Parasitic drain

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Parasitic drain

Postby flyguide » Wed Jun 15, 2016 7:51 pm

My battery went dead a couple of weeks ago and I have been pulling the main fuse when leaving it for and extended period.
Yesterday I put my meter across the fuse conacts and the reading on the 200m scale was 167.1 after disconnecting the radio memory cable the reading went to 12.0.
What should the drain be? What is an acceptable number?
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Re: Parasitic drain

Postby GuitarPhotog » Wed Jun 15, 2016 8:12 pm

167 mA seems like a lot of parasitic drain. I'd look into it. My PD 4045 consumes about 30 mA of parasitic draw and my USB charger sockets each eat about 5 mA with nothing plugged in. But, I have a main disconnect switch on the battery, so if I forget to plug the trailer in at home, the battery doesn't go flat. That happened to me twice and my battery didn't survive the second occurrence.

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Re: Parasitic drain

Postby flyguide » Thu Jun 16, 2016 7:20 am

My panel consumes 12.0ma. Its the radio memory that is consuming the other 150ma. I was wondering is this normal?
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Re: Parasitic drain

Postby noseoil » Thu Jun 16, 2016 7:42 am

Self-discharge of a FLA battery is about 5% per month, don't forget to figure this in as well.
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Re: Parasitic drain

Postby KennethW » Thu Jun 16, 2016 9:07 am

Do you have a inverter (12v dc to 120v AC) plugged in?
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Re: Parasitic drain

Postby GuitarPhotog » Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:47 pm

Do the specs for the radio specify idle current?

Seems like a lot, but I know nothing about modern auto radios.

A 150 mA drain will run a 60 AH battery down to zero in 400 hours. Does that agree with your experience? If not, then you may have another drain going on.

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Re: Parasitic drain

Postby flyguide » Thu Jun 16, 2016 6:55 pm

GuitarPhotog wrote:Do the specs for the radio specify idle current?

Seems like a lot, but I know nothing about modern auto radios.

A 150 mA drain will run a 60 AH battery down to zero in 400 hours. Does that agree with your experience? If not, then you may have another drain going on.

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That sounds about right. After I cut memory wire seems to have solved problem. I would still like to know what is an acceptable number.
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Re: Parasitic drain

Postby RonS » Sun Jul 03, 2016 2:47 pm

Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?
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