Yeah, I've thought about that. Think I'll see if I can get a bent wire under the hood. Keep it in the trunk. Some you can at from the ground. Have to look so I'll be prepared. Then it'll never happen. Actually I'm more concerned with the gas cap door on my Grand Am.
The local gas station has somebody drive away with the hose still in the ta nk about once a week.
I got called to assist with this one some years ago. A heavy vehicle, mayb e military, was being transported on a flatbed. The driver parked the vehi cle and drove the tractor to get a minor repair. When he returned, he coul dn't hook up. The ground was soft enough that the flat bed had sunk a bit.
No problem. He unchained the heavy vehicle and rolled it to the back of th e flat bed. The front end came up and he hooked on fine.
So he drove away - forgetting that he had not chained the vehicle, it was s till on the back of the flatbed. But not for long........
It landed upside down. It took us a long time to get it right side up, the n a few loads of gravel to build a ramp to drive it back on the flatbed.
The only car battery I ever got less than 5 years out of was a lifetime guaanteed battery from Canadian Tire. It took 3 to get through 5 years. Usually I get 7 or more years out of a battery - have gotten as much as 12. And that is with no extra-ordinary maintenance - heck I don't even LOOK at the battery between oil changes. The only time I ever connect a charger to it is if I leave a door open or lights on for too long while tinkering on something else on the vehicle and the battery gets too low to start.
VW 412 had hit a cow and was in the body shop for months. When it came out the hood latch would not release. I was on my way from Livingstone to Lusaka on the old Nakambala sugar estate road - a level, straight gravel road - at about 80mph when all of a sudden there was a "snap" a quick shadow across the windsheild, and a gaping hole where the "bonnet" was a split second before. Looking in the nirror I saw it settle to the road behind me -, not a mark on the roof or windscreen. Snapped the hinges clean off and went straight up!!!. I tied it down with rope and a strap to the next "town" where I had the hinges welded back together and continued my trip to lusaka with it tied to the front bumper, where I bought a used hood , hinges, and latch and bolted them on.
To get a voltage rading on a battery that means anything , the battery must be under a load. An almost dead or bad battery will still show about 12.6 volts without a load. Turn the headlights on to put a load on the battery if nothing else. Do tht on a new battery and you will have a baseline to compair readings on at a later time.
Even if the only load is a small ammount like you say, if that drags a battery down while taking a voltage measurment, the battery is bad. Drawing even 100 milliamps should not effect the open circuit voltage of a battery enough to be measured with most meters.
That's a whole different subject. We've been talking about full charge voltage.
What we have /not/ been talking about is the actual condition of the battery.
If a battery can hold approx 10.7 volts under a moderate load that means the battery is in good condition...but does /not/ let you know if you started out with a 100% or a 90% charged battery.
I never paid attention to state of charge until I traded my generator BMW motorcycle for an alternator model. It was 180 Watts, but it turned too slowly. In high gear, I think I had to be up to 45mph to start lifting the load from the battery and 55mph for the full output.
The headlight law meant the battery had to supply 6 amps or so, below highway speeds. It also meant the regulator put out 13.8 volts instead of 14.4. Suppose the battery was down 5 amp hours and I got on the highway, charging at 10 amps. One might think half an hour would do it. It would take a much longer run because the battery would accept less and less current, especially at 13.8 volts.
Chronic undercharging meant big, expensive batteries didn't last long. That's how I got into routinely checking the state of charge and using a charger.
A battery in a vehicle with the alternator that charged full-time, wouldn't have the same problem, but I got into the habit of checking states of charge, out of curiosity. Some were fully charged. Others were at 50 or 75%. They still functioned well enough that one might not have known they weren't fully charged, but leaving them that way would shorten battery life.
A lot depends on how a car is used. My neighbor used his car for errands. It may have run an hour a week. The battery was apparently undercharged.
My neighbor bought the battery in 2000 and discarded it in 2002. By occasionally putting it on a charger overnight, I got reliable service until 2013. That's 6-1/2 times the rated life of the battery. I don't think it would have lasted so long with the chargers I used to have.
I wonder what color I should dye my hair!
A assume you mean microVOLTS
There is no mechanical or electronic regulator on an alternator equipped vehicle that measures or controls output current. On the old generators, yes - you had a 3 unit regulator - one limitted the voltage, one limited the current, and the other disconnected the battery from the generator when the output voltage was lower than the battery voltage to prevent the generator from "motoring" and wearing the battery down. An alternator regulator only LIMITS the output voltage of the alternator. Current control is looked after by the resistance of the stator windings and the circuit at the output voltage. When the current is high, the regulator does absolutely nothing. The alternator puts out whatever current it can, with the voltage being controlled by the load. As the load drops and the voltage goes up, the regulator reduces the voltage, and therefor the current, going into the rotating field of the alternator - which reduces the output voltage of the alternator, which reduces the current passed into the higher resistance of the battery as the battery charge increases.
