HELP!!! - Electrical Problem

[c23380]

Sorry about the late reply but i lost te connection and it was sent late

[JoelD]

Thanks to all, once jumped all worked perfect, lights and all.

I'll put in a new battery and then check charging volts.

I have a feeling all will be well.

The battery failed very quickly, I've been running the machine daily for the last three days and she died this afternoon. No warning.

Thanks again,
Joel

[AchingBack]

Originally Posted by JoelD

Thanks to all, once jumped all worked perfect, lights and all.

I'll put in a new battery and then check charging volts.

I have a feeling all will be well.

The battery failed very quickly, I've been running the machine daily for the last three days and she died this afternoon. No warning.

Thanks again,
Joel

I have to wonder if your fan belt is loose, and not turning the alternator.

[TBDonnelly]

Originally Posted by AchingBack

I have to wonder if your fan belt is loose, and not turning the alternator.

...and make sure the plug going to the alternator is snapped/latched together tight. It may look like it's together and not be.

Don

[JoelD]

Will do.
Thanks,
Joel

[JoelD]

I installed new battery and all is well.

Upon initial install she still had the same problem, tightened the terminals tight and all is perfect.

Afraid to test old battery for fear that it might have been loose positive terminal all along, I checked the ground but did not tighten up on the positive prior to replacing the battery. The bolt was badly corroded and weakened.

Learned valuable lesson regarding how tight terminals need to be.

Would be interested in the technical explanation, as a layman I would think metal touching metal would be good enough.

Huge relief to have behind me, now looking forward to hooking up new boxblade.

Joel

Thanks,
Joel

[PAB_OH]

Originally Posted by JoelD

Would be interested in the technical explanation, as a layman I would think metal touching metal would be good enough.

Batteries release very caustic gases all the time, especially when they are under heavy load. That combined with exposure to normal environment are contributing factors. Corrosion = bad.

[IXLR8]

Originally Posted by JoelD

I installed new battery and all is well.

Upon initial install she still had the same problem, tightened the terminals tight and all is perfect.

This is why I asked you if you were measuring the voltage on the battery terminals themselves, or on the battery clamps. If the terminals had shown the drop... then the battery was bad. If you were measuring at the clamps, then it could have been the connection.

Originally Posted by JoelD

Afraid to test old battery for fear that it might have been loose positive terminal all along, I checked the ground but did not tighten up on the positive prior to replacing the battery. The bolt was badly corroded and weakened.

Learned valuable lesson regarding how tight terminals need to be.

Yup... connections need to be CLEAN and tight.

Originally Posted by JoelD

Would be interested in the technical explanation, as a layman I would think metal touching metal would be good enough.

Joel

The current to the starter can be 200+ amps, so it takes very little resistance to add up to significant voltage drop.
As defined by ohms law:
Vd=IxR
Voltage drop = current (times) resistance
4= 200 x ?
? = 0.02 ohms--> Which is a tiny amount... too small for most home ohm meters to measure.
The gasses emitted by the battery are corrosive, this turns the conductive lead, of the battery post and connection clamp, into lead oxide, which is not conductive. The shiny silvery color is changed to a blackish dull color. Unless your connection is clean and tight enough.. the gasses will get between the battery terminal and the battery connection and cause issues. Sorry... this could have been your problem all along. Check out the old battery, it may be still good. But I suspect that since any current draw dropped the voltage down, you had a plate break internal to the battery causing a high internal resistance.

I hope you cleaned your terminal connections well before putting them back on. If you are lucky, then a wire brush is all you need to clean them up. If they are very black, you might actually need a sharp edge like a knife to scrape off the black lead oxide. Just be careful to remove as little as possible and keep the angle the same so it fits the terminal properly. It might also be a good idea to get either the protective pads you can put under the terminals, or the spray on battery protectant. Either will greatly reduce the chance of corrosion of terminals. Hope this helps and makes sense.

[ray66v]

Right, you can't pull big time amps through a loose connection. (loose battery connections were suggested by a poster early on).

Another common cause of this can be replacement battery terminal connectors. The kind where you cut off the old one, and clamp on to the cable. Corrosion inside the clamp, (where you can't see it), is very common causing current drop and slow to no cranking. Those cheap little terminals have cost people a fortune in time, and parts, (batteries and alternators), before they were found to be the $2 problem.

Do your selfs a favor and replace the entire battery cable, if the connector goes bad.

[Steve_Miller]

Batteries will do this once in a while, they'll short across the plates internally and then there gone, nothing you can do to fix other than replace. Could have been a defect from day one and something jarred it or it just all of a sudden shorted when a big draw is applied. Sometimes you can see this by putting a volt meter on the terminals and crank the starter or pull the light switch, the voltage will drop to a certain level and hover there until the load is released and it will jump back to a higher level but usually not right back to the proper level.

Steve