Faulty Stereo Caused Battery Drain

Folks…

So the wife's cabby has a battery drain which causes full drain over about 1 week of no use.

Afer reading many threads on here I set about the test…

Using my multi meter in series between the neg battery terminal and the earth cable I measured the resultant current load.  
Found that there was 0.33amps drawn, which from what i've read is way too much..

So removed each fuse one by one..no change until i got to the last fuse and then the reading dropped to 0.02amps….
This circuit was radio/interior light,cigarette lighter etc…
My gut feelin was the stereo so just simply unplugged it and hey presto problem fixed…..

My question is though, ok i understand its wired perm now and not on a switching live so i could add a switch perm back in, BUT is the stereo faulty to be pulling this much load anyway?  I have held back messing with the wires until i'm happy it should go back in…

Should I take it to an audio specialist?


J.

What make of stereo is it? Some draw power if the front detachable face is still on

If the stereo was wired permenently to live (both switched feed and normal live) and like the last poster has said, your stereo will drain the battery, you need to either have a switch live feed to the stereo's corresponding cable or just switch off and or take face off every time the car is parked.

P.S, great bit of fault finding to narrow it down to the stereo!

Dom123 said

What make of stereo is it? Some draw power if the front detachable face is still on

The stereo is a kenwood cd detachable front….But my tests were done without the front face on…and it was still drawing over 300 milliamps…?

Jeevesraf said

If the stereo was wired permenently to live (both switched feed and normal live) and like the last poster has said, your stereo will drain the battery, you need to either have a switch live feed to the stereo's corresponding cable or just switch off and or take face off every time the car is parked.

P.S, great bit of fault finding to narrow it down to the stereo!

mmm, well it is perm to both feeds, but as my previous reply, all my tests were done with face off….?

So do i still have an internal stereo problem? Or should I make the switch live feed mod re-test and leave as is if test is ok?

and yes I was very happy with test results……

It might well be a fault internally with the stereo, it will be the first one I've ever heard of tho. If your not bothered about the stereo just replace it with one off of ebay or something. Then ebay your old one!

I would be tempted to try and wire the stereo up with the switched live on the iginition and the permenet live to the stereo too (so you don't loose any radio stations or clock time) Then do your amp check again.

Does the stereo draw much more current when its fired up?

Jeevesraf said

I would be tempted to try and wire the stereo up with the switched live on the iginition and the permenet live to the stereo too (so you don't loose any radio stations or clock time) Then do your amp check again.

Does the stereo draw much more current when its fired up?

Thats my task for the weekend, i'll let you know how i get on, i do the fired up amp test also…..

might just be stereo is still on even with face off.  sort out a proper ign live and see, or disconnect the ign live wire at stereo but leave permanent live in.

ign live can be easily had from fusebox, drop iut down and check the back you'll see 2 groups of spades, 1 side is live the other accessoy live. most are ign some are lights on, etc so check with multimeter

rubjonny said

might just be stereo is still on even with face off.  sort out a proper ign live and see, or disconnect the ign live wire at stereo but leave permanent live in.

ign live can be easily had from fusebox, drop iut down and check the back you'll see 2 groups of spades, 1 side is live the other accessoy live. most are ign some are lights on, etc so check with multimeter

thanks for tip….i'll post up after weekend…

Some will draw a current with the face-off, if not connected to a switched live as it should be, but 300mA isnt that huge TBH.

Try just removing the red wire, or just the Yellow, there is usually 2 feeds, RED and YELLOW (cant remember which is which) then see what you get.  :wink: