Kinetik battery dying?

[gbody805]

OK here is what I have.

98' Durango.
240 amp alt. Kinetik 1400 up front.
1/0 wires up front Pos,alt. and Ground.
Up front ground is to body firewall, engine and to frame.
1/0 ga to rear Pos single run connected to a kinetik 1200.
1/0 ga ground to body and 1/0 ga to frame.

My problem.
The truck is dead if I don't run it everyday.
I've disconected the second 1200 from the back and yet it still is dead.
I can slow charge the 1400 up front, start it the next morning and it will spin slow but start. I will let it run for 15-20 minutes above idle.
Try later in the evening and the battery is too drained to spin the motor.

I've checked the battery will running and it is at 14.55.
I have checked it off and it is at 12.48 but starts dropping.
I did a draw test, I think that is what you would call it but there was only a slight draw from the alarm I have installed.
I never had this problem when I had a yellow top in front.

I'm thinking the battery I bought was bad or was going bad when I bought it.
That I think is why I got such a good deal on it.

Can I have it load tested like a normnal car battery?

Can you run a kinetik up front for starting like a regular battery?

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[davewaibel]

those batteries are a little misleading- I think you have barely enough battery to run your system and your car- especially if your doing short trips and jamming every where you go- I have an 1800 up front, an 800 in the cab and a bmf in the bed of the trunk- your 240 alternator is probably like most, it is barely doing shit in traffic, it will deliver 240 at 3000 rpm, but tooling around town, it isnt doing much- you could change the pulley size to make it spin faster and charge quicker- but those are my thoughts on your situation

[gbody805]

I already had the pulley changed to spin it faster at low idle.

Let me add alittle here.
Right now I am not driving the truck.
I am in the process of up grading the system.
I'm changing the Dblocks and cleaning the contacts.
Removing any corroded wire ends.
This started after I read the post on the Powercore problem.

After I get the truck to start I run it off idle at around 1800 rpm for 15-20 minutes.
If I go back every hour or so and do the same off idle run it will start .
Once I leave it for any length of time the battery starts to die.

[Rold Gold]

With multiple batteries, are you running an isolator?

[gbody805]

The second battery is not in the truck right now.

The truck is in the yard taken apart.
The radio it not installed. All but one amp and the speakers are removed.
The amp has no wires hooked up.
The radio is connected using a factory harness adapter so no loose wires.

I'm still haven't decided if I am going to run a isolator or upgrade to all the same size batterys.

[davewaibel]

totally do not need isolators with kinetiks, and with most modern batteries

[Rold Gold]

totally do not need isolators with kinetiks, and with most modern batteries

If ya replace then BOTH at the same time.......and they are the same battery.......

Atleast thats the way I've always known it to be.

[gridracer]

If you want to play your system with the car off you need an isolator or the cars starting battery will be run down just as fast as the system battery. If you isolate it you will always be able to start your car.

[tonym]

try running a load test on it .. check with load on with an ohm meter ...

anything in the 10's you should replace..

[gbody805]

try running a load test on it .. check with load on with an ohm meter ...

anything in the 10's you should replace..

I'm not sure what you mean.

How would I do this?
What load should be used? Lights, radio?
When you say ohm meter do you mean DMM and test the volts or use the ohm scale?

Will this battery respond like a normal battery.
I thought the kinetik battery has a high discharge rate.

[ttocs]

an amp meter would be a little better if you have a mulit-meter.

Disconnect one side of the batter, make sure the meter leads are in the correct (A) terminal(its different then the standard volt terminal on most). Now connect one side of the meter to the empty battery terminal, and the other side to the wire you disconnected. The meter should not read more then .3-.4A and should really be much closer to 0A. If you have a higher reading which it sounds like you will, then go to your fuse box. Start pulling one fuse at a time and watching the meter at the same time. If one of the circuits has a draw on it with the key off, when you pull the fuse it will kill the draw and show you the bad circuit.

Another thing I have been suprised about is the little lights in the cellphone or ipod power adaptors can burn off alot more current over long periods then you would think. If you have one or more of these start by simply unplugging them and see what happens the next morning.

[gridracer]

I have a load tester very similar to this one http://www.tooltopia.com/mountain-11001 ... =nextag_r1 you can get them for as cheap as $30

[dedlyjedly]

You can have your local Autozone or Checker auto parts type of store perform a load test on the charging system as a whole or you can take them the suspect battery and have it alone tested. Whatever best fits your needs. Either way it is something they'll do free of charge. Just make sure you get someone who appears what they're doing instead of some knucklehead. It never hurts to get a second opinion as only half of those guys have any idea what they're talking about!

[gbody805]

OK I finally got a chance to test the amp draw.

I used the pos terminal for the test.
I did what you said and used the A side of the meter and the reading was 0.32.
It acted funny as the first time I touched the probes it read 0.32 then dropped to 0.04.

What does that mean.

[ttocs]

.3a is a little high but nothing extremely alarming. I would repeat it and start pulling fuses again to see what is drawing that voltage.

as for the voltage drop I would have to be there to help you with that.

[reallyxxxxxxloud]

.3 of an amp is acceptable. I'm not sure what a 98' Durango is but if it has a body control module (Cars computer) leave the amp meter in place for half hour so the BCM goes to sleep. Sometimes there maybe a earth leak caused via BCM and it will not show till its shutting down.

Have you had the alternator checked out you may have a blown diode!!!!. How old is the batteries?

[gbody805]

It is a Dodge Durango.
It is a SUV. Made by Dodge.

It does have a control module. It also has a battery temp sensor that controls the Alt. output.

The battery was bought used but held at 12.56 volts for months before I switched the factory battery for the Kinetik.

I switched them because the factory battery was venting and destroyed my PG battery clamps and corroded the wires.
I have a 240 amp alternator that checked out ok at my local electrical shop.

I installed a optima yellow top and the problem went away.
Truck starts every morning without a problem.

I also bought a relay isolator.
I'm going to keep the yellow top in front and install the kinetik in the rear.

Thanks for all the info and help.

[ttocs]

the isolator should have been there to begin with and should help, but again I think it is better to replace the batteries in pairs so that you do not have one good one, and one kind-of good one. It is important that they have the same charge/discharge characteristics to keep them from fighting one another while charging or you battery that is not as good as the new one will drag the new one down.

The differences in charging as well as the lack of the isolator could probably be blamed with for the venting.