Looks like my Maxton didn't kill its last battery because it was bouncing around the trunk, but very likely because it's got a slow electron leak somewhere. Since I fitted the Odyssey it's been on a charger from time to time, but I forgot to hook it up for a month. Voltage down to 1.3V and even the CTeK went "battery? What battery?" when I hooked it up.
Ended up jolting it awake with my jump box. The CTek charged it up to about 10.7V and then noped out with the red exclamation mark illuminating. Switched over to a regular Battery Tender and it kept charging, now pretending the battery is fully charged.
I've only got occasional experience with Odyssey batteries and never had one deep discharge. How well do they handle that in people's experience? Do I now have a $250 recyclable paperweight? Hey, at least I got about a ten mile drive out of it...
supposedly odyessy's hold up well to deep discharging, but what you did is some serious drain. Time to see if it cranks and holds a charge.
Put a kill switch on the car, Odysseys will live for a year without a drain.
In this case, maybe try the old trick of putting a second battery in parallel? A CTEK will usually bring them back, but they do need some resistance.
Kill switch might be necessary, although I would like to understand what's causing the drain in the first place. The electrical system on this car is pretty simple and not many circuits - if any - should be energized.
After I jolted the battery awake with my jumpstart battery pack and the CTeK bringing it up to about 10.7V, a regular Battery Tender took it from there to about 13V and a bit. I've reconnected the CTeK to see if it accepts the battery as good or not. Haven't dared venture out in the garage yet to check.
I mean, it's a fiberglass car that's supposed to mimic the feel of a British sports car, so they probably decided to include the "feeling" of the electrical bits as well 
.
Cranking the car is something I'd rather avoid, because it being a rotary I really should bring it up to operating temperature before shutting it down again.
Maybe look at a deep cycle for the future? I don't know if they have the CCA you need.
That might be an option, although I should probably tape a sign to the inside of my shop door that reads "are all the trickle chargers connected?" first...
Just checked, the battery jump pack -> CTEK -> Battery Tender -> CTEK sequence seems to have at least convinced the CTEK that the battery is fully charged now.
BoxheadTim said:
I mean, it's a fiberglass car that's supposed to mimic the feel of a British sports car, so they probably decided to include the "feeling" of the electrical bits as well .
I had a friend with a Europa. The rear lights appeared to be grounded to the fiberglass body. We had no idea how they kept working but of course never tried to fix them because then they'd stop. We called it an "air ground".
"Air ground", I like that .
Need to keep the electron flowing.
Good Luck
ShawnG
MegaDork
12/10/23 4:16 p.m.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
We restored a Marcos 1600 for a customer.
He supplied a wiring harness from a later model with a steel chassis.
Nothing I explained could make him understand why we needed to do extra work to the electrical system to make it all work. He still stared at me like I was trying to rip him off.
In reply to ShawnG :
Ah, one of the early ones that thought they were a Mosquito?
TBH the electrics are one of the areas where I wished Maxton wouldn't have tried to emulate old Brit Iron. Mine's factory built, but we're still talking 30 year old hand made wiring looms.
