Battery Drain

Bone · November 07, 2006, 05:46:27 PM

I left the car for 2 weeks and the car wouldn\'t start. Took off the battery and measured 10 volts on a multimeter. Charged up the battery, put it back on and measured a drain of 0.07 - 0.10 amps on the multimeter.
The car is fitted with a Clifford Concept alarm and immobiliser. Does that kind of drain sound normal considering its fitted with a Clifford? I\'m assuming the battery is ok but not 100% sure.
I\'ve ordered a trickle charger for future use but would like to make sure there isn\'t a problem to start with rather than ignoring it. The battery isn\'t very big so that it fits in the engine bay and is rated at 35AH. Does the above sound alright or am I just being pernickety? :2Rolleyes

RAW · November 07, 2006, 06:51:33 PM

i have a pretty new optima red top battery and it only lasts about 2 weeks before draining. i have a toad alarm. i guess it\'s just the car? unless there is a dodgy connection somewhere. i suppose you would need an auto electrician to have a good look over it.

iaint · November 07, 2006, 07:36:58 PM

According to customer support at Clifford their Concept 300 (i.e. what I have) had a drain rating of 33 milli amps (is that .33, .033 or .0033???).

I have the same issue and have bought a solar trickle charger which mean I can go longer without popping out the battery and charging it. Obviously it\'s best to drive it regularly but mine\'s dead so that\'s not an option!!!

Bone · November 07, 2006, 08:47:24 PM

Thats the same alarm that I\'ve got which works out as 0.033 amps drainage. I can\'t really think what else would drain the battery whilst the car is switched off as there would be about another 0.04 amps being drained on top. To be honest I suppose that extra 0.04 amps could be normal as surely it would be higher than that if there was a short somewhere?
I suppose I could just replace the battery anyway just to eliminate it from the possibilities. Does anyone know the drainage on their battery with everything working correctly? (probably not if its working fine, lol!)

Tintin · November 08, 2006, 05:32:52 PM

An alarm will drain the battery in about 2 weeks , I have the same problem

My battery is now in the spare wheel well , red top 25 or 30 summat like that , this is going to get drained just as easy if not quicker than the stock battery so my solution is I\'m adding a second red top battery not sure what size yet connected to the main battery by a voltage sensing split charge relay ( i.e. the relay only switches over once it sees about 14V ) this will stop the cranking pulling on the second battery so thers no need for large wiring between the two batts , then I\'m going to re feed the alarm and a few other things from the second batt , this way even if the second batt goes totally flat the main batt will still be full and start the car

Incidently if you try and start the engine with a lowish batt you risk flooding the engine , I\'ve made this mistake on more than one occasion

Bone · November 08, 2006, 10:42:38 PM

Yeah that sounds like a good solution. I was thinking I could relocate the battery to the boot with a larger size battery and that would last a bit longer, or do what you\'ve done, or I could keep a trickle charger hooked up to the existing battery, or just drive the car more often. :Laugh
I was measuring the drain on the circuit while pulling fuses today and nothing made it drop below the 0.07 amp drain, so I\'m pretty convinced its the alarm just being power hungry (didn\'t pull the power to the alarm as I didn\'t really know what or where I was supposed to be removing the feed). I think I was worrying about nothing really. :rolleyes: Flooding the car sucks as well, did it a long time ago moving the car around on the drive and shut it off before it had warmed up. EGI fuse out and jump leads connected to another car sorts that one out easy enough though. :bandit

Tintin · November 09, 2006, 02:30:07 PM

The feed to the alarm will probably be off the ignition , thats what the clifford guys told me when I spoke to them last week , there should be 2 inline fuses coming from around the ignition area , ones the feed to the alarm the other is the feed for the indicators or summat

I used to use a solar trickle charger , that keeps things going for a bit longer but the second batt solution should cure it completely plus it means in the future I can run the rad fans and an electric pump via a thermostat to cool the engine down once its turned off without fear of killing the batt

Mave · November 09, 2006, 08:14:38 PM

I had a drain problem earlier this year, autoelectrician told me that 0.1a was considered perfectly normal even without the alarm on. TBH 35Ah sounds pretty low to me; mine is about 60, and I\'ve left it for 2 weeks with the Toad alarm on with no problems.

Bone · November 09, 2006, 09:47:43 PM

Yeah 35AH is pretty low but the battery is about half the size of a standard battery for the rex. Had to have a smallish battery to fit in the engine bay as I have a FM intercooler, etc. My old rex had a massive battery (well normal size for a rex anyway) and a Toad alarm and that was pretty good if you left it a while. Got my CTEK trickle charger today which looks a bit special and it\'ll prevent the battery from being goosed too early in its life from discharging too many times.

Iain, just out of interest, what is the solar trickle charger like? I saw them for sale on Maplins I think and I read The FAQ and it said they even work on cloudy days (handy as most days are!) but then said they weren\'t waterproof! How does that one work!!!!! :2Confused :p

Tintin · November 10, 2006, 03:08:24 PM

Its just a little solar panel that trickile charges your batt , they usually work by plugging into the cig lighter but this only works if your gig lighter has a perm feed ( rx doesn\'t ) so you run it direct to the batt then stick it on the dash , they work to a certain degree but you have to remember to put it on the dash every time you turn the car off ( easy to forget )

Bone · November 10, 2006, 03:16:14 PM

Ahh, that makes sense. Good idea I suppose, although if its a direct feed to the battery I assume you have to have the trickle charger with you all the time.

iaint · November 10, 2006, 04:14:06 PM

Quote from: BoneIain, just out of interest, what is the solar trickle charger like? I saw them for sale on Maplins I think and I read The FAQ and it said they even work on cloudy days (handy as most days are!) but then said they weren\'t waterproof! How does that one work!!!!! :2Confused :p

Mine\'s attached to the inside of the rear hatch by little rubber suckers. My batt (varley redtop 30) is in the boot so this works fine for me. The instructions say to disconnect before starting the car or risk damaging the charger.

It seems to work under very very low light conditions but will only give the fully rated chargeing in string, direct sunlight. Current will be reduced as light reduces...

Even with this on I\'ll need to recharge the battery properly every 2 weeks to keep int in tip-top condition!

Bone · November 10, 2006, 04:26:55 PM

I was thinking it would be a bit more clever and \'store\' any excess power it receives and feed it to the battery evenly so that it would work at night as well. At least it\'ll work anywhere, i.e. not near a mains and won\'t have any wires for the postman to trip over, lol! :rollin

iaint · November 10, 2006, 07:24:05 PM

Quote from: BoneI was thinking it would be a bit more clever and \'store\' any excess power it receives and feed it to the battery evenly so that it would work at night as well. At least it\'ll work anywhere, i.e. not near a mains and won\'t have any wires for the postman to trip over, lol! :rollin

Wouldn\'t be much point whan it can put it all directly into the battery though would there?

I\'ve got a solar powered torch I can sell you...

Bone · November 10, 2006, 09:42:30 PM

QuoteOriginally Posted by iaint
Wouldn\'t be much point whan it can put it all directly into the battery though would there?

I thought a battery liked a low even flow of electric when charging so that it took up the full charge possible, but then with the amount of cloud cover we have in the UK its not like you\'re gonna get a sudden surge of electric.

QuoteOriginally Posted by iaint
I\'ve got a solar powered torch I can sell you...

I had to think for a minute then! Cheeky bugger! :Tongue1