Some CTEKs will not charge if the begining charge is not fairly high

Hello,

I had my track car just sitting on ramps so I could -- at my leisure -- go over a bunch of little things.
Plan is to head to track (NJMP) tomorrow afternoon.

Car was DEAD dead. Not even a flicker of light. Battery reads ~ 1.5V. Kaput. How?

Anyway, i also could not get it to charge properly. Took it out and will leave it on CTEK over night.

Checked for short is system. Resistance across battery wires (battery removed) is 1400 ohms. If all is off, this seems low, any comments?
The draw would be ok, < .01A (< 1/100A), but still, i would think it was megohms.

Of course, maybe everything is NOT off -- like some lightbulb or ??? -- and that's the problem. I guess I'll know that when i put a charged battery back in -- i do hope mine takes the charge.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated since i basically have no time with little things like work as well.

TIA
Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

They are maintainers not chargers.

Depends on which model you have.

Once removed form the car, it charged to "mostly done", but never completed. The battery may simply be old and no longer capable of taking what CTEK calls a full charge. De-sulfating appeared to be on the 4 day to completion plan, so I quit.

One more weird observation. While it was in the de-sulfating mode, battery in car, i put a DMM across the terminals to just check the DC voltage. What i saw surprised me; voltage first read VERY low (a couple volts) and then gradually came up to ~13V. When CTEk was removed it read ~ 13V immediately. Running ~ 14V. Something was confusing the DMM (B&K).

Anyway, car starts strongly now. I will see what happens tomorrow morning. I had to cancel out of the track event (boo-hoo). Not worth finding out i had a short while 200 miles away.

I hope i just did something stupid and drained the battery. Not ideal, but not a biggie. An intermittent short - that's a biggie.

Thanks Mike,

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

Sorry you had to cancel the track event. I had a discharge problem with my 987.2 which has never been resolved and has not recurred. My solution was to purchase an emergency starter which actually fits in the glove box.

[www.amazon.com]

Steve

..i can only conclude that its one small part weak battery and one large part "something was left on or shorted". Might have even been a loose accessory wire or a door not fully closed, but it seems mostly fine.

The draw is large enough that left >> week it might not start, which is not ideal, but also manageable.

No one ever commented on the 1400 ohm resistance looking back through the wires. no data eh?

Happy boxstering

G

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com