The indignities...

[gooffeyguy]

Tape a note to the steering wheel, or get a refrigerator magnet and put it on the door near the handle whenever you have the cord plugged in to remind you that its plugged in before getting into the vehicle

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[iamdub]

Or mount a recessed male receptacle in a position so you'd harmlessly tug it unplugged when you backed out. You'd have to always pull in when you parked, though.




Really, you could just tightly secure your extension cord (to a workbench leg?) and the tender's power cord to the frame or inner body with just enough slack to keep it from dragging the road and plug it in. If you forget and back out, it'll just pop loose and the cord will hang.

I don't like the idea of starting the engine with the tender hooked up so I'd just do whatever to remind myself. Closing the hood but just until the safety latch catches might work for you if you think you'd notice it. You'll lose the remote start feature with the hood popped, though.

 

[wsteele]

Or mount a recessed male receptacle in a position so you'd harmlessly tug it unplugged when you backed out. You'd have to always pull in when you parked, though.




Really, you could just tightly secure your extension cord (to a workbench leg?) and the tender's power cord to the frame or inner body with just enough slack to keep it from dragging the road and plug it in. If you forget and back out, it'll just pop loose and the cord will hang.

I don't like the idea of starting the engine with the tender hooked up so I'd just do whatever to remind myself. Closing the hood but just until the safety latch catches might work for you if you think you'd notice it. You'll lose the remote start feature with the hood popped, though.

I think the most promising hood down setup for my situation is probably the pigtail out the front of the grill. It will be easy to setup a clip for the pigtail to conceal it and make it easy to retrieve and hook the tender up. I think something like your idea of securing the charger side of the pigtail connection, such that it will harmlessly pull it out if I did forget and back out without disconnecting it, is likely about as good as I could do for the absent minded situation. I too don’t like the idea of starting it with the tender connected, but I suspect nothing bad will happen to the charger if I did forget and do it.

I think for now, I will use the clips and do hood open thing. Maybe it won’t be as big a deal as I have in my head right now. Something about leaving the hood open all the time seems kind of untidy.

Truth be told, I am not sliding down the pole and peeling out to go fight a fire, so maybe the open hood will work.

 

[Rocket Man]

I start mine with the tender connected all the time. It just goes into its analyzing cycle.

 

[TxVet33]

The other day I replaced the alternator because the original unit was beginning to really make a ruckus. It seemed a tad weak on charging, but certainly was working.

Yesterday I was checking my emissions monitors with my cheapie ODB scanner and noticed the voltage levels seemed pretty low.

I had replaced my battery about 16 mo ago with an AGM unit from Napa. The truck starts fine, but the nominal voltage seems to hover around 12.2 to 12.3 after a normal jaunt to the grocery store, Home Depot, etc. My first reaction was maybe my old alternator was not as good as I thought it was and my 16 month old AGM had taken a real beating in its short life.

I then wondered if I picked up an abnormal parasitic drain along the way, but nothing looks out of the ordinary after a few hours of rest.

My final conclusion is I just am not driving the truck the same during these Covid times and the battery rarely ever gets a good solid charge. I realized we aren’t going anywhere far these days, so the poor battery just isn’t getting a full charge.

I saw that Costco has a 4a automated charger/tender for like $50. I think I will pick one up, hardwire a pigtail and try and find a clean spot up front to access it with the charger.

Oh the indignities, a battery tender! Next thing I will be shopping for depends...

Or maybe “new” alternator is hinkeee

 

[wsteele]

Or maybe “new” alternator is hinkeee

Could be, but the measured nominal charging voltages when driving makes it more of a long shot.

 

[wsteele]

I noted a few things while driving around today, after my last post above.

Before getting in and starting the engine, I was measuring the draw down from full charge to a place I see it nominally settling after each recharge cycle, checking voltage with a meter each hour or so. My goal was to observe how quickly the voltage bled off due to the normal parasitic draw.

I had the meter on the battery getting ready to make my final measurement before heading out and starting the whole cycle again, when my wife opened the door to get the dogs into the back seat. Wow, the voltage dropped a lot, like a half volt. At that instant I realized all my previous measurements of battery voltage and conclusions regarding its state were wrong, as I was measuring the battery while still connected to the truck. The truck's systems draw from the battery at various rates as systems slowly shutdown or power up (like when you open a door). Lacking any clear documentation of what happens when and how much those things represent in power draw, measuring battery voltage without the battery being disconnected from the truck is a fool's errand, I think.

