Thanks guys. I just didn’t want to return to batteries plus and have them ask me what makes you think the battery is bad? Now I have some knowledge to stand my ground.
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Less is more… Just say you charge it overnight, 30 min later, the voltage drops to 10v. 
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They’ll most likely throw it on a battery tester which will say good or bad and then warranty from there
FYI, it has one dead cell. Remember that a 12V Pb battery is made of 6 cells each of ~2.1V so when you see ~10V on a Pb battery one of the ~2V cells is 0V. A battery load tester will show this quickly since it’s really what you are doing by charging and driving just a little bit.
Update - Bought 2 NOCO 3 Lead 10AM each lead chargers so all 6 batteries can be charged at once. Charged them to full and waited 1 hour, did this 3 times and then checked the batteries with my new TOPCO battery tester. All the batteries, even the assumed bad one tested as Good Battery ~12.7. Did the load test by putting meter on the battery, holding the brake and pushing accelerator all the way down. Again, all batteries tested as good battery, Loaded 12.61 / Unloaded 12.62.
Rode around the park for about 10 minutes when noticing the BDI went from 100 to 70, within 2 more minutes to 15 and then 30 seconds later 0, yet the car still seemed to be running fine.
Stopped the car, pulled ebrake, turned off ignition, and sat for 5 minutes. When restarting the car, the BDI said 70. (scratching head) Brought it back to home base and connected the battery tester again. All the batteries were still at 100% SoC, except the 3rd one which seemed to be the problem battery, it rated at 65%, 11.29v.
Yanked it out and brought it to Batteries Plus. When they checked it, it had plenty of charge, weird given last night it said it was 60%. They did a battery test which showed it was good, they also load tested it and said it was fine. It wasn’t until I squaked about bad cells that they just replaced the battery.
So tonight going back to camp, installing the new battery and will report back on the results.
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What caused the battery to be at 65% and then the next day be at 98% when batteries plus tested it?
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Has anyone ever replaced their Zivan with a charger from Ride4Fun?
could be it was warm/hot from running and some plates warped and once cooled they settled down and were fine. You did right by getting them to replace it as your test process was good and that battery was def the weak dog in the run.
all batteries tested as good battery, Loaded 12.61 / Unloaded 12.62.
I’ve always been a visual guy. I like to see the actual numbers and maybe even turn the page sideways. Perhaps you misunderstood the brake stand test because those numbers are not what I would expect. Your V should drop down a bit more than 0.01v when pedal mashed down all the way. With your meter hooked to the battery, watch it as you are pressing down on the pedal. See how far it drops at max(note it), then how fast it comes back up.
You missed a key moment when your BDI reported 0. Next time stop right there and take a look at what it is seeing. Measure tot pack V, then each battery AT THAT POINT. Either it is confused for some reason (bad calibration) or there is a bad connection somewhere.
Put this in a table and you might see more of what is happening.
Charged - Rested - Loaded - Aft x miles(minutes?)
B1 - xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx
B2 - xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx
B3 - xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx
B4 - xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx
B5 - xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx
B6 - xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx / xx.xx
| AssyRequired
October 7 |
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I’ve always been a visual guy. I like to see the actual numbers and maybe even turn the page sideways. I don’t trust anybody that says “all of them tested good at 12.62”.
well they were around 12.62. Lol. I guess I will be more exact in the next reading.
The other thing to check is put a meter on each end of the battery pack chain to get a total pack read on those status checks. They should add up nice.
I have caught quite a handful of odd issues when you zoom out for a look at the whole picture.
When taking the car for a lap, put a meter on the controller (Pos & Neg) to monitor what it is seeing when driving. Watch the BDI and see if it is just goofy or it is actually telling you something.
If batts all check out fine, then you might have a connection heating up somewhere that is dropping your V down while driving. To the BDI it looks like you have a dead battery. When you stop the connection cools a bit and resistance goes low again and batts look like they came back up.
It could be ANY of the 30(guessing) junctions in the big cables from the batts to the controller. It might even be the main contactor or the main cutoff switch. It could be a connection you see, but also could be a bad crimp on a lug. If you are quick you can run the car around for a bit then do a quick touch for heat on every connection you can find.
Maybe this is the time to add one of those fancy color screen temp cameras to the ol’ toolbox?
To put a meter on each end of the battery pack…. Would I take a reading on positive and negative of the battery nearest the power switch and then take a reading at the battery that is located at the front closest to the windshield?
(scrolling back)
crap. You have a '02.
Best place for measuring both ends of the battery pack on Gen 1 cars is on the NEG of the controller and the fuse.
Second best place would be the Pos and Neg on the controller.
→ NOT convenient if you have the dash all assembled.
Otherwise yeah, you need to pick the post on the battery in the front and the battery under the seat (I think on the driver side) Which takes some REALLY long meter leads.
That is really inconvenient too.
A fully charged 12 volt battery should read 13.8 volts A fresh charged pack about 84 volts. A flooded charger typically shuts off at 91 volts 2 hours later you should see 81 volts+/-
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