Chandler's Battleship of Doom

It's apart just waiting till tomorrow to start

 

Little rant,

So in the classifieds where I spend a lot of time usually seeing if anything of interest has popped up multiple times a day, but I'm starting to see more and more of something that shouldn't annoy me but does. I keep finding members, usually newer quoting the forum rules and tagging a moderator. I just find it comical because for an area that is such high traffic in terms of views but not new threads it seems un needed to have a bunch of forum rule nazis to clutter a thread where they don't actually have any interest in a item. Like they are just waiting for a mf'r to post something without a picture or price.

/rant

 

Yeah I've definitely noticed that which is discouraging me from looking

 

Bought some vinyl, gloss black for some interior bits. Going back to work tuesday, so I think my time off is coming to an end. I doubt ill see any real time off until my wedding in may and maybe some time here and there which puts a damper on my gears because I never really know when ill have the time, and it takes time to have a pair of thirds shipped out plus ill have to ship my 3rds back in a timely matter to get the core refund unless they help me out a little with the time. Another option is wait until may for my wedding, have them do it at the shop and use the drive back the Charleston as a break in period.

Good thing about going back to work is I can start buying shit again

 

Probably wont catch up with you again till later this summer then, hopefully we can all get together and go use the trucks we have been working on.

If you ever come through kc and want to stop feel free to hit me up.

 

Yeah doubtful soon since I have to head up to the border of IL/WI/IA so ill be a little ways away. Just outside of KS is my district limits so I can always work out that way

 

Let me know if thats the case. Ill be mall crawling around the area

 

Went to take the truck to dinner and it's dead So it's either my new spot harness somehow drawing power or the compressor. Only 3 things connected to the battery so it should be easy to track down

 

Well got the truck running, disconnected everything took it for a drive. I don't know much about electrical or batteries but I let the truck idle for about 15mins while I was inside and when I came out the voltage was reading 14-14.2 When I left for dinner it was 7.6 when it wouldn't start so it seems odd that the battery was charged up from just a 15min idle.

Am I understanding this right that if its reading 14v its basically charged or am I completely wrong? Also after driving for about 30-40mins I came back and shut it off for a couple of mins and started it back up, had a little trouble (not much) to start and read 13.1v on initial start.

I am hoping that in the morning the truck will start up just fine and troubleshoot what was causing the drainage at another point.

Only thing I left connected is my bed lights, but I double checked that the switch was working properly so I doubt its that

 

You can remove one o your battery leads and hook the multimeter in series on amps to determine what i causing your leakage. Just hook one accessory up at a time again and see which one spikes. Thats where your drain is.

Im assuming the 14.1/14.2 was with the truck running which means your alternator is putting out the correct voltage at least.

 

Back when my battery randomly decided to crap out on me I had the same issue.

It was down to about 9 volts one day, so I jump started is and drove it to work, started it up and drove home a few hours later just fine. The next day it did the same thing and wouldn't start. So on my weekend I charged it up until it was reading ~14.4 volts for a while, then let it sit with everything completely disconnected for a day. The next day it was reading about 9-10 volts again.

 

Okay so the voltage is the amount of volts the alternator is putting out not the battery voltage it self. Im leaning towards the compressor because I had an issue in the past and it blew a relay and continued to run until I disconnected the compressor. When I hooked up the new harness I had the compressor switch kicked on without the truck running and thats how I blew the relay last time

 

Crap not what I want to hear since the fiancé is driving the truck for the next two weeks and I really can't have it not start on her

 

correct. In order to measure battery voltage the truck has to be off.

Not sure how your compressor is wired but i dont know why it would be blowing relays. My best guess is the relay is undersized if thats occurring. Shouldnt matter if the truck is running or not.

 

Okay so have the truck off and check it, using a scanguage if that matters.

Compressor is wired with the ARB harness, nothing altered so it has the relay/fuse that it came with and switched from the SPOD. Well when I first hooked up the compressor I turned it off and worked while the truck was on, one day I turned on the compressor with the truck off and just keep running didn't matter key or no key. So I know it doesn't like to run with the truck off

 

Interesting. Are you sure the spod isnt telling it to switch on? Or does the spod require key on to work?

Youll probably be alright now if you only left the bed lights plugged in. Just have to tackle the compressor when you get a chance.

 

Well the spod is split between on all the time and on when started. Either way the switch has to be flipped from the inside to activate. So it was bypassing the switch and spod and just ran until relay was pulled.

Okay so out in my truck now, turned on at 13.1 and is slowly worked its way down to 11.2 after a couple of mins of the key being in the on position. I turned it on because I knew if it dipped below 11 chances are I'll need another jump

 

you have a major drain if went from 13.1 to 11.2 in a couple minutes. Definitely something that needs checked out. Id start by undoing all your accessories, then pull off the ground lead and hook your meter between that and the battery. Start connecting accessories one at a time again. Thats going to at least tell you which circuit it is in.

 

I'm thinking that the reading wasn't actually 13.1 but from the initial on it spiked and was going down to read the actual voltage. Nothing is connected right now besides bed lights. It went down to 7.6v over 36hrs so I can't imagine it's that big of a drain

 

So I went looking for a portable charger but kept coming by reviews of batteries that either die or close to exploding. So I think a dual battery setup is in my near future so I can keep accessories separate away from my starting battery.

So what I'm thinking is a smaller optima in place of the 31m for starting purposes, and 31m for accessories. 31m will move behind the seat with the *hopefully soon molle panel, it should be a tight fit but the panel will allow me to mount a blue sea ML-ACR along side it. This setup will allow me to pursue solar like @Nate87 and have everything separate from my starting battery so if I ever do have a starting problem I'm not looking at a bunch of different variables.

This will also get my huge heavy battery out of the engine bay reducing the chance of stress cracks that others have encountered.

Like I've said before I'm not well versed in batteries or electricity so Ill take any input for my plans. Red/yellow/blue top? Blue sea or should I consider national luna or IBS. I like the simplicity of the blue sea but I dig the national luna monitor