Good morning!!!!

[RedNeckGeek]

I was puzzled by the 3.6 amp drain, as well RNG. I had disconnected the negative battery cable to charge the battery. This was before I determined that Interstate battery was bad. The current drain I measured, all made perfect sense as the cause of the "dead" battery.

For clarification, the 200 amp charger / starter also has a 40 amp and 2 amp charge mode. I used the 200 amp only to get the car started so, I could move it into the shop.

I charged the disconnected battery, the rest of the day and overnight @ 2 amp rate , and next day, the battery still wouldn't start the car. That's when I hooked my battery tester to it and determined I had a second bad battery. I removed the battery, took it to town and swapped it for the AC Delco. I'd forgotten about the current drain I'd originally measured, until I was installing the AC Delco battery, last Friday. So, I connected the positive cable then connected my digital multimeter in the ammeter mode and measured zero current drain between the negative terminal and negative cable.

Now, four days later the Corvette still starts fine, I moved it this morning. Could I still have some intermittent issue? Yep but, till it surfaces again, no way to be sure.

I do need to test the ammeter mode on my multimeter as this was the first time to measure DC current with it. I'd always used my old Simpson 260 with an amp probe.

I forget when your Corvette was made, Rick, but if it's from about 1990 on, chances are very good it was designed with parasitic loads like computers and radios that will flatten a battery if left undriven and off a charger for long enough. But you knew that already! The tricky part is that some of those systems behave very erratically when the battery voltage drops far enough. That '03 5 series BMW I had, for example, would actually turn on the headlights when the battery got weak enough, just to make sure the battery was good and dead by the time I'd come out to use the car. :shocked:

Not sure what the amp/hour capacity of these batteries are, but 2 amps for 16 hours will be less than 1/10th of their capacity, and they'll test very poorly in either specific gravity or a load test. Since a starter motor also places a pretty heavy load on a battery, a good load test is to hook up a voltmeter across the battery terminals and watch the reading when the starter is engaged. Anything less than about 10V is bad news.

What are the chances that the first new battery you got wasn't fully charged from the store? Lots of places fill 'em up and put 'em on a charger until they're full, then they sit on a shelf until they sell with no further attention. If a battery like that ended up in your Corvette, and the voltage level was low enough to trigger behavior like that BMW I mentioned, it could explain what you saw. Then when you put the Delco in, and if it was fully charged, all the electronics were happy and didn't flip into any weird high current demand modes.

I've also not been very confident in the Battery Tenders I've used, and have lost batteries on the motorcycles even when they've been hooked up to a BT. So far I've been having very good results with the Battery Saver chargers that I think Ron recommended, but I've changed the way I use them. I let the battery sit disconnected for a couple weeks before I put it on the BS for a couple days, then repeat. I think letting the battery discharge a bit helps keep it healthy, even if it's only self-discharge.

Ultimately the best way to keep a battery happy is to drive the vehicle regularly. And that's not much of a hardship when it comes to motorcycles, and especially Corvettes!

 

[jbrumberg]

The prevalence of suicide is more widespread than we want to talk about, and Lynn I'm sorry you lost a family member.
Youngest son in my second marriage, the one who used to jump in my arms every night when I came through the door, well last Fall
he OD'd in his bedroom at age 28. I haven't seen him in a long time, feel very sad this was how his promising life turned out.
Maybe it's because of the ease of getting drugs capable of doing this,
maybe we just aren't recognizing and treating depression and related mental
illness fast enough.

Drew- I agree. I am sorry to read about your and your family's loss.

A seriously suicidal individual will find a means and/or a method despite the efforts of others. I lost a few clients/patients to suicide over a 30 year period. One managed to suicide in a secure, locked psychiatric unit while under an ordered 2:1 staff observation. It was not pretty.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Lynn, sorry about your nephew.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Cat fever, sorry about your nephew.

 

[bunyip]

Generally anybody from England is referred to as a Pom. I have a step-son who has been living in London for so long I call him a Pom too.
Way back in the fifties the gubbermint was encouraging population increase and ｣10 bought a subsidised ticket UK to NZ on either the Captain Hobson or the Captain Cook. The people who came out were (and still are) known as "ten pound poms". I have a distant cock-relation who is one. She is happy that we refer to her as that.

Ten quid tourist is another one, and New Zealand is called 'The Land of the Long White Cloud', conversely Queensland we call 'The Land of the Long White Sock' given their habit of wearing long white socks with shorts, we just wear light cotton long pants.
As for the latter reference, there are a few more unsavoury examples of that.

 

[Buppies]

Cat Driver so sorry about your loss prayers sent

 

[lostcreekranch]

Cat .... sorry for your Family's loss.

 

[mostly_gas]

Good evening all. 71F for the start, calm wind , mostly overcast. Sun started peeking out mid morning, wing stayed low all day, and high temp was 91F. Cleaning lady prep to start the day, bike ride in the "cool" of the morning, and puttering this afternoon with a good nap :thumbsup:
Lynn, sorry to read about your nephew, prayers for the family.
Ted hope the knee injection works.
Rick , I hate trying to track down intermittent electrical problems. The worst one was a bad switch on a sun visor mirror.
Don good luck this quarter.
prayers for all

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Busy day at work for once.

My son released his latest train video on utube.
Episode 4 - The Escape - YouTube

Local fireman died responding to a bad accident today. Bent down to pick something up and just went down. Kid passing got killed, hit am oncoming truck.

Thunderstorm in the night last night. Up to 90° today.

 

[RoyJackson]

2019-06-26, 0319

58 right now...high in the mid-80's today...