[Tigers] Voltage regulator?

Stu Brennan stubrennan at comcast.net
Tue Oct 25 19:35:48 MDT 2011


You say a fully charged battery goes dead after a few trips around the
block?  That's odd. I once drove my Tiger home from a TE/AE united, 3
hours all highway, with a non charging generator.  A brush fractured, it
turns out.  Ammeter on discharge all the way.  It was a sunny day so I
didn't need headlights or wipers.  Plenty of power left when I got home,
the voltmeter still up, the car restarted easily.  So either you live on
an overly large block, or something else is going on.  Not only must you
be getting no charging, but something could also be dragging the battery
down real fast.

More likely...

A typical good battery is maybe 50 or 60 amp hours, which means that it
could supply 1 amp for 50 hours, 2 amps for 30 hours, etc.  OK, not
exactly,  but these numbers are decent estimates.  So if you are
flattening a fully charged good battery in a few minutes, something must
be drawing a heck of a lot of current.  You should be able to feel the
heat. So this scenario, while not impossible, is also unlikely 

More likely: Are are you sure the battery is good?  Yes, you may be
getting no charging, but if the battery is on its last legs, you can
charge the heck out of it overnight and it won't last long.

Let us know what you find.

Stu


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