Parasitic Battery Drain

[Farmhand]

Hi all, a friend of mine bought a fairly large generator a while ago and not long afterwards the battery died (electric start, 9 Ah gell cell) . At the time I commented that it must have some parasitic drain on the battery, however I was told that is normal just like with motorcycles ( I wasn't aware of that) so I said ok.

The friend then purchased a 24 Ah wet cell battery which of course went dead not long after that, it also became sufated. and wouldn't take a charge. A solar cell was connected to the battery but it didn't charge it.

I've desulfated the battery for him good as new, but the parsitc drain remains, the solar panel would solve this but it could be better utilised elsewhere.

The prasitic drain is 8or 9 Ma. Is that normal ?

I have two idea's to fix the problem.

1. An isolation switch to the positive terminal of the battery.

2. A normally open high current relay to isolate the battery.

Some pictures. I think it's 8 or 10 KVa not sure, I didn't ask.

http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...006.JPG?psid=1

http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...005.JPG?psid=1

http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/...003.JPG?psid=1

So if anyone could tell me if this is normal or if they had a similar problem and how they fixed it.

Thanks

Cheers

[FRC]

alternator

If it is an alternator based generator as opposed to a DC generator system, the
drain could be attributed to the alternator needing some current to function. Not sure about this, but that might be an area to investigate. Since more
current is being drawn than what is actually needed.

FRC

[Farmhand]

Hi FRC, thanks for the reply, so I assume the drain is caused by the capacitor and the coils in there. I wonder how they expected that the battery would not ge drained. I think I will just put an Isolation switch in there to totally isolate the battery when it's not being used regularly.

Thanks