I am intrigued enough about where my battery (and charging system) is at, I think I will take the time to disconnect and reconnect the battery when taking measurements. This will require me to do a fair amount of TPMS relearning, but I have a big compressor, so it shouldn't actually be a big burden.

Another thing I finally got to see today while driving around was the RVC reacting exactly like @iamdub said it would. When the voltage dropped well below 14v (on the dash, sometimes looking more like 10v), it didn't appear correlated to the RPM of the engine or even when I turned systems like the AC, radio, rear window defroster on and off, it just seemed at times to decide apparently randomly, when to charge the battery and when to discharge it.

Not sure anything fundamental has yet been resolved in my understanding, but seeing how much draw is triggered by just opening a passenger door, lead me to really want to know if my BCM has that sw upgrade called out for 2007 model year's with charging issues.

Some fun.

 

[iamdub]

I noted a few things while driving around today, after my last post above.

Before getting in and starting the engine, I was measuring the draw down from full charge to a place I see it nominally settling after each recharge cycle, checking voltage with a meter each hour or so. My goal was to observe how quickly the voltage bled off due to the normal parasitic draw.

I had the meter on the battery getting ready to make my final measurement before heading out and starting the whole cycle again, when my wife opened the door to get the dogs into the back seat. Wow, the voltage dropped a lot, like a half volt. At that instant I realized all my previous measurements of battery voltage and conclusions regarding its state were wrong, as I was measuring the battery while still connected to the truck. The truck's systems draw from the battery at various rates as systems slowly shutdown or power up (like when you open a door). Lacking any clear documentation of what happens when and how much those things represent in power draw, measuring battery voltage without the battery being disconnected from the truck is a fool's errand, I think.

I am intrigued enough about where my battery (and charging system) is at, I think I will take the time to disconnect and reconnect the battery when taking measurements. This will require me to do a fair amount of TPMS relearning, but I have a big compressor, so it shouldn't actually be a big burden.

Another thing I finally got to see today while driving around was the RVC reacting exactly like @iamdub said it would. When the voltage dropped well below 14v (on the dash, sometimes looking more like 10v), it didn't appear correlated to the RPM of the engine or even when I turned systems like the AC, radio, rear window defroster on and off, it just seemed at times to decide apparently randomly, when to charge the battery and when to discharge it.

Not sure anything fundamental has yet been resolved in my understanding, but seeing how much draw is triggered by just opening a passenger door, lead me to really want to know if my BCM has that sw upgrade called out for 2007 model year's with charging issues.

Some fun.

All them incandescent interior lights pull some power! Was the engine running when she opened the door or were you running straight off the battery?

Could you go to a battery store, maybe even a golf cart service place and have them test your battery? I wouldn't go to an auto parts store to have it tested. Call me a cynic, but I believe their equipment is biased towards condemning batteries to help push a new battery sale. I'd believe that a battery or golf cart service place would be more likely to have equipment designed for accurate data.

 

[Fless]

I've never checked the voltage drop on my NBS when opening a cabin door, but doing that draws about 4.5 amps from the interior lights as well as wakes up a few modules (they do go to sleep relatively quickly after closing the door, as long as nothing else is operated).

When you're testing the voltage of the battery, it should rest for an hour or so after being charged so it's the resting voltage that's being tested:
https://haynes.com/en-us/tips-tutorials/how-test-car-battery-multimeter

 

[wsteele]

All them incandescent interior lights pull some power! Was the engine running when she opened the door or were you running straight off the battery?

Could you go to a battery store, maybe even a golf cart service place and have them test your battery? I wouldn't go to an auto parts store to have it tested. Call me a cynic, but I believe their equipment is biased towards condemning batteries to help push a new battery sale. I'd believe that a battery or golf cart service place would be more likely to have equipment designed for accurate data.

Great idea, I will look around. I think there is a guy not far that deals in used golf carts. I don't think he has regular hours, but I will try and catch him. I bet he has the equipment.

The engine wasn't running, in fact the key was out of the ignition.