boomer

I was looking for a drain on my battery, I found that if I put the meter between the battery negative and the each of the ground wires connected to it. On one of the wires it reads 1.2 volts (I think this is the one to the bilge) is this Normal, the other ones read about .3 Volts.

Airpacker

If you were using a VOLT meter connected in series with the battery and it only read 1.2 and .3 respectively, you have no drain. A drain capable of draining the batteries would show on the meter as equal to battery voltage measured across the battery terminals. Ohms law says so. ie:batteyr static voltage is 12.8 volts, the meter would show approx 12.8 volts when connected in series to a circuit that was draining the battery.

boomer

Thanks

rv

Boomer,
A better way would be to place the meter just the way you did it only setup the meter to measure current flow and do it in the positive lead not the negative(ground) lead. This will tell you how much current is being drawn from the battery when everything is supposedly off.

Some electronic items, ie ECU computers, stereo equipment, gps, etc do not like it when the ground is disconnected and the positive is still connected. You always want to disconnect the positive lead first from these types of devices.

Rick