My battery was drained one time, and i wanted to see if something is pulling a current from it constantly, is there anything out there i can use to see if the battery is powering something when it shouldnt be? someone suggested an ammeter on another site, would that tell me what i need to know?
You need to do a parisitic current draw test using an ammeter capable of reading milliamps. Charge the battery fully, then turn the car off making sure all accesories are off. Then disconnect the negative battery terminal and run a jumper wire from the disconnected cable to the battery terminal and turn the car back on (don't start it, just turn the key to the on position), leave it on for 30 seconds then turn it off again. This will reset any componants you interupter when you disconnected the battery. Now run your ammeter leads from the cable to the terminal and remove the jumper wire. Note the amperage your car is drawing when off (again be sure all acc. or lights are off including a dome light you might have when your door is opened). Check with a specification manual or a mechanic what the limits are for parisitic current draw on your vehicle. If your reading is greater than specs than something is draining your battery. Hard to say what but you'll know that much, if it is in specs, you should probably test and/or replace your battery.
Let me know if this helps.
Chaos is right, to test the current draw,
Hook up your voltmeter (setup to read current), remove the ground from the battery and hook the voltmeter in between the battery ground cable and the battery ground terminal. This is will show you your current draw. I wouldn't try this with the car running, depending how many amps your car pulls and how many amps your meter can take, you might break your testing equipment. So make sure the car is off and the key is out and all acc's off.
I was told by someone else to hook up a test light to the negative battery terminal then touch it to the negative battery post and if it lights up that means something was draining it... and sure enough it lit up like Christmas until i disconnected the alarm system then it went off... so for some reason my viper 5900 is pulling a lot of current when it shouldn't be.. any ideas?
Is it pulling current with the alarm armed, disarmed, or both?
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the12volt • Support the12volt.comI've only tried with it disarmed.