In MOST alternator systems, the diodes in the 3 phase bridge rectifier are the only thing preventing the battery current from flowing back into the alternator stator windings.
Most alternator sytem regulators are, in effect, constant voltage regulators with a "soft" supply.
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On my Dodge Ramcharger service truck I had a set of welding cable receptacles on the front fender, controlled by a starter solenoid - and a set of 30 foot welding cables with battery clamps on the end. I could pull in the driveway behind a limo with a dead battery and give it a boost.
And a 75% charged battery can still read 12.6 volts open circuit. AT REST the difference in voltage of a given typical automotive 12 volt battery is less tha .1 volt between 70% and 100% charge at a given temperature. A warmer battery will produce a higher open circuit voltage than a colder battery. Also, the initial SG of a lead acid battery varies by geographic region - with SG of 1.245 beig quite common in equatorial regions to eliminate or reduce corrosion and self discharge. Stationary batteries can be even lower, while deep cycle batteries for arctic use may well excede 1.300. An expanded scale voltmeter can be effective at measuring state of charge for a particular battery set under particular conditions - by comparing the voltage to a pre-determined discharge voltage profile.
I've had totally dead AGM batteries from a UPS read 13.6 volts open circuit, and they wouldn't make a #194 bulb glow (and read less than 3 volts with that small load).
Dye it blonde and grow it long and you can have an excuse for anything!!
Ah, Jackie DeShannon! In my book, she has an excuse for anything!!
Ah, one long word looks about the same as another to me!
You've refreshed my memory and you're right. Maybe I'm getting mixed up with a generator regulator I've seen. Alternator resistance might account for what I've observed, slightly less voltage with more load.
I seem to remember that the regulator contact was like a SPDT switch. Maybe I can find a diagram on the internet. I remember the motorcycle had a rectifier board with 6 big diodes for the output current and 3 small diodes to feed the exciter current to the regulator. If there wasn't enough output there, the exciter current came from the battery through the alternator indicator bulb. Instead of switching off, it faded as the engine sped up.
I should probably mention the ".84" rule which those in the industry use daily
There is a .84 difference between a LA cell's open circuit voltage and specific gravity. (at 77F)
Viz 2.12 volts minus .84 equals a specific gravity of 1.280
I've heard of manufacturing batteries with different acid concentrations for different climates, but I don't know much about it.
This page has a link to download a spreadsheet of temperature-compensated SOC tables.
It shows that SG changes with temperature. The same battery can have a SG of 1.25 at 120 F and 1.30 at 0 F.
I had a truck battery that apparently had an internal fracture. Occasionally, it would produce no current, but the open-circuit voltage was good. Then it would start working again.
Pulsetech says they have a patented pulse charger that will restore dead AGM and flooded-plate batteries by getting rid of sulfate crystals. They have a contract with the Army. In one command, the battery turnover rate dropped 90% after Pulsetech converted it to AGM and gave the Army techs a short training course.
There are two latches on a hood release. The inside latch unlocks the hood, so it's not locked down, but you also have to depress the spring loaded hood release latch before raising the hood. Otherwise, if you were to pull the hood release inside the car while driving down the road at 60 mph, the hood would fly open and block your view of the road and possibly cause a very serious accident. That second spring loaded latch ensure the hood doesn't open unless and until an actual human being depresses the spring latch and lifts the hood.
I think that "something before" you couldn't remember was the spring loaded latch that needed to be depressed before the hood would open.
I would close the hood normally, and see if you can open it normally. Do that several times. If all seems to be in order again, put that experience about not being able to open the hood in the same bag as crop circles and lights in the sky.
You still don't get it. He PLUMB FORGOT to pull the remote hood latch. That's why he couldn't open it.
Hi, Yeah but he remembered it back about latch. When getting old memory is not gone just slow, some times it takes even few days to remember back some thing.
I was born senile. When I couldn't find something, my mother would tell me to retrace my steps.
Last year, I helped a neighbor mount solar-powered lights along a fence. Last week, she phoned. She wants to put up more. She wanted to know how many brackets and screws were left over.
I told her I remembered the lights but had no memory of brackets or screws. She asked if I remembered where I'd put them. When she described the brackets, I vaguely remembered them, but I couldn't remember who had put them away.
I went to her garage and saw the case with the drill I'd used. Near it, I saw a rolling tool chest about 4 feet tall. I remembered a certain drawer. I opened it and found the pack of brackets and the pack of screws.
I'm like Hansel and Gretel. I need a trail of bread crumbs to find my way home. I was stumped, standing in front of the hood of my car. I was like the kid who knows all the answers in class but draws a blank on the test. Because I took a walk, coming back and wanting to open the hood was retracing my steps. Everything fell into place.
I don't remember what the latch release looks like because it has been a long time since I bent over to look; I just know where it is and reach. If I bent over to look, I'm sure I'd remember the sight very well.
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