Originally Posted by
drivesafe
Well folks, while wilbur is scratching his head, trying to work out if it’s a trick question or not, a 50 amp reading is about what I would expect.
I often get as much as 47 amps readings and wilbur,s 50 amp reading confirms my claim that the cranking battery only draws a few amps while replacing the energy it supplied for starting the vehicle.
What good old wilbur has done, is measured the amps in the cable running from the alternator to the battery, and for DIYer or the likes, this would be seen as a normal way to get a reading.
The problem is that this location does not give the battery current draw, it gives you the total vehicle current draw.
When the motor is started, you have the compressor pulling up to 20 amps, the fuel pump and normal vehicle electronics will pull around another 20 amps. Not much left being pulled by the battery.
The only way to check how much current is being pulled by the battery after starting, is to first remove the positive terminal from the cranking battery.
Then you need to make up a short but thick bridging cable ( 35mm2 ) and bolt bridging cable between the battery’s positive terminal and the battery’s positive clamp.
You can now get an exact current reading for the battery.