Electrical/Battery issue

   / Electrical/Battery issue #11  
All three places performed a load test. I kept changing to a different place as I was convinced that the battery had to be the issue back in June. Tractor charging system is fine. The battery had never since the June event dropped below 12.4 volts even after trying to get the tractor to start.

I did a parasitic drain test back in June and also yesterday and there is no drain on the battery with the key off. ,

Yes I cleaned the frame ground with emory paper and all positive and negative cable connections.

The question no one has addressed yet is the question as to what might cause all three battery chargers to show no current charging the battery. Hard to believe all three of my chargers have failed in their indication capability on current flowing into the battery. I actually tested all three on a car installed battery and they showed current flow so they are not broke. On this battery there is no current flow into the battery from any of the three chargers.

Battery I just don't know why it appears not to have current going into it from the charger.
As a battery charge's,current normally drops until 50% at full charge for non-automatic chargers or close to 0 for automatic (smart) chargers. Leave lights on until multimeter reads 12v then connect charger and watch the current flow.
 
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   / Electrical/Battery issue
  • Thread Starter
#12  
Now, have you checked ignition switch. By this I mean use a voltage tester to see if switch is completing circuit when key is turned. I know open station Kiotis are known for this issue, not sure other brands don’t suffer the same fate.
No I have not.
As the problem with starting has evaporated once again, no point now. Next time it happens i will do that.
Thanks
Of course I will have to figure out how to get to the back of the switch. Deere has a pretty tight enclosure in the area to try to get into but that will be my next checkpoint when/if it reoccurs.
The battery charging indications still has me flummoxed.
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue #13  
I think you need to check voltages at the loads. If you don't know how to do a voltage drop test, there are good videos on Youtube. I think you have a flakey connection or bad cable or wire somewhere.
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue #14  
People here before have chased battery and terminal connection problems to find out it’s a conductor broken inside the wire or connector, etc..
I agree with above poster, start checking voltage drops (voltage across) the different conductors and components. If you get a significant voltage (drop) across what is suppose to be a low resistance connection or conductor, that’s a problem.
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue #15  
If you want to know if your cable is good remove one
end then test with a volt/ohm meter best way to check!
You can't see inside the cable cover if corrosion ate it
up! Besides everyone should have a cheap volt/ohm
meter comes very handy around the house etc.


willy
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue #16  
If you want to know if your cable is good remove one
end then test with a volt/ohm meter best way to check!
You can't see inside the cable cover if corrosion ate it
up! Besides everyone should have a cheap volt/ohm
meter comes very handy around the house etc.


willy
Battery cables are made of finely stranded wire.
If every strand but one is either corroded or broken, you will still get a continuity reading..... but no engine cranking.
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue #17  
I had a weird problem and just swapped the battery with a spare I had. Maybe swap it with your daily driver if the battery fits.
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue #18  
If the battery is good, as you assume it is, and all your cable connections are good, then one condition that might cause this is a bad commutator section on your start motor. If the brushes are sitting on the defective loop, there will be no starting torque at all, nada. If you manually rotate the starter so the brushes are sitting on a good loop, it will start. So it would boil down to where your start motor armature coasted to a stop on the last startup. Get it tested.
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue
  • Thread Starter
#19  
If you want to know if your cable is good remove one
end then test with a volt/ohm meter best way to check!
You can't see inside the cable cover if corrosion ate it
up! Besides everyone should have a cheap volt/ohm
meter comes very handy around the house etc.


willy
My multi-meter is not one of the"cheap" ones and yes it comes on very handy so many times.

If the battery is good, as you assume it is, and all your cable connections are good, then one condition that might cause this is a bad commutator section on your start motor. If the brushes are sitting on the defective loop, there will be no starting torque at all, nada. If you manually rotate the starter so the brushes are sitting on a good loop, it will start. So it would boil down to where your start motor armature coasted to a stop on the last startup. Get it tested.
I thought back in June that it was the starter and had it tested. It tested fine. To a degree I still suspected it but it tests fine. What I don't know is if the test will detect a single bad spot that randomly gets stopped on.

I just have to wait for the next gremlin to show up. These intermittant bugs are a royal pain.
 
   / Electrical/Battery issue #20  
Battery cables are made of finely stranded wire.
If every strand but one is either corroded or broken, you will still get a continuity reading..... but no engine cranking.

Yeah, that actually happened to me this summer. The negative battery cable looked fine at the frame and at the battery, but it turns out the cable had corroded almost completely away inside the insulation a few inches from the battery connection.

I didn't know it had a problem. Although the tractor sometimes wouldn't crank, I thought it was the 14 year old original battery or corroded terminals because cleaning them always made it work again.
I found the bad cable entirely by accident one day as I pushed the cable to the side to look at something behind it and I could feel that the cable didn't bend right.
So I split the cable cover to look inside.

We replaced the entire cable and for good measure replaced that old lead/acid wet cell battery too. Now everything on the place is ventless AGM.

Frankly that cable and negative terminal had always seemed wrong to me since the tractor was new. It seemed undersized, too stiff, and corroded to easily compared to battery cables I was used to. Instead of being many strands of fine wire it had fewer strands of heavier wire and was covered with a stiff plastic rather than flexible rubber insulation.
YMMV
rScotty
 
 
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