# Parasitic current Draw killing battery...



## poochieone (Aug 25, 2005)

Hi,
recently i came across my car battery dying whenever the car was parked for more than 2 days. so i got testing and measured the parasitic draw. the car once in sleep mode has a 0.2 amp draw.
however, once my H700 processor is hooked up, the draw increases to 0.75 amps, so there's a .55 amp parasitic draw coming from the processor.
i was wondering if this is indeed the issue and if its a known one. the processor works perfectly.... the draw is the only issue i have.
i need to get this fixed since i'm only driving the car sporadically and i'm finding it near dead everytime. 
btw, the battery is a 1 year old Exide deep cycle (works like a charm) and the h700 is connected to my Alpine W205 through optical if that makes any difference. 
any help is appreciated.
thanks.
Marco


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## starboy869 (Dec 16, 2006)

I don't see how a less than 1 amp draw to maintain your radio presets/clock and your eq settings will kill your battery within a couple days. 

Where / how did you test for ampere draw? Have you load tested the battery at a shop?


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

Buy and insert a toggle switch between your battery and the offending power draw.

Turn the switch off when you leave the vehicle.

No circuit, no draw.


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## AzGrower (May 30, 2005)

I would think your draw is coming from another source. Check all of your power/ground connections. I had a similar thing happen just after I did the BIG 3 upgrade in my truck....just so happens that the ground connection on the frame was a bit loose, and this caused the battery to die after a few days...


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## Bluto Blutarsky (Apr 1, 2007)

The .75 draw is a problem. I would do this. Disconnect the negative battery cable at the battery, set your meter to measure DC Amps, 10 amp setting. Hook one lead to battery cable you disconnected and and other lead to battery terminal. Allow it to stabilize while everything gets juiced up.Amp draw should be around .1 max. If it's more, begin by removing fuses one at a time and watching for a drop. Once you find which fuse, you can zero in on affected circuits.


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## Whiterabbit (May 26, 2006)

he already did that. And found the 700 the offending circuit.

I recommend you have the battery tested at kragens or another location. I just went through this (and still havent gotten resolution yet). My parasitic draw was 60 mA.

yet the battery was repeatedly dead. When I took it to kragens (96 month warrantee ), they hooked it up to a meter to give it a voltage and cranking amperage rating. The voltage corresponded to my DVM measurement, and the CCA rating came out <100. No good!

30 minutes on their fast charger and the batteyr was at 12.8 and 400 cca on their meter, and passed inspection 

The guy told me that if the battery is "too dead" the alternator wont charge it. That it should be fine now that its up to a 400 amp rating.

sounds fishy, but the car started. took home, let it sit overnight, car is dead @ <11 volts.

This time the guy gave me a new battery. I installed it an hour ago.

I'll update this thread tomorrow or tomorrow night. gonna sit overnight, try starting in the morning, let it sit all day, then tray and start tonight. if its anything other than a bad battery or a broken charging system, battery will be dead. (though I am DAMN sure it was the battery).

but have it tested. thats my recommendation. Also, paying $160 for a high performance battery is nice and all, but the best kragens or sears has to offer is <$100 and comes with a multi-year guarantee. as in, if my battery fails after 4 years, some of the value is prorated and I get a discount new battery. <2 years and its free, as was this case.


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## poochieone (Aug 25, 2005)

Hi guys,
the battery seems fine to me. it takes a charge and works fine after that. i've already gone through 5 or 6 of those other batteries in previous cars... they all bit the bullet due to the large nature of my stereos. also had a yellow top and it was a POS (dead in 1 year) but all in other cars.
in light that i have found a parasitic draw and ceteris paribus the battery seems fine, i think the H700 has something to do with it. 

my ground is very solid. i'm running quality 0 gauge wire and the ground is well sanded (bare metal) while the connector is held down by two seriously sized bolts... i doubt the ground connection is an issue...


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## 02bluesuperroo (Oct 31, 2006)

poochieone said:


> Hi guys,
> the battery seems fine to me. it takes a charge and works fine after that.


Your battery make take a charge fine but it is not holding a charge. A .75 amp drain on a fresh car battery will not kill the battery for over a week. 

When non-deep cycle car batteries are fully discharged, even once, it is extremely harmful to them. They lose a lot of their ability to hold a charge. It sounds like your have a bad battery. Take it somewhere to get it load tested. It is the most likely cause and it has to ruled out as the first step otherwise doing further troubleshooting is useless.


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## Hernan (Jul 9, 2006)

I had the same problem.

