Battery question.....

I seem to have an issue with my '01 2500 QC 4x4...

A couple of times lately I left my hazard lights on, once hile helping to remove a fallen tree on a road. Left the truck to block the road for safety. Got back in and I'll be damned if the battery wasn't about dead. How long do you guys experience your batteries to last under those conditions? Granted my Ram has never needed the hazards for it's own sake but I expected this brand new Odyssey battery to last a hell of a long time. I'm thinking it is all hype. Any input?

Reply to
Carolina Watercraft Works
Loading thread data ...

How long a battery holds up under any load is a matter of the ratio of the Amp/hour rating to load. The more Amp/hours in your battery, the lower the load, or both, the longer the lights will flash.

A 450 A/h battery in my old Valiant would burn the dome light for three days before the battery went dead (don't ask how I know . . .), a 650 A/h battery would last a third longer, four days.

Is the battery the one "sized" to your vehicle, or did you get a larger than stock battery? When I buy a battery for my cars, I always get the largest A/h rating that will fit in the car / truck.

Budd

Reply to
Budd Cochran

Worse yet. On my 2004 CTD, if you leave the parking lights on they shut off automatically. Not a good thing if you need them for safety.

Al

Reply to
Big Al

Ok...lets talk about batteries since maybe this one is a turd. It's an Optima with 870 CA, 750 CCA, 55 AH and 120 RC.

I wouldn't think hazard lights would be that much of a drain on this battery given all the hype on them....but maybe I'm wrong.

What batteries have you guys used and what are your opinions.

Reply to
Carolina Watercraft Works

You need to just take the battery back and have it load tested. A defective new battery is a possibility.

I have two Interstate Megatrons that I put in the truck in '98 and they are about to be replaced. If I don't drive the truck at least every couple of weeks I get the dreaded click-click-click when I hit the key. Without going out and looking, I think they are the 950 cca batteries. I'll be putting Megatrons back in when I get around to replacing them.

Denny

Reply to
Denny

My 95 Lebaron has the headlight delay feature for getting out and seeing a path to your door, but I rarely get to use it... I park behind my house. VBG

Budd

Reply to
Budd Cochran

How many bulbs are being flashed? 4-6-8-120? You could have a battery built with forklift cells (2.3 volts, 900 amps maximum current per cell X 6 and

240 pounds weight per cell) but if you're flashing accesory bulbs along with the originals, it isn't going to hold up as long.

What condition are your cables / cable ends / connections??? general wiring? All resistances use up power.

What do you know of the battery manufacturer? There are some really cruddy Chinese made batteries being sold in the US now.

Budd

Reply to
Budd Cochran

Interstate batteries are a lot better today that when they first hit the market.

Budd

Reply to
Budd Cochran

Was buying the wound cell batteries (Optima red top's) for my race cars. After two early deaths, I'm back to regular batteries. At least they don't cost $120 each. The problem I have is if they go completely dead, they don't want to come back. Look on their web site, they have some tips for bringing them back. Didn't work for me.

Al

Reply to
Big Al

Just the standard number of bulbs...nothing aftermarket.

Another note...I used to have the Red Top battery but had it replaced after it left me stranded at a gas station. they replaced it but I opted for the Yellow Top this time. The R/T was maybe

6 months old if I recall. Afterwards, they told me they load tested the battery and it was good. So then I questioned my alternator but it has never given me problems and seems ok. Maybe I need to have it tested as well???
Reply to
Carolina Watercraft Works

the simple answer to your question is not long.

hazard flashers flash a total of 6 bulbs on the average vehicle. 2 front high intensity bulbs 2 rear high intensity bulbs and 2 side markers (found on most trucks on the side near the headlights I list these as I don't recall if the BR/BE has them or not)

I can tell you from experience that when doing a alignment (you lock the brake pedal down) that the brake lights (just 2 of the 4 high intensity bulbs) it will very quickly, in about an hour or so in some cases, totally drain the battery.

personally even in a gasser if I'm on the side of the road and have the hazards flashing the truck is in park, E-Brake on and idling. this was especially true when I was on the FD and had a light bar running.

