Battery drain problem

[Ditch rider]

Ditchrider, if you have Zero volts when you turn the key switch, you either have a bad connection or the battery is junk. I never had much luck over 3 years with the lead acid snowmobile batteries. I have since switched to Odyssey battery, which is similiar to an Optima style, so we will see how long it lasts.

Batteries can show 12 volts, but the amps is important also. With that cell being low, it may be bad, which will affect output and may be your problem.

Mike,

What I meant by "nothing" when I turned the key was "nothing happened...the motor didn't turn over".

I try edmarino's ohm test to see if there is a drain. I'm thinking the battery is shot but I want to avoid what happened to me last year with my Yamaha Vector (the sled I'm working on now is my kids' sled).

The stator went bad on my Vector and thinking that my 5 year old AGM battery was finally shot, I went out and bought a new battery. Since the battery wasn't the cause of the problem, the Vector has a new battery in it and the "old" AGM battery....which is just fine....sits in my garage. It won't fit in the Polaris....too big and not enough room even if I modify the battery holder.

 

[Ditch rider]

I've done some testing but don't know what to think now....

With the sled running and I want to check the voltage between the + and - I get 6.5 volts. Edmarino said I should be getting 13 volts.

See the picture for the rest.....

When I test for ohms and put the red tester on the nut underneath the red "cover, and the black tester on ground, I get no reading (no draw?)

But.....

If I put the red tester on either of the phillips head screws or post for the cable shown on the right (it goes to the starter) I'm getting 23'ish ohms.

Does this mean that my starter solenoid is bad?

HELP!

 

[edmarino]

To Ditch Rider
IF your battery leads are not connected to the battery and you have a 12 volt battery then you need to get 13 volts across the leads to charge the battery. As far as the low ohms reading across the starter coil not energized that is were your short circuit is an causing the battery drain. I can't answer why you are only seeing 6.5 volts unless you have a 6 volt battery , you stated the battery was small compared to the one you have from your vector, I have a vector also and the battery is half the size of the one I have in my Polaris. The Polaris is a four stroke Liberty engine which is a monster to pull over, you can not pull it by hand. Both are 12 volt batteries. Which is another subject and not part of this thread.

 

[Ditch rider]

To Ditch Rider
IF your battery leads are not connected to the battery and you have a 12 volt battery then you need to get 13 volts across the leads to charge the battery. As far as the low ohms reading across the starter coil not energized that is were your short circuit is an causing the battery drain. I can't answer why you are only seeing 6.5 volts unless you have a 6 volt battery , you stated the battery was small compared to the one you have from your vector, I have a vector also and the battery is half the size of the one I have in my Polaris. The Polaris is a four stroke Liberty engine which is a monster to pull over, you can not pull it by hand. Both are 12 volt batteries. Which is another subject and not part of this thread.

The battery and system is a 12 volt system. It has a size/group 14 battery which is smaller than the size/group 18 battery in my Vector.

When I did the test that Polarismike suggested for battery drain, the test showed no drain (?).

I'm going to hook my "old" fully charged Vector battery up to the Polaris and
see what happens.

 

[lukn4snow]

ditch rider
You have gotten some good advice and some bad.
First of all, polarismike and edmarino both suggested you get a Battery Tender, very good advice as a Battery Tender of similar charger with the smart charge technology will taper off to a float charge state when your battery is fully charged and not over charge and ruin your battery. Almost all standard automotive battery chargers, even smaller ones will over charge and damage a small snowmobile or motor cycle battery. When you charged it on fast charge I’m sure that you cooked it, time for a new battery and a Battery Tender.

Secondly, the only correct way to test for parasitic draw, or battery drain as you referred to it, is with an amp meter. Ohm meter tests will not work and will only lead to confusing and misleading results. Polarismike gave good advice on this and recommended that you start by setting your amp meter on a 10 amp scale so that if you have a very large draw you don’t blow your meter fuse. If you don’t see any draw at that setting and I doubt you will, you then need to keep working down to the milliamp scale. I am not sure what the allowable spec. is for this sled but I would think for sure under 25 ma.

