Is anything pluged in like your gps I know it doesn't sound like much but I had a radar detector in a truck and it drain the battery after a while of sitting.

 

Not sure, just had an idea that since you just put the Edge in, that could be the culprit. Maybe check your connections or let the truck sit for a while and before you start it put a meter on the batteries and get a reading, then unhook the Edge and do the same thing and compare your meter readings. Or could be something simple like BK said.

 

any luck yet bro?

 

Could be teh Edge or the guages, or any other aftermarket stuff. Or it just could be your batteries were done. They don't give you any warning these days they just drop dead. 3 years is about all you can expect too.

 

I haven't bought a battery for my 94 Dakota since 96, they would die before the 2 year full replacement warrenty ran out, I like auto zone.

But hell I knowyou could be driving and starting all day and you come back the next time and it's dead to the world.

But I think I going to Auto zone for mine when ready, look how many years they gave me free batteries for the DAK

 

check the edge power connections and make sure your on switched power where it needs to be. you could be off by 1 fuse and constantly drawing current.

 

The thing with batteries is they will be fine, but if they ever get really discharged they will often short and that is that, especially if they are a couple of years old. I have had it happen several times.

Make sure you don't have some sort of drain. Even a draw of 10's of milliamps will drain a battery over a period of several days or a couple weeks. A battery will typically have a capacity of 50 - 75 amp hours. That means it will power a 1 amp load for 50 - 75 hours under ideal conditions. A 100 milliamp load will discharge the battery in 500 - 750 hours. Of course a battery that is several years old will no longer have its rated capacity so the times will be shorter.

Todays vehicles seem to always have a computer or two running. They really ought to say in the manual what the current draw is when the vehicle is shut off and how long you can leave it sit before the batteries are drained.

Things like a GPS, cell phone, inverter all draw current and will also discharge the batteries faster than you would think.

If you plan to not drive the vehicle for a week or more you might want to get a float charger.

Let us know how it turns out.
Frank

 

Well, the batteries are in and the truck fired up after a few hours of charging. Hopefully they'll be fine. I did have the GPS thing wired up, but the GPS wasn't on the cradle so I don't think it draws anything empty does it?

How would a radar detector draw anything ? If it isn't ON, could it still draw something? It doesn't have some sort of memory battery in it does it?

I wired my Edge just as it told me to, to fuse 17. It goes off when the key goes off so I assume it's off.

Nope, no cell phone chargers or anyting else thatI can think of to draw anything. Hopefully it was just their time to go and nothing else. For some odd reason I thought the AMP gauge used to read a either right at or a little over 14 AMPS while driving. Now it reads a little less. Sound OK ?? I ran the truck for a while, took it for a short blast down the highway, came home, turned it off, and it fired right up. I think I'm fine.

MAN was it weird driving it again though !! I haven't driven it in over 10 days !! It really felt weird. I'll admit it though, I did miss it while I was away though. I thought about it a couple of times, especially whe I saw this BADD AZZ Ram, similar body style as mine, cruise on by with a SIC set of stacks on it. It sounded AWESOME !!

Thanks again 59 for all of your help !! You ROCK bro !! Hopefully we can get together again sometime and cruise out to a truck event sometime.

 

im definitely up for a truck show or somethin sometime.. glad to here things worked out!! they're some great batteries huh?
http://tinyurl.com/2pjjn9

told you they werent cheap!

 

You did'nt by chance leave your dome light on did you?