list:

cited measurements make no sense.

high class method:

remove either negative or positive cable from battery and insert ammeter
between cable and battery terminal with engine off, ignition key off, no
accessories or lights (including interior lights!), everything off. if
current more than a few tens of milli amps, then track down load (not
necessarily trivial, but pulling fuses one at a time until current draw
drops is a good start) ...

quick and dirty: charge clean battery and leave with one cable
disconnected - definitely a no load situation. if it still discharges in a
similar manner, then it is likely defective. make sure battery exterior is
clean and dry.

dan

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 12:39:15 -0500, Geza Polony <gezapolony@SBCGLOBAL.NET>
wrote:

>The vehicle battery in my '84 Westy is charging ok, but within a few hours
>of sitting, goes down to about 12.35 volts.
>
>Alternator is new as of July, and at idle it's charging over 14 volts at
the
>cigarette lighter with no accessories on. The aux battery stays
consistently
>at 12.8, reading it after 12 hours of sitting. That tells me the charging
>system is doing its job and that the aux battery is in good condition.
>
>Measuring resistance  from the vehicle battery positive wires to ground
>(disconnected from battery)  gives 0 ohms for the charging wire, something
>like 12 milliohms for the "load" wire, which drops to 0 when the fridge
>LED's are turned off. In other words, no abnormal load I can see.
>
>Still, no matter how much I charge it, the fridge LED is always on yellow
>(below 12.5 volts IIRC) within an hour of turning the car off, with no
>accessories being used--even the LED's.
>
>Battery was new in July.
>
>What gives?