thejace

I just installed new speakers on my 2003 sc430. The battery drained after a night when I left the interior lights on, so I took it inside and put a tender charger on it, and charged it to 12.9 volts

I hooked it up and played it for about 5 min, and it sounded a bit "muffled". It didnt sound anything like my is350.

I turned off the car to restart it, but now it just lays dead, none of the lights work. I tested it with a multimeter to 12.6 volts.

I purchased:
Goldwood GW-408D 8" Poly DVC subwoofer(8+8 ohms)
Dayton Audio DA115-8 4" Aluminum Cone Woofer (8 ohms)
JAMO 20414 6-1/2" Treated Paper Cone Woofer (8 ohms)

I havnt installed the left side 6 1/2" woofer yet, and I wired the 8" sub in a series

Any help would be appreciated

farkas

iTrader: (5)

Sounds like the battery is dead still. Try to blow the horn or turn the lights on at the same time. If the battery is toast, you will get nothing..... If the horn blows, you have another problem. My bet is the battery has voltage but no amps to do anything. Bad cells in it. Easy fix....replace it. BTW Battery tenders trickle charge the battery and they rarely have enough juice to recharge a completely dead battery overnight. It would take many days for it to recharge the battery.

thejace

Yeah, horn doesnt blow, so I guess it must be the battery. Though I just think its weird how I was able to start the car the first time, and the radio was playing just fine. Only when I turned off the car I had that problem. Like a blackout.

Could busting a fuse do this? If wiring the speakers somehow messes up?

Big Mack

iTrader: (1)

How old is the battery? Was this the first time you had discharged it with the lights? Is there any corrosion?

It's not as bad as I've seen batteries get down to, however, so perhaps a simple jump and driving the car for about an hour will do you up, but be prepared to replace it. If you can jump it and it starts up quickly, there's hope. If you get it running and it's sluggish or you experience anything shutting down, get off the road and replace the battery post haste.

There are 6 cells in the standard battery for a car, each measuring at 2.3V. If you measured 12.9V, the battery was not fully charged. At 12.6V, it's definitely not charged, as you're down almost an entire volt. May not seem like much, but when you think of the voltage as the vehicle that pushes the amperage, it's a different story. If your car takes 400A to start, which it very well could for a second or three, you are asking for 12.9V to do the work of 13.8V. This is 93.4%, meaning you are now asking for the battery to deliver almost 10% more current than it typically does, further stressing an already down battery.

/your battery lesson for today.

Big Mack

xsh0tya

Damn Mack! I wish I could just subscribe to your posts learn something new everytime.

mkorsu

Not to be a stickler Mack but Automotive batteries have 6 cells @ 2.11v each. For a total of 12.66v.

thejace

Thanks for the response big mack. Im going to replace the battery today, and hopefully that will be the problem and not a fuse or anything.

im not sure how old the battery us, I could decipher the code for the date that was printed on the battery, even visiting the manufactuer's website. But it definatly doesnt seem that old at all. There was not much, if any corrosion on the battery terminals, but I cleaned it with baking soda and water just the day before.

This was the first time that I personally discharged it with lights, I've only had the car for about a year so am unsure about the previous history. This is the first time ive had a problem with the battery

mkorsu, then with a total of 12.66 volts, that means the battery shouldve been fully charged. Is there a way to test the amperage coming out of the battery?

mkorsu

As someone stated earlier, the battery may have been charged to 12.6 volts but there may not be enough current stored in the battery to start the car. Or the 12.6 volts you saw was only a surface charge. You would also need to see what the voltage reading is under load. The battery should be charged on an actual battery charger as opposed to a tender. The tender is used to maintain a 12.66v charge when the battery is laying idle for long periods.

Also, since the battery has now been deep cycled it will never be able to be recharged back to its full potential and it's life expentency has been decreased by roughly 50%.

thejace

I just took the battery to be tested by advanced auto parts, and they said the battery was good. It still tested out at 12.6 volts, and 600 cold cranking amps.

I think that it probably isnt the battery, since none of the electronics work. If it was just a low battery problem, something should atleast work...

Could it be a short of some sort?

mkorsu

Do you get any ignition lights at all? CEL, OIL, ETC?

Big Mack

iTrader: (1)

Thanks, mang, but korsu got me on this one.

Crap. I was thinking (I know!) about the voltage spread across the cells from a working alt (13.8/6 = 2.3v), not the standing charge. My bad, but thanks for the reminder.

Either way, the battery was discharged significantly, and measuring it good means it's something else (duh!). I would look at the cables and see that you don't have corrosion built up on them.

Obviously since you didn't bring the car with you, they couldn't check those for you. I would see if they have a tester battery they can loan you to try and see if it is, in fact, the car.

Big Mack

redlinezak

Does the cigarette lighter work? Worth measuring the voltage somewhere other than the battery terminals. If there is zero voltage elsewhere then its pointing to one of the Main fuses blowing. If there is similar voltage to that which is measured at the battery terminals then your problem may still lie elsewhere. I dont know the LS at all (just got my first lexus GS430 6 days ago) but there will normally be a couple of high current fuses (or fusible links) in the fuse box. It may be woth measuring the voltage at each side of all fuses in the fuse box.

Cheers

Nath

thejace

Thanks for everyones help. I plugged in the orginal battery and it started right up again. The only explaination to me is a bad connection. But I'm still troubled because I really torqued the screw down when I had originally installed the battery so Im still puzzled why it did it in the first place. I just really hope it doesnt happen again

Now if I can only figure out why the interior lights stay on while the doors closed...

mkorsu

Broken door pin.

Or your interior light switch is set to "on". LOL

thejace

Lol yeah, i figured that out too. It did end up being that door pin. Thanks for the help guys!!