So my battery keeps going dead and my old battery was at least 6 years old so I figured with the cold it went bad so I replaced.A week later the new one was bad.I know I must have a draw but theres not much to do it. I charged battery and left ground unhooked.I don't have electric but do have solar so I am going to try using a battery maintainer but don't know how it will work on solar.Anyone had shorted wire issue or power draw issue. I got JD because I was hoping to avoid chewed wires because they make their wire insulation out of petroleum products instead of like most cars that are soybean oil or something similar.
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Tractor issue
- Thread starter buckdeer1
- Start date
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
It could be a bad new battery, or the issue could have occurred when the old battery was installed which could have been the death blow to it and is what is draining your new battery.
Of course your best option is to find the draw and fix it, but there are some alternatives. I'm presuming this is a slow draw and takes a week or so to drain the battery. If it does dead in a day or two you need to find and fix the issue. One way to track down the issue is to pull all but one fuse and see if the battery dies over a week or so. If no, insert another fuse and wait and watch again. Eventually you will find the circuit that is causing the drain.
One option is to put a switch between your battery and fuse box. A slow drain is likely coming from an accessory or something that is powered out of that fuse box. You simply switch off power to the fuse box when your done using the tractor.
Another is a maintainer/charger. I have power, so I actually put cheap maintainers/chargers on all off my cars, trucks, tractors, UTVs, and such. I simply wire them with an easy to access power connector. I then plug the charger into that port when not in use. Sometimes my equipment sits and a lead-acid battery will naturally drain slowly over time. Keeping a lead-acid battery at a low state of charge for a long period will significantly shorten the lifespan.
While I don't use solar chargers on my equipment, I do use them on my camera system. You need to buy a PWM or MPPT solar charge controller. It will connect to your solar panel on one end and then have an output to connect to your battery. You will need to find the appropriate cabling for your charger. Most take a stripped wire end held with a set screw for connections. Personally, I would wire an SAE power connector to your tractor battery and put one on the wire from the solar charge controller. This makes hookup easy. Personally, I put blaze orange flagging tape on this power cord and drape it over the tractor cowling so I don't accidently drive off without removing it.
I think MPPT charge controllers are a little better than PWM. You can get them for about $25. You should not need more than 10 amps if you are just charging a tractor battery and have good sun. I'd suggest doing this for cold weather whether you find and fix the power draw or not.
Of course your best option is to find the draw and fix it, but there are some alternatives. I'm presuming this is a slow draw and takes a week or so to drain the battery. If it does dead in a day or two you need to find and fix the issue. One way to track down the issue is to pull all but one fuse and see if the battery dies over a week or so. If no, insert another fuse and wait and watch again. Eventually you will find the circuit that is causing the drain.
One option is to put a switch between your battery and fuse box. A slow drain is likely coming from an accessory or something that is powered out of that fuse box. You simply switch off power to the fuse box when your done using the tractor.
Another is a maintainer/charger. I have power, so I actually put cheap maintainers/chargers on all off my cars, trucks, tractors, UTVs, and such. I simply wire them with an easy to access power connector. I then plug the charger into that port when not in use. Sometimes my equipment sits and a lead-acid battery will naturally drain slowly over time. Keeping a lead-acid battery at a low state of charge for a long period will significantly shorten the lifespan.
While I don't use solar chargers on my equipment, I do use them on my camera system. You need to buy a PWM or MPPT solar charge controller. It will connect to your solar panel on one end and then have an output to connect to your battery. You will need to find the appropriate cabling for your charger. Most take a stripped wire end held with a set screw for connections. Personally, I would wire an SAE power connector to your tractor battery and put one on the wire from the solar charge controller. This makes hookup easy. Personally, I put blaze orange flagging tape on this power cord and drape it over the tractor cowling so I don't accidently drive off without removing it.
I think MPPT charge controllers are a little better than PWM. You can get them for about $25. You should not need more than 10 amps if you are just charging a tractor battery and have good sun. I'd suggest doing this for cold weather whether you find and fix the power draw or not.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
If you are using a solar panel, you don't want that kind of maintainer. You want a Solar Charge Controller, MPPT. It will do the job. Either return that maintainer or use it in some other application.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
Ok, there is a lot of loss going from solar DC through an inverter to AC, then back to DC for a charger. If you already have a solar system that has sufficient power for that, while inefficient, it should work fine.
I did not realize you already had some kind of solar system in place. I thought you just wanted to put a solar panel on the tractor. If you find that you existing system is not providing enough power to charge the battery, consider a single panel for the tractor with it's own MPPT charger.
yoderjac
Well-Known Member
Got it. That makes sense. I had the same issue with our retirement property. My plan was to improve the lot with power, water and sceptic while I was working so the house build time would be shorter after I retired since I would need a bridge loan for construction. There were two big issue. First, they county would not give me permits for sceptic or well without a building permit for a dwelling (not just a barn). The local power company wanted $8/foot to run power if I just built a barn.
