altenator or short?

[slivertuks]

I'm having problems the my battery dying,
I put in a new altenator new battery and new cables when I drive
it for about 10 minutes turn car off then try to start it dead battery,
then when it sits for awhile the battery has enough power to start
the car. It sounds like the alt. is draining the battery but it's new
and if it's bad does it make sense that the battery regains power
after it sits awhile? It's driving me crazy, any advice on how to diagnose this would be much appreciated.

thanks in advance

[Wgoodrich]

A battery that is drained when let to rest for a while will often build up enough reserve to restart the car.

I would check for a bad connection being a plug or connection at the battery, on the alternator, in the fuse block or in the ignition switch.

An alternator uses an electrical impulse input from the battery to start the electro reactive properties of the alternator. Without the minor electrical input into the alternator to incite the stator the alternator will not charge. Commonly power comes directly to the alternator by a larger wire. However the charging control wires impulse wires are routed through your fuse block and its connection points in that fuse block then through the ignition switch, then to the alternator incite connection being a smaller conductor. If one point is with a loose connection then the charging fails to happen.

May be that your battery and alternator was fine but only have a loose connection all the time. This is a common problem in these type systems.

Hope this helps

Wg