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740 Battery-School me

nickvolvo746

Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2017
Location
New Jersey
Just curious if anybody wants to share their knowledge of batteries, if so, here are my main noobescent questions, sorry if theyre a bit silly

1) How much does starting the car drain a battery? Assuming its a healthy car and doesnt take many cranks.
2) Does draining a battery all the way pretty much guarantee that the battery will be screwed?
3) how much should you drive a car after jumping it?
4)Can you just let it idle for a while or is it better to actually take it for a spin?
5) I have heard cold weather will sometimes drain a battery, so does that mean drive it more frequently? (on a college campus here and I dont need to drive it much so I find myself driving it almost like a form of maintenance)

If you read all that and leave a comment, you rock! Thanks
 
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Starting doesn’t take much. Draining a battery all the way is hard on it, but if you charge it back up, not so much. Letting a battery sit with a low charge is bad. Idling will charge but not as much as driving it, or run fast idle. Usually takes about 30 minutes to charge a battery if not too low by driving. Cold weather makes a battery work harder, and reduces output. I just leave a trickle charger, maintainer on mine, if not possible, drive it once every 10 days or so.
 
Starting doesn’t take much. Draining a battery all the way is hard on it, but if you charge it back up, not so much. Letting a battery sit with a low charge is bad. Idling will charge but not as much as driving it, or run fast idle. Usually takes about 30 minutes to charge a battery if not too low by driving. Cold weather makes a battery work harder, and reduces output. I just leave a trickle charger, maintainer on mine, if not possible, drive it once every 10 days or so.
Bloomin' perfect response, thank you so much!
 
If you're interested in a project, HF makes a small solar charger you could plug into the cigarette lighter and set in the window. We bought a couple last spring and mounted them on the backhoe and stake body. No dead batteries since.
 
I was also going to suggest a solar charger. We have Amish in this area who use solar chargers to the charge the battery that runs their warning lights. The solar charger makes much more sense that taking the battery somewhere for a charge every time it was needing a charge.
 
If you're interested in a project, HF makes a small solar charger you could plug into the cigarette lighter and set in the window. We bought a couple last spring and mounted them on the backhoe and stake body. No dead batteries since.
That sounds amazing, I will look into that.
 
If you're interested in a project, HF makes a small solar charger you could plug into the cigarette lighter and set in the window. We bought a couple last spring and mounted them on the backhoe and stake body. No dead batteries since.
how much f*ckery is involved with this plug in system? Im assuming you have to change the wiring around a good bit, but perhaps I am wrong?
 
You just plug it in to the lighter jack and put it in the window. The downside for me was that the unit only worked for about a month and died.
 
You may have to install a lighter jack that is wired 12 volts at all times. My 88 765 has to have the ignition turned on the power the lighter socket.
 
Yeah, your going to need to add an all ways on cigarette plug or use the 2 pin style plug that comes with it. Pretty much just find a firewall grommet and sneak some wires through. Then hook up the ring terminals to the battery.

You can add as much f*ckery as you would like when it comes to hiding the wires.

Lummert- we've got an Amish sawmill down the road from us and they run the same setup on their buggies too.
 
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