Welp, here's my 3rd or 4th post on this. This is really starting to piss me off. I went to BlownWJ's house this Sat. for a little Birthday Cookout and Housewarming party. I got there and about an hour or so later I went to fire up the truck for Chris' dad to hear the cam....... dead battery! WTF?!?! This battery is 11 months old. I was thinking the alternator is finally dead. Just got home from the dealership a bit ago and.... alternator is fine and so is the battery. I'm just so lost and clueless on this issue. I had the same issue last year and replaced the battery against the dealers advice and it's been fine since until now. Just went to start the Jeep after sitting for about 30-45 mins. and it didn't want to start. I finally forced it to start by holding the key over. It did. Put my volt meter on the battery it was 12.4X....... 15 minutes later it's at 10.6X. Just walked outside now and it's still at 10.62. I've got one of the big volt meters with more stuff on it than I know what to do with. Is there a way to find out how much of a draw is being put on the battery? Maybe one of the settings for Ohm Load or something? This is really pissing me off to no end! I hate having to drive around with damn jumper cables in my truck not knowing if it'll start or whatnot. Can anyone give me some advice. And yes people, I did unhook my amp fuse to the amps to see if that was the case when I got home. All of the system is off. No power light on anything.
Replace the voltage regulator... With the stereo system powered off (including fuses unplugged) do an ohm test on both the power and ground wires. Since we have no clue how the system wired up, they may have tapped into an existing power wire. This will cause battery drain even when the amp is disconnected.
Voltage is potential Amps is current (how much juice you're drawing). Measure amps to see current draw. Car off, car on, stereo on. With everything off see how much current is being drawn. It will never be zero cause you got to run the PCM, can bus, etc but it should be way down in the milliamps.
System is wired correctly I believe. The amps are run off 1 4 gauge wire with a fuse of course. The remote wire is running off the Kenwood HU. Wiring for the Kenwood was done off the factory wiring. Could a tune possibly be keeping the PCM on or something like that? I will check these things and get back. thanks guys for the tips.
A tune will not keep your PCM "on". It stays "on" anyway -- basically maintains volatile memory. Your DashHawk is capabable of drawing down a battery (even in standby) but it should take more than a day or two.
If it makes you feel any better (which it doesnt) i carry around a jumper box in my trunk 24/7 cause my battery dies all the time LOL
On my 2006 Jeep SRT8 my Dashhawk was great on my 2008 Charger SRT8 it drains the battery and screws the remote start up. Go figure.
I sold my DashHawk 2 months ago. I think I'm going to go to the dealership tomorrow and throw the battery through their windows. I went to the stereo shop to make an appointment for Wed. for them to go through my system. On the way home, I stopped to get a drink. Get back into my truck.... DEAD! When I went to the stereo shop I left it running. How is it that I can let the truck run for 1 hour and it doesn't charge the battery. Well, let me say that the battery won't TAKE a charge. I had to get jumped off. I get home, which is right around the corner from the store, and check the batt with it running. 14.3X like it should be. Shut off the truck, 12.4X, go to start it and it turns over once then dies. Check the batt. again, and it's 10.6!! I guess it's got a few dead cells in it. This truck is starting to piss me off! Thanks for all the help guys. I'll know Wed. if there is something in my stereo system prematurely killling it. This will be the 3rd factory battery since the truck has been born 53,XXX miles ago. My buddy at Rollin' Sound and I may add a Kinetik to the system to handle the amps. I'm only running 1350 watts though. Nothing TOO serious. Okay..... call me STOOPIT.... but where is it? After reading my above post, cold that still be the issue?
Not sure where the voltage regulator is located? Have the dealer check that. Should still be a warranty issue since this has been going on during the warranty period? As for the system. If you are running 1380 watts, you MUST get a secondary battery or caps. Also, you should upgrade the alternator to a 100 - 120 amps. I believe the factory alternator is a 60 - 80 amp. Way too small to keep that battery charged.
Our alternators are 160Amps. I was shocked when I found out. It supplies plenty of power. They dealers want $465.00 for the damn thing. Plus $15.00 for air fare since they're all flown in. Apperently, they're not a stocked item according to my dealer, but who REALLY trusts their dealer. Unfortunately, my truck has been outta warranty for a while. 53,XXX miles on mine. I drive it alot!!!:lol: I'm talking to my stereo shop now about adding a small Kinetic Battery or replacing the main one with a big Kinetic. Caps aren't always needed. My amps make their make power from 11.2 volts to 14.X volts. They're the JL Audio HD600.4 and HD750.1. It's rare the truck will drop below 11.2 vots while running. My radar detector never goes below 11.8 when hitting at full volume with lights on and AC on.
Damn, I did not know that. Thanks for enlightening me. lol Yea, I am not a fan of caps either, just thought I would throw them in the mix. haha Yea, the JL's are awesome amps. Back in the 90's, when PPI was cream of the crop, I had a 600 running my 4 JL W5's and the 300 running my mids/tweets. They too made their own power. Pretty cool to watch technology evolve from decade to decade. hahaha Shit, throw some pix up of the system in our interior section.
Will do in a second. I thought I posted them already. Ooops, my bad. I used to run PPI's back in the day. I had a fat system in a Maxima. I had their big 30 octave EQ flush mounted when you opened the truck. Old Art series amps and the ProMos amps. Man....... those were the days.:lol: Oh how times have changed. These kids don't know what an Alpine Pull Out Cassatte Deck is!! Remember those?:lol::lol::lol:
haha damn, not the pull outs? Yup, the Art Series were the shit back then. Saw the thread. :worthy: I think you did post picks way back when, but I am old and can't remember shit. lol Here is my old system...
Sweet.... an A600 and an A404. Nice. Is that their processor in the middle? Was it powered by "Phantom Power"? Buwahahaha!!!!! Man, you're taking me back to OLD school days now. I hated all those damn PPI cables. Those DIN plugs were HUGE and a PITA to run. That was fun man. Thanks for the memories!! On edit.... Ooops, it was a A300. My bad.
lol yup, an A300. In the begining, yes it was a PPI processor. About a month after the system was installed, we had some issues with it and I was able to talk MTX into a sponsorship for their processor. lol I also had the MTX digital equalizer mounted up front for fine tuning. That system hit 142 decibals consistantly and the clarity from my OZ silk domes and mids were 1st place winners. hehehe
You both realize that the 160A number is at like 3 or 4k rpms right? When you are at idle the number is much much lower. Also what does your grounding system look like? What I have found also is that the stock lines that run from the alternator to the battery are small running a secondary larger gauge wire from the alternator to the battery helps to relieve some of the loading caused by smaller gauge wiring. So a good grounding system and secondary line from the alternator will work wonders. As for your problem I would be willing to bet that you probably have a low resistance connection to ground. Like Ron said the voltage regulator would be the frst place I would look since I am sure it has been working over time trying to keep the battery charged.
Yup. I'm wondering too. I'm having the SAME issues on my Charger since the stereo install. What's up Harrison????? I need some advice as well...... Anyone got a link to a new voltage regulator?? And are the stock alternators on the Charger 160 amps too???
You guys need to stop thinking that you have 160 amps avaliable from the alternator. Unless you drive around and idle at 4k rpms you just don't have that amperage avaliable. I did a quick search this morning and found a graph for a 140 amp alternator so just add about 15% to these numbers. Its not the exact one for your alternator but they are all fairly similar. As you can see the current avaliable falls off fairly quickly as the engine speed slows down.
