What's Draining My Battery

Uses OBDII port.. likely the source of your problem if you park for a long period.

 

Yep - the other one I can recall was the guy who wired a winch without a disconnect and the winch had enough parasitic draw to drain the battery overnight.

@Airborne22 I would start at the last thing you installed. What did you install recently? These things aren't random.

1. If you are starting with a fully charged battery at night (check the voltage with a multi-meter) and it is completely discharged before morning your battery isn't the issue. A trickle charger will set you back 49.99 - a couple hundred depending on how fancy you want to get. Decent one here. Higher end one here.
2. Check for parasitic draw - plenty of vids out there, just make sure you connect your multimeter in series on the negative side so if you accidently short the circuit nothing will happen. If you test on the positive side and accidentally short the circuit -- no bueno. Most likely, your accessories are drawing current from the battery and drawing it dead. Install a low voltage protection circuit between the battery and your accessories if you confirm this is the case.
3. Test your alternator or check the charging voltage when your taco is running - factory is 13.8 - 14.0V for a lead-acid battery. If you see that voltage at the battery with your multimeter your charging system should be working fine.
4. Battery could be the issue if it is several years old and you have had a recent cold spell. I wouldn't spend $ on a new battery until I had charged the battery and tested for parasitic draw.

 

I think @tonered might?

 

mr google here: age of battery? might be the battery

 

None. Truck can sit for days without issue.

Also run an obd splitter with a Scangauge on top.

 

Haha!

Fuck no, man!

KTJO 4x4

 

Sorry. I couldn’t resist haha

 

It was a good one.

 

Mine is actually routed through the steering column connections.

 

I didn't feel comfortable doing that after dealing with other products.

I should mention that I think my shop partner and I have rewired every one of that vendors items before install.
Door bowls, hud. Just gutted the door sills because there is no question it will fry your shit. Cheap wiring through weather stripping. Nah.
SO the hud might be worth looking at.

It's all half assed wire connections and cheap solder points that have been over oxidized.
I like to use their trim pieces as a base for my projects but the rest of the components are garbage and a fire risk in my opinion.

 

For newer models they use steering column plug to combination meter, older - obd2 port.
Basically you are tapping into CAN network between control unit(s) and the combination meter at different points.
As I mentioned, if CAN network is awake, it will drain the battery.

 

This is how you do it!

One step further, when I would get to this point I would also start pulling fuse by fuse to see which fuse is holding the current draw. When you pull that magic fuse, you’ll see the meter drop down to basically no draw.

 

Happened to my 17 TRD off road. Dealer did a test for parasitic draw and found the alarm and remote starter were using battery power when the truck was off.

I switched to a northstar battery and it helped a ton.

 

Troubleshooting something like this requires some level of proficiency. Something your posts do not indicate. People who respond to you in this manner realize that there is no way we can walk you through the process without charging you for our time.

Here is a video where someone is being reimbursed for his time with Google money:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xFo_oHFF48

I would recommend getting a clamp style ammeter with max and min hold settings. Cheap meters like this on Amazon

KAIWEETS HT206A Clamp Meter Multimeter TRMS 4000 Counts, Auto-ranging Amp Voltage Tester with Backlight, Measures AC Current, AC/DC Voltage, Capacitance, Resistance, Diodes, Continuity

https://www.amazon.com/KAIWEETS-Mul...698369&sprefix=clamp+amm,aps,141&sr=8-1-spons

I do not have this meter. YMMV.

As someone else has pointed out, your battery may be bad. Just holding a surface charge.

Whenever I know I am away from the vehicle for a few, I always disconnect the battery completely.

Hope this helps.

 

The meter you link to does not measure DC current, so says the description. Many economical clamp on DC meters do not measure low current DC very accurately. Buyer beware when measuring low levels of DC current with clamp on meters.

 

Apologies to OP. Do a better search for a meter than a cursory one from rando who is not being paid.

 

So I am going to add an auxiliary fuse box to the engine bay with a breaker switch and re-route all add-ons to it. This may be (probably) a stupid question, but is it possible to make the new fuse panel powered only when the truck is on?

 

Plug in an Ammeter in series to your main power line and start unplugging fuses. You shouyld se a drain when youn plug it in and it will stop when youy find the right fuse.

 

So I am going to get my battery tested today. I think its more than parasitic draw. Its gotten worse. Charge won't last more than a day now.

 

Is there an chart of a daily voltage reading? I have a side car, a Honda CRV that has the same problem. My Taco has zero. But the Honda will die after 5 days sitting. I disconnected the passenger side door sensor because it went bad, but I am still showing a small draw, but I am not sure how normal it is.