Reply to
Chris Thompson

Yup, some of those light bar's will wipe a set of batteries like nothing else. I almost got screwed a few years ago with a bar and have used strobes since.

Roy

Reply to
Roy

Wouldn't hurt to have it tested. Do you have an aftermarket sound system installed ( radio/cd changer/amplifiers/etc.) or fog / driving lights that you use constantly? That's more load draining the battery ev en with the engine running that may not have been replaced ( battery recharged) before you turned on the 4-ways. It's also why the Sports Compact owners end up with charging systems that could power a battleship.

There are so many possibilities, that it's hard to tell you what is going on, to be honest. And, to be honest, if one battery from a manufacturer / supplier failed me that quickly, I would really hesitate to buy another one of that brand. If you can find an Interstate battery dealer, get one, they're excellent batteries.

Budd

Reply to
Budd Cochran

even a set of strobes is a lot of draw but not near like rotators.

Reply to
Chris Thompson

That's why a lot of law enforcement agencies are going to LED systems. Even out here in little ol' Moab.

Sheriff Dept. just got 2 Hemi Charger pursuit units with LED light bars, State troopers are jealous ... they're still driving Fords.

Budd

Reply to
Budd Cochran

That would be incorrect. The higher the resistance, the less power used for a given voltage. Poor connections would allow hos battery to last longer but he would have dimmer lights.

Reply to
TBone

You need to do a current check on this vehicle dude and see exactly how much current this truck is drawing. It sounds like something is either on or backfeeding current when you don't expect it to be.

Reply to
TBone

Some years ago, Consumer Reports did a comparison of several batteries. At the that time, Interstate rated #1, with $ears DieHard rating #2. Exide was at the bottom. In the past 10 years, I've been buying Interstate and have had no complaints. I use a pair of their "Workaholic" group 27 units in my '77 D200. I understand they *used to* make batteries for $ears. Bryan

Reply to
Bryan

Power = energy. Resistance (conventional light bulbs, in this case) converts energy into heat and disapates it. Energy is used to heat the filaments it is lost to the battery. Dirty connections also heat up as they are resistances.

Burn a 12V bulb for a few minutes and stick you tongue to it if you don't think power is being converted to heat.

Budd

Reply to
Budd Cochran

Sorry once again Budd, but it really doesn't work that way. While it is true that a bulb converts electrical energy into heat and light, it has nothing at all to do with the conversation. I could go into a long winded explanation but you would just ignore it so I'll just use some simple equations. I take it that you are familiar with Ohm's Law, where voltage represented by E in the equation E = I * R with "I" being current and "R" being resistance. Power can also be calculated as P = E * I where once again "E" being voltage and "I" being current. Using these equations, the current flow in a circuit "I" can be calculated if the voltage "E" and resistance "R" are known by rewriting the formula as I = E / R. I probably shouldn't need to go any further but since it is you, I will. As you should know, if you increase the size of the denominator in a fraction, its value goes DOWN, not up. For an example, if our battery is putting out 12V and we have 6 ohms of resistance in our imaginary circuit (lets say the bulb), using Ohms calculation of I = E / R we have I = 12 / 6 which equals 2 Amps. Now we will make our connections really dirty and for the sake of keeping the math simple for you, they are so dirty they add another 6 ohms and effectively double the resistance to our circuit. Now our calculation comes out to I = 12 / 12 which is the original bulb plus our really dirty connection and now the current flow is just 1 amp. Since the capacity of a battery is measured in amp hours, it should be obvious to you that the added resistance will allow the battery to go twice as long.

As for Power or "P", we can calculate that as well. In our first example, the battery put out 12 volts and 2 amps were passing thru our circuit so P = E * I or P = 12 * 2 which means our bulb was providing 24 watts of light. With our second example that included you dirty connections, P now equals 12

  • 1 where the current was effectively cut in half due to the added resistance which means our bulb is now only providing 12 watts of light so as I said in the previous post, resistance in his connections will extend the life of his battery but at a reduced light output. Of course, these simple calculations make assumptions about the characteristics of a light bulb that are not completely accurate but that has nothing to do with the point being made and that is adding resistance to a series circuit with a fixed voltage reduces the current draw and power of the circuit.
Reply to
TBone

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.