I think my battery is draining, any experiences with this?

That would be a good starting place.

So to double check... (no disrespect intended as many have different skill sets and im just going step by step and at times something may not seem obvious.)

You did put the amp clamp on the main battery cables with a fully charged battery right? ( some electronics wont stay powered up below a certain cutoff voltage and will show no load on an amp clamp by the time the test is performed.)

If you have an IR thermometer, or laser or a flir cam, you can check all your after market electronics after the car is shut down to see which one is "hot" when compared to the surrounding area.

You can also start pulling fuses one at a time or check the temp of that fuse vs an adjacent fuse. (I keep referencing temps because it seems like your battery is being drained fast so something should be on and warm)

Let us know what you find.

Flir for your phone
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=flir+for...&hydadcr=20000_9580122&ref=pd_sl_36uy771ewh_e

 

I’m going to remove it to see if it helps.

 

I have a flir at work I can use. I’m also thinking I will change the battery terminals. Cheap to do and possibly a loose crimp?

 

No offense taken, yes I had the clamp on the main wire at the battery. I tried it on the positive and negative and got no reading.

 

Also just had one of the electricians at work put a meter across the battery to check voltage drop while starting the engine.
12.5v before starting and dropped to 10.5 while it cranked. Btw it started great, no hesitation.

 

a bad crimp wont necessarily discharge the battery as it's not a "load". you may see that it struggles charging from the alternator, or intermittently it wont start or weird electrical anomalies that have no rhyme or reason

 

I'm not convinced that you weren't on to something with your theory about the key being left on or in ACC position because your current draw seems to be within acceptable tolerances. You never stated if you charged your battery with a charger after it was drained. An alternator is not a battery charger, it's a battery maintainer. It's not meant to revive a dead battery so if you haven't charged your battery with a charger yet, do so. Assuming you've been running on a weak battery for a while it may or may not have sulfated itself into a weak state that it cannot be recovered from. If this has only been going on for a week you should be good. Get it on a smart charger ASAP if you haven't already.

 

Ok have you checked the alternator? If one of the diodes are bad in the unit?

 

Good idea, I'll charge it this weekend.

 

Would that not show up on the meter when I checked for a drain?

 

It sometimes struggles to start and when it just clicks it will eventually turn over and start. My thinking on a possibly loose crimp was after several tries the wire warms/expands and makes contact? I figure it's a cheap try.

 

It started great this morning after sitting all night. The only thing I did was remove the negative cable from the battery post while troubleshooting yesterday. That's what got me thinking about the terminal crimp possibility.
I also went out for a couple beers yesterday evening and it did great which was also after the neg cable was removed and replaced for troubleshooting.

 

Depends on how bad the diodes are... Have the alternator tested .

While you at it have starter tested same time

 

Auto zone tested it and said it was good but I want to add that I honestly don’t trust that quick little test. If pulling the power converter doesn’t fix this I’ll pull it and bring it to the battery/alternator shop right around the corner.

 

Have it tested like advance Auto to double check... My original alternator test ok 4 times before it slowly started to parasite the battery everything check ok till the diodes blew out with was about a month later.

I would try this disconnect the alternator circuit for the same time a the battery drains and see if the battery is drained. . that would rule that out 100 percent..

 

Electricity is a funny thing. It’s incredibly hard for people to picture electrons moving because of potential and that those moving electrons can achieve work. The best way I ever heard it described to me was to think of it as water.

The battery is a reservoir. The wires are the pipes. If you raise your reservoir higher than the dam outlet, everyone understands that the pressure is highest at the bottom of the dam. That is called potential, or voltage. Voltage can simply be thought of as the pressure in the pipe. Ohms are simply the amount of aha! resistance the pressure is facing while trying to flow through the wire (pipe). Imagine if the pipe was extremely rough inside vs incredibly smooth. When it’s smooth there is less resistance. Current (amps) is the amount of electrons or water that flows past any specific point in a given time.

If the connection (crimp) has a ton of resistance (corrosion or if the “pipe reduces in size” ex: the outside strands of wire are corroded or were simply cut off during stripping of the jacket) then the amount of current that will flow is significantly reduced.

Imagine a hydroelectric dam. The amount of water flowing past the impeller turns the impeller. If the amount of water is reduced, the speed at which the impeller can turn is reduced. This is your starter. If the amount of current that is needed to turn over your engine is not there due to any number of factors, dead battery (reservoir empty), bad connection (increased resistance, reduced pipe), then the starter simply can’t do its job.

 

I would be surprised if your Fieldpiece measured DC amps at the clamp. DC at the clamp is pretty rare

 

I had a similar problem after replacing the battery. I replaced the alternator and did a ton of stuff only to realize my positive terminal wasn't connected tight enough so the alternator was running but it wouldn't charge the battery well enough lol. You've probably checked this already but I would feel bad if I did t write this and you bash yourself finding the problem later on.

 

Nine times out of ten I thought I had a starter problem on a vehicle....I actually had a battery terminal problem.

 

You could remove the leads of both battery terminals and let the battery sit overnight, then check voltage. That would at least isolate the battery from the vehicles circuit so you could verify which direction to check. You just had such little current draw that I would give the battery a second look, it's also the easiest thing to check

 

Well...it wasn’t the power converter plugged into the cigarette lighter lol
Same issue after it’s been unplugged

 

I didn’t do anything to it yesterday. I’m going to stop on the way home today and pick up new battery terminals.

 

After placing the amp clamp of the fieldpiece on the cables and not reading anything it hit me that it’s most likely not going to read DC, my duh moment lol
I’m in the hvac trade

 

I found a service bulletin for 05-06 tundras about parasitic drain. Hopefully I can get it pasted correctly here


http://ww2.justanswer.com/uploads/n9320h/2010-09-17_105909_battery_draw_test.pdf

 

I thought accessories were disconnected when key was removed? Therefore not draining the battery?