Hot Battery

[Kearns892]

What sort of problem would cause a battery to get fairly hot after about 30seconds to a minute of use? Im breadboarding some stuff and I'm getting really low voltages across the board, I'm guessing this would be part of the same problem.
Any Ideas?

[kurtlives]

You have a short between the V+ and V-.

Use a continuity tester to confirm this.

[Kearns892]

sorry, but how would I go about running a continuity test?

(I ran a quick search and I didn't get much on the subject)

[kurtlives]

Its a function most multimeter's have. You touch one lead to somewhere in the circuit (V+) and touch the other lead another place (V-). If your multimeter beeps than the two are directly connected and you have a short.

[mdh]

One more caveat -- don't try what Chris suggested when the battery is connected to the circuit.  Also, it may not be a direct short, but if the battery is getting hot, there's definitely a low resistance across the power rails when the circuit is running.  So, remove the battery, and then test the resistance (w/ meter on lowest range, if it's not autoranging) across the power rails, whether at the battery snap or on the breadboard.  If the resistance is low or zero, then go looking for the problem.  Otherwise, maybe a semiconductor is passing too much current while the circuit is running.

[Kearns892]

Alright, I think I found what might be the problem area, I have a 100k resistor going from V+ to the board followed by another 100k resistor going to ground (as well as some other junk of course). When I test the continuity I get the beep, and the resistance between the too is very low (single digits here). I tested both components and they work fine, and I tried other areas of the bread board.

I guess what I'm asking is, where should I be looking? Since I get a direct connection  from any two points on the power bus does this mean I've connected the V+ and ground without resistance somewhere in the board, which would cause a short anywhere?

For now I will look over my connections, maybe I missed something, thanks a lot for the help.