow storms... shoveling... rain and temps varying from 34 degrees and -14 I've done a couple things.

First... I put a solid charge on the battery and ran the truck for about a half hour. Started it a couple times during this run time just to ensure the battery wasn't total garbage.

While running... I checked charging voltage. It was a 10th higher but settled in here...

Maybe a bit high? Slightly cooking the battery.

I shut it down... opened the door to turn on the dome light to knock off the surface charge. Battery voltage settled in here...

I went into the house to warm up a bit and one hour later...

At that point I disconnected the negative battery cable... swapped meter leads correctly on the low amp position and set meter to mA. I connected the meter in series between the cable and the corresponding battery terminal... the displayed O.L. This means the value was higher then 400mA. So I swapped the lead to the 10amp port and tested again. 635mA... son of a...

Being cold and not happy... I left the battery disconnected... closed the hood and went inside. Figuring I would double check those results in the morning. It's been blowing and close to -40 with the wind chill... so I was in no big hurry to go out and do any testing. But I just got back in and forgot my phone for pictures... but this is what I found.

Battery voltage was 12.14 volts after 24 hours in these temperatures. So it held pretty well considering.

Parasitic Draw was again 635mA. Definitely has unacceptable draw going on.

I think tomorrow I'm gonna take the battery back and have them test it and see what they do. It's definitely degraded... so who knows. Then I'm going to start pulling fuses and see what I find.

I really think whatever is drawing Current at this level is something new. Or I woulda had this problem back when it was way nicer temps to work on lt. I'm gonna start with aftermarket stuff... radio and gauges mainly. Both of those have key off battery voltage at all times.

 

[pjtoledo]

when you're checking voltage switch to AC and reduce the range to see ripple on the DC.

 

[Curious Hound]

So... some follow up on this thing. Between snow storms... shoveling... rain and temps varying from 34 degrees and -14 I've done a couple things.

First... I put a solid charge on the battery and ran the truck for about a half hour. Started it a couple times during this run time just to ensure the battery wasn't total garbage.

While running... I checked charging voltage. It was a 10th higher but settled in here...

View attachment 104514

Maybe a bit high? Slightly cooking the battery.

I shut it down... opened the door to turn on the dome light to knock off the surface charge. Battery voltage settled in here...

View attachment 104515

I went into the house to warm up a bit and one hour later...

View attachment 104516

At that point I disconnected the negative battery cable... swapped meter leads correctly on the low amp position and set meter to mA. I connected the meter in series between the cable and the corresponding battery terminal... the displayed O.L. This means the value was higher then 400mA. So I swapped the lead to the 10amp port and tested again. 635mA... son of a...

Being cold and not happy... I left the battery disconnected... closed the hood and went inside. Figuring I would double check those results in the morning. It's been blowing and close to -40 with the wind chill... so I was in no big hurry to go out and do any testing. But I just got back in and forgot my phone for pictures... but this is what I found.

Battery voltage was 12.14 volts after 24 hours in these temperatures. So it held pretty well considering.

Parasitic Draw was again 635mA. Definitely has unacceptable draw going on.

I think tomorrow I'm gonna take the battery back and have them test it and see what they do. It's definitely degraded... so who knows. Then I'm going to start pulling fuses and see what I find.

I really think whatever is drawing Current at this level is something new. Or I woulda had this problem back when it was way nicer temps to work on lt. I'm gonna start with aftermarket stuff... radio and gauges mainly. Both of those have key off battery voltage at all times.

When doing the test, you left the meter where you could read it without disturbing any doors, hood, etc that would wake up the battery saver. Right? That 635ma could be normal for the first 15? 20? Minutes until everything goes to sleep. If you go out there several hours later and open the hood or a door or something, you wake everything up and don't truly see your shutdown current draw.

 

[Uncle Gump]

When doing the test, you left the meter where you could read it without disturbing any doors, hood, etc that would wake up the battery saver. Right? That 635ma could be normal for the first 15? 20? Minutes until everything goes to sleep. If you go out there several hours later and open the hood or a door or something, you wake everything up and don't truly see your shutdown current draw.

The hood was popped... I touched nothing. It had sat static for nearly 24hrs. The battery negative cable was even already disconnected.

 

[RobbieD]

The Bronco shouldn't have a battery saver like the newer stuff.

650mA is a lot; a standard relay only draws 150mA.

Maybe I'm cynical, but I always suspect aftermarket stuff for excessive parasitic draws.

It looks like you're running a group size 62 battery; it'd be a good time to upgrade to the larger 65 size.

 

[Curious Hound]

The Bronco shouldn't have a battery saver like the newer stuff.

Maybe I'm mixed up. I thought this problem was on the Ranger.

 

[RobbieD]

Maybe I'm mixed up. I thought this problem was on the Ranger.

Maybe I'm the one mixed up. I thought that it was the G-Unit that doesn't get driven much.

 

[sgtsandman]

The fender color looks like it's the Ranger. I think the G-Unit is a much lighter gray.