Battery life/drain
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Cross-Country
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 78
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From: Salt Lake City
Battery life/drain
Looking for some general guidelines/experience...
I know it varies on a LOT of factors, but I'm looking for rules of thumb/experience for how long I can run my radio/cd player before my batteries lose the ability to start the truck
Doors closed, windows open - no other lights on. Stock batteries, about two years old, lets say you're camping, or out on a all day trip, listening to tunes on your cd player (once again stock - no power amp or subwoofer)
With my old '93 F150 manual trans, I would park to make certain I could roll it downhill to a start, in case I did run them down (never happened). But now, with an auto trans, and the much higher demand that the PS makes on the starting system, I'm a liitle leery of running tunes for too long. And if I'm out in BFE without another support vehicle, with dead batteries, It'd put a real damper on the day. So, how long have some of you run your cd player before NOT being able to start your rig?
Another related Q - Any experience with either
A) Those drycell charging/starting packs that are available just about anywhere? - Do these have enough oomph to start our trucks (I'm asking about EXPERIENCE here, not theory, thanks...)
B) How about those solar trickle chargers I see - Any positive/negative experiences?
Thanks
I know it varies on a LOT of factors, but I'm looking for rules of thumb/experience for how long I can run my radio/cd player before my batteries lose the ability to start the truck
Doors closed, windows open - no other lights on. Stock batteries, about two years old, lets say you're camping, or out on a all day trip, listening to tunes on your cd player (once again stock - no power amp or subwoofer)
With my old '93 F150 manual trans, I would park to make certain I could roll it downhill to a start, in case I did run them down (never happened). But now, with an auto trans, and the much higher demand that the PS makes on the starting system, I'm a liitle leery of running tunes for too long. And if I'm out in BFE without another support vehicle, with dead batteries, It'd put a real damper on the day. So, how long have some of you run your cd player before NOT being able to start your rig?
Another related Q - Any experience with either
A) Those drycell charging/starting packs that are available just about anywhere? - Do these have enough oomph to start our trucks (I'm asking about EXPERIENCE here, not theory, thanks...)
B) How about those solar trickle chargers I see - Any positive/negative experiences?
Thanks
Senior User
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 127
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Not directly related but thought you might like this helpful hint on re-starting PSD sometime. I ran down the batteries a few weeks too low to crank the 250 or so rpm to start psd. Glow plugs kept sucking too much away to start.
Find yourself in this spot, just crank the engine over before the glow plug relay kicks them in; just ignore your wait light and start. Works for warm weather anyway. I've also jump started myself with a spare battery thrown in the back of PU on trips. Gave me that extra umph to get it started again during winter. Wouldn't recomend the spare battery in back of PU unless your used to carrying one around. Can be very dangerous.
Find yourself in this spot, just crank the engine over before the glow plug relay kicks them in; just ignore your wait light and start. Works for warm weather anyway. I've also jump started myself with a spare battery thrown in the back of PU on trips. Gave me that extra umph to get it started again during winter. Wouldn't recomend the spare battery in back of PU unless your used to carrying one around. Can be very dangerous.