If the HU is connected directly to the battery terminal as is indicated in the installation manual, the 701 will be ON all the time, it will not be turned off by the Ainet connection. Current draw in my system was .70 amp. 

The solution is connecting the HU to the AC suorce. When the vehicle is off, the Hu has no current and the processor will be turned off via the AiNet cable. (no remote needed).


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## CBRworm (Sep 1, 2006)

Hmmm. That's interesting. 

I wonder if all the H700/H701's draw power all the time. My car sits for weeks at the airport without problems, but my battery is less than two years old. On second thought, I wonder if my H701 is connected to a switched power source. I don't remember.


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## Whiterabbit (May 26, 2006)

be wary of the load test, too. I passed twice yet the battery couldnt hold a charge. If it holds a charge for 15 minutes, it'll pass their load test. nevermind you can't start your car after coming out of the grocery store!

Kragens offered to do a second test for me. This time they would slowcharge it for hours then let it sit overnight, then load test it again. Now if it could TAKE a charge, but not HOLD a charge, theoretically this would fail me.

I suspect the guy behind the counter didnt want to deal with me this morning, after hooking up the battery to find it <11VDC last night, he just gave me a new one.


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## Bluto Blutarsky (Apr 1, 2007)

If the guy at Kragen had the knowledge to diagnose your problem, wouldn't that make him a 30 dollar an hour tech as opposed to a 7 dollar an hour clerk.


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## Hernan (Jul 9, 2006)

CBRworm said:


> Hmmm. That's interesting.
> 
> I wonder if all the H700/H701's draw power all the time. My car sits for weeks at the airport without problems, but my battery is less than two years old. On second thought, I wonder if my H701 is connected to a switched power source. I don't remember.


My installer is certified by Alpine but he does not do many 701 installs. J had a small car and the problem turn me nuts. Doing some intensive research I talked with a mexican installer that told me that the right way is connnecting the Hu to a swiched power supply. 10 minutes later the system has no more power draw and the 701 doesn't lost any settings, nor the HU.

Don't look any further, is plain simple.


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## Bluto Blutarsky (Apr 1, 2007)

Hernan said:


> My installer is certified by Alpine but he does not do many 701 installs. J had a small car and the problem turn me nuts. Doing some intensive research I talked with a mexican installer that told me that the right way is connnecting the Hu to a swiched power supply. 10 minutes later the system has no more power draw and the 701 doesn't lost any settings, nor the HU.
> 
> Don't look any further, is plain simple.


 I am not too familiar with alpine stuff. Most HUs have one continuous bat lead to maintain memory and one key on lead for power on. Are you saying something like this? and the key on lead was hooked up to bat continuously? I would agree that thats pretty simple.


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## Whiterabbit (May 26, 2006)

Bluto Blutarsky said:


> If the guy at Kragen had the knowledge to diagnose your problem, wouldn't that make him a 30 dollar an hour tech as opposed to a 7 dollar an hour clerk.


Do you make what you deserve?

just playing devils advocate. I agree. Minus the fact that noone here gets paid what they deserve unless they are underqualified for their job.

regardless, (this is gonna be a shocker to everyone), car is running great now. was the battery in my case.

As I'll bet it's the battery in this case as well.


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## Bluto Blutarsky (Apr 1, 2007)

Whiterabbit said:


> Do you make what you deserve?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## poochieone (Aug 25, 2005)

so a .55 amp draw is not irregular for most car electronics?


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

Poochie,

Turn on your interior lights,[ dome light ], and do an amp draw.

If you leave your dome light on all night, can you still start your car?


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## envisionelec (Dec 14, 2005)

Key-current draw is something every designer has to be aware of...but sometimes the datasheets lie. Case in point: I designed the prototype DSPower to send the PWM IC into "Shutdown" mode when it was not triggered to power-up. The datasheets I checked all said that I should see about 10mA of current draw, but I was reading 30-40mA. The final design included a transistor that removed power from the PWM IC and the MosFet gates until it was called to power-on. That reduced key-off draw to 2mA.


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## poochieone (Aug 25, 2005)

my head unit is actually powered directly from a battery constanst supply, so that may indeed be the issue. i`m going to also check if the drain changes if i remove power from the headunit totally... maybe that will further decrease the .2 amp draw i measured with the H700 off.
i`ll post results once measured.
thanks!


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

Be it directly connected to the battery or not, most decks have constant power this side of ones with an analog tuner.

One major difference though. Older decks get the big current when running from the switched power, newer decks pull power from what used to be the "memory wire" and the switched power is merely a remote turn-on.

Chad


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