When I was exploring power options, I was talking to the guy from the local power company who figures out power ROWs and such. He told me that if I build a dwelling they give you 1/4 mile of wire for free. They will run it above ground or you can trench it yourself if you want it under ground. He told me the trick was to finish a tiny part of the barn. That counts as a dwelling for the county and for the power company.
So, I reworked my retirement plans. We decided to build a larger barn and finish about 500 sq ft of it. We designed that 500 sq ft to be spare bedrooms after we build the house. That let us design a smaller house with fewer bedrooms and still have a place for guests to stay. That opened the door to permits from the county for power, sceptic, and well. We worked with the neighbors and got a power ROW that is just under 1/4 mile so the wire was free.
This also ended up being a much bigger bonus than I imagined. After the barn was built, it gave us a place to stay getting out of the rat-race on weekends. More important, when we were ready to retire, we moved all our furniture and stuff into the barn for storage and are living in the 500 sq ft finished area. We sold our house in the burbs, so we have no mortgage or construction loan. We have the money up front from the home sale to fund the new home build. We are building a custom retirement home, so this lets us move slowly during the build making sure everything is right. We are finding small things during construction that are easy to change now, but would be expensive to change later with breakage. Since we live on site, we can check progress daily and catch stuff or as we see it coming together, change our minds. We have already move a few interior walls and such. We don't have to worry about schedule since we are not paying interest on a construction loan. Time is on our side.
I will say, living in 500 sq ft is a challenge during the cold months when we are trapped indoors, but for most of the year, it is fine.
Best of luck with your tractor! Most AC trickle chargers only draw a couple amps. Lets say about 2 amps. At 120 volts your 200 Watt system can support about 1.6 amps. That may not be enough to drive a 2 amp trickle charger. It depends on the charger.
So, instead of using an inverter, you buy a 10 amp 12v mppt solar charge controller for about $25 and connect it a 100W panel for about $60 bucks, instead of producing 1.6 amps at 120v, the mppt controller will produce about 8 amps at 13v-14v in good sun. The MPPT controller is smart enough to give your battery as much amperage (up to what the panel is producing) as the battery is asking for. When the battery is fully charged, it will act as a maintainer.
Your method may work and it doesn't hurt to try it, but it will take a long time to charge a dead battery.
When I was exploring power options, I was talking to the guy from the local power company who figures out power ROWs and such. He told me that if I build a dwelling they give you 1/4 mile of wire for free. They will run it above ground or you can trench it yourself if you want it under ground. He told me the trick was to finish a tiny part of the barn. That counts as a dwelling for the county and for the power company.
So, I reworked my retirement plans. We decided to build a larger barn and finish about 500 sq ft of it. We designed that 500 sq ft to be spare bedrooms after we build the house. That let us design a smaller house with fewer bedrooms and still have a place for guests to stay. That opened the door to permits from the county for power, sceptic, and well. We worked with the neighbors and got a power ROW that is just under 1/4 mile so the wire was free.
This also ended up being a much bigger bonus than I imagined. After the barn was built, it gave us a place to stay getting out of the rat-race on weekends. More important, when we were ready to retire, we moved all our furniture and stuff into the barn for storage and are living in the 500 sq ft finished area. We sold our house in the burbs, so we have no mortgage or construction loan. We have the money up front from the home sale to fund the new home build. We are building a custom retirement home, so this lets us move slowly during the build making sure everything is right. We are finding small things during construction that are easy to change now, but would be expensive to change later with breakage. Since we live on site, we can check progress daily and catch stuff or as we see it coming together, change our minds. We have already move a few interior walls and such. We don't have to worry about schedule since we are not paying interest on a construction loan. Time is on our side.
I will say, living in 500 sq ft is a challenge during the cold months when we are trapped indoors, but for most of the year, it is fine.
Best of luck with your tractor! Most AC trickle chargers only draw a couple amps. Lets say about 2 amps. At 120 volts your 200 Watt system can support about 1.6 amps. That may not be enough to drive a 2 amp trickle charger. It depends on the charger.
So, instead of using an inverter, you buy a 10 amp 12v mppt solar charge controller for about $25 and connect it a 100W panel for about $60 bucks, instead of producing 1.6 amps at 120v, the mppt controller will produce about 8 amps at 13v-14v in good sun. The MPPT controller is smart enough to give your battery as much amperage (up to what the panel is producing) as the battery is asking for. When the battery is fully charged, it will act as a maintainer.
Your method may work and it doesn't hurt to try it, but it will take a long time to charge a dead battery.