Thirdly, if the battery goes dead with the sled just sitting, not being used, it is not a charging system/low voltage problem. It is a parasitic draw or a failed battery problem. However if you want to test the charging system for voltage output, you need to have a good fully charged (12.6 volts open circuit voltage or greater) battery installed. Set the volt meter to DC voltage and connect at the battery terminals, remove the belt and bring the RPM up to >5,000. You should see the voltage in the 13.5 to 15.5 range if the charging system and regulator are working properly. Checking with out a battery connected is not going to give you a clean DC voltage to read and how different meters, especially a cheaper one, will react to this dirty voltage is a crap shoot, however my guess as to why you got such a low reading is that you checked it at low Idle RPM.

Lastly, 11.9 volts on a flooded lead acid cranking battery is considered 0% state of charge (I know that doesn’t quit agree with the chart that doomsmen posted but his chart doesn’t specify the battery type) so the fact that your sled wouldn’t crank with a battery at 12.00 volts shouldn’t surprise anyone as it was basically dead.

Hope this helps you and others that may read it.

 

[Ditch rider]

ditch rider
You have gotten some good advice and some bad.
First of all, polarismike and edmarino both suggested you get a Battery Tender, very good advice as a Battery Tender of similar charger with the smart charge technology will taper off to a float charge state when your battery is fully charged and not over charge and ruin your battery. Almost all standard automotive battery chargers, even smaller ones will over charge and damage a small snowmobile or motor cycle battery. When you charged it on fast charge I’m sure that you cooked it, time for a new battery and a Battery Tender.

Secondly, the only correct way to test for parasitic draw, or battery drain as you referred to it, is with an amp meter. Ohm meter tests will not work and will only lead to confusing and misleading results. Polarismike gave good advice on this and recommended that you start by setting your amp meter on a 10 amp scale so that if you have a very large draw you don’t blow your meter fuse. If you don’t see any draw at that setting and I doubt you will, you then need to keep working down to the milliamp scale. I am not sure what the allowable spec. is for this sled but I would think for sure under 25 ma.

Thirdly, if the battery goes dead with the sled just sitting, not being used, it is not a charging system/low voltage problem. It is a parasitic draw or a failed battery problem. However if you want to test the charging system for voltage output, you need to have a good fully charged (12.6 volts open circuit voltage or greater) battery installed. Set the volt meter to DC voltage and connect at the battery terminals, remove the belt and bring the RPM up to >5,000. You should see the voltage in the 13.5 to 15.5 range if the charging system and regulator are working properly. Checking with out a battery connected is not going to give you a clean DC voltage to read and how different meters, especially a cheaper one, will react to this dirty voltage is a crap shoot, however my guess as to why you got such a low reading is that you checked it at low Idle RPM.

Lastly, 11.9 volts on a flooded lead acid cranking battery is considered 0% state of charge (I know that doesn’t quit agree with the chart that doomsmen posted but his chart doesn’t specify the battery type) so the fact that your sled wouldn’t crank with a battery at 12.00 volts shouldn’t surprise anyone as it was basically dead.

Hope this helps you and others that may read it.

I appreciate any advice and understand that it's up to me whether to follow it or not. I'm pretty mechanically inclined but when it comes to 2S electrical systems systems, I'm at the mercy of the Shop Manual and advice.

I do have a newer battery charger that is 6v and 12v capable, and has a 2A - 12v setting. It typically will charge at 1 amp or less but the bottom line is that I need a tender. I'll look at the ones suggested in this thread as I really don't want to spend the $$ on another Optimate.

I have an Optimate III battery tender that's hardwired into my Vector. I think it's time to spend a few bucks on another tender for this sled and others that will follow.

I bought a battery yesterday @ NAPA. I first tried an AGM battery from Carquest but it was about 1/2" too wide for the battery holder. I couldn't find an AGM battery that would fit so I ended up buying a regular wet cell battery that has the caps on top.

Hopefully I'm all set now, and send out my thanks to all that took time to put the .02 in!