# Leisure and vehicle battery discharge



## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

Hello

Questions, questions about battery discharge.

1) Vehicle battery. With everything turned off - both in the cab and the habitation side, the vehicle battery is draining at 0.4 amps. The problem stopped for a while but is back now. 

2) Leisure battery. Again, everything switched off, including fridge, the leisure battery drain is 0.55 amps. 

In relation to the vehicle battery, if I do not charge it every other day, it dies, and looking at those figures, the same for the leisure battery. 

Both Swift and a Fiat agent have worked a lot on this. It was cured, but is now back! 

To cohere the figures, I can also select engine battery to provide power to the habitation side. Again, with everything switched off, and the power selector in engine batery mode, my drain is 0.90 amps - this figure provided by the NE183 control panel. 

What should I be looking at next?

Russell


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## Scotjimland (May 23, 2005)

Hi Russ ...

commonly called 'Phantom Loads' .. try googling ! 

Anything that has a digital clock or display draws current, even switched OFF the only way to isolate is to unplug, I was surprised that even with a TV switched off it still draws some current unless unplugged.. other culprits are sat digi boxes, microwave ovens, laptops, phone chargers, printers, scanners etc etc .. good luck.. 

Jim


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## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

*Batteries*

Jim - useful chain of thought.

For the cab battery, there is the in dash CD player, sat nav and also the power for the small clock within the speedo area.

On the hab side, once everything is off, I thought it was off.

Russell


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## safariboy (May 1, 2005)

Dear Russel,
This is very disappointing (and mysterious) I get a steady discharge of 0.16A with everything off and have resorted to permanent connection to mains.
The charger goes down to trickle sp it is OK.
When you first put in the meter and connect up again the current is about 0.4A but it soon dies down.
I understand from Swift that it should be about 0.05A.

I do have a Cobra alarm and that will add a little but it should only be 0.012A extra.

The habitation battery seems to have effectively zero current when the control panel is off.


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## zulurita (May 9, 2005)

Russell,

Does your radio have a red light that is ON once you have turned your engine off? Mine does but I press the eject button (but don't actually remove radio) and the red light goes out. Saves a bit of power I guess.


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## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

*Battery*

Hello Rita

Radio is totally off. Everything is off and I still get the drain.

The Fiat agent reported an engine batterydrain of 0.4 amps and this does seem to tie with the figure from the NE183 panel.

Russell


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## zulurita (May 9, 2005)

That is disappointing then. 

Have they any ideas as to what they can do to sort this? It would make me very uneasy touring and not being on hook-up!

Checked mine today via the mobile for a Sat.status and it came back with a reading of 12.5V and it hasn't been used since mid Dec


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## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

*Battery*

As I say Rita, it was fine and now not so. There are times when I am not on hook up and so run the risk of the AA being needed!

Russell


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## safariboy (May 1, 2005)

I don't think that you can measure it from the panel because the panel itself takes about 0.2A unless totally off. The fridge control panel also takes something.
I have measured the current by inserting an ammeter into the battery earth line.


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## CLS (Jul 25, 2005)

Russell have the same problem , if i don,t start the van within a week everything is dead  and a very nice man from the AA comes to the rescue. At the moment it,s on the drive permantly hooked up but i prefer to keep it in storage and there lies the problem of having to keep going there to start it or disconnect the battery and lose the alarm  . 

cheers Mark


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## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

*Battery*

Hi Mark

It is most strange as my issues had gone. It is not "a Swift thing" as I am aware of a Burstner and others with the same issue.

Really strange that the problem has suddenly returned.

Russell


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## SwiftGroup (Jun 27, 2007)

Rapide561 said:


> Hello
> 
> Questions, questions about battery discharge.
> 
> ...


Russell, 
Sorry about this, I will speak to Padge in the morning and see if he can suggest anything and comeback to you,
Andy


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## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

*Batteries*

Andy

Thanks. I seem to have (possibly) two separate issues - leisure and engine battery.

The drain of 0.55 from the leisure battery is a tad worrying - and I had turned everything off etc.

I thought Fiat would done a bit more testing re the engine battery but did comeback with the drain figure. They did "very loosely" suggest looking at the CD player and the Sat Nav.

I will do a bit more testing at the weekend with no hook up etc and see what reading I get from the NE183. It has been established previously that the 183 is very accurate in it's displays.

Russell


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## DABurleigh (May 9, 2005)

Russell,

Answering your PM here in case it is of more general use:

If the vehicle battery drain were a constant .4 amps from a fully charged battery, then I would have thought it would still start after 2 days. However, it's a mute point, because after 4 days it probably wouldn't start, especially if it were cold. That is totally unacceptable.

1) What did Swift do to "fix it"? Presumably Andy will consult his sorceror's book and come back to you.

2) Your current drains are measured using your control panel, which may be accurate, but consumes significant current itself. My own consumes 0.2A, and 0.4A temporarily after pressing any buttons which automatically backlights the display, but when it is totally switched off as well as everything else, then a multimeter registers 0.0A at the leisure battery.

3) Don't forget any reversing camera. Check how this is switched. The wiring of these can be convoluted and your drain from this could be vehicle or leisure battery or both, and both the monitor and the camera itself consumes power.

Dave


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## wobby (May 1, 2005)

Don't know if this has anything to do with it but when Vanbitz fitted my sat nav they also fitted a power switch which I have to turn off. They said that it is because my sat nav has a set of giro's in it for dead reckoning and they remain powered up.

Wobby


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## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

*Battery*



DABurleigh said:


> Russell,
> 
> Answering your PM here in case it is of more general use:
> 
> ...


Thanks Dave. I will have another good poke about at the weekend.


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## Trance (Mar 2, 2007)

With your control panel on, which you will have, using it to measure your current draw. The panel itself will draw 0.4 amps. Have you tried switching off the panel and measuring the current draw with a meter at the battery? I know my control panel draws 0.4 amps when everything else is off. 

gregg


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## GerryD (Sep 20, 2007)

The most likely cause of current drain on your vehicle battery is the radio is disconnected is the central locking. Only way to check accurately is with all fuses out and then replace one by one and measuring with a calibrated meter as each fuse is replaced.


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## 96299 (Sep 15, 2005)

I had a battery drain problem some time ago and it was a similar drain number to yours russell.I think I`ve posted on it before.Someone,somewhere along the line,cut a wiring loom and just tucked it back in behind the radio without terminating it at all.Now,if yours is anything like this,all it would take is for them wires to touch something and short out.My radio used to leave a red light on behind it after everything was turned off,as mentioned by another poster.I had mine checked by Fiat and an independant auto sparks and both said it was a radio problem.I took it back to my dealer and they re-wired it slighly differently (not tech enough to give proper spec ) and now I have no problems whatsoever.
I could be miles away here as you seem to be getting problems in the back as well.good luck with it anyway.

Heres a pