So, I had the strangest thing happen yesterday. I took the truck out for a drive. Everything seemed to be running and acting right. I pull into a gas station and shut the truck off. Go to start it and it clicks and all the power shuts off. Just like you tripped a breaker. I go out and start checking battery terminals, which are clean and tight. I start checking connections at my distribution block. Suddenly I hear the solenoids in the transmission click and I go look and my gauges are back on. I flip the key and click everything off again. My gauge is reading 11.2 volts. I'm thinking maybe my battery was just low cause the truck has been sitting but the starter didn't seem slow when I first started it. I call a buddy to come give me a jump. He gets there and we hook up. Gauges reading 12.5 and click click click like not enough juice. Try giving it a few minutes a few times with no luck. I tapped the Hot lead direct to the starter side of the solenoid and it just seems to spark, not click or turn over. I let it sit a few min and it fires up strong. I get home and hook it up to the battery charger, which is now showing that I have 12.3 volts and that the battery is at 93%. I set it to slow charge and then after an hour or so battery charger gives me an F06 error. This means that the battery may be getting too hot. It just seems odd that it couldn't manage more than 11.2 V and then minutes later is almost fully charged. I'm thinking this might be a dead cell, or a shorted battery. I've completely rewired the truck, wiring is new and all joints are soldered and heat shrunk. My only thing I need to troubleshoot to be certain is the distribution block, but it is basically an insulated bus bar, so I'm pretty sure it is ok. I was also wondering if maybe the starter had shorted. An odd thing was when I flipped the key and everything clicked off (like a breaker) when I turned the switch off, the interior lights would come back on. Given that the charger gave me an error, its a schumacher digital charger, I'm leaning towards a bad battery but thought I'd throw it out to the collective. Thanks.

 

A battery with a dead cell has a characteristic low voltage, around 10.5 volts, compared with 12.6 full charge. It kinda sounds like your batt is done swapping electrons around. Some auto parts stores have carbon pile testers or other diagnostic equipment to test a battery. One way to test a batt while installed in the truck is to disable the ignition, and crank the engine over for 5 to 10 seconds while measuring voltage at the battery posts. A healthy serviceable battery will maintain around 11 volts during cranking, and should be rejected if it falls below 9.6 volts. In cold temps there is a correction factor, but you'll be able to tell right away if it chokes up when load is applied regardless.

 

I have a load tester, but once it cranked it cranked like a fully charged battery. It acted like a bad battery connection except when it was showing 11.2 volts when key was just on. After it decided to crank batter showed 12.7 volts. Really odd.

 

That is kinda flaky, isn't it. Try a 15 second load test at 1/2 CCA and see what's what, see if it will accept and charge up OK. How old is it?

 

Agree the battery sounds like it's got issues, but the first thing I thought of when you said everything went out like a breaker flipped was one of the main battery cables. Does not matter which one, positive or negative, but in my experiences it's mostly been the positive side from the battery to the starter relay.
I know you said they're all new, but perhaps one has an internal issue with the soldered joint? When mine went bad it was a store-bought nice quality one (not the standard auto parts store type) and it was only just about three years old and in perfect looking condition. All testing just led me down to a main battery cable so I changed that one first and that got rid of my issue permanently.
And that has also worked for many other owners on the forums as well.

Good luck. Even at the higher cost, I'm almost hoping it's a battery since that's so easily testable. But replacing a battery cable or two won't break the bank at least.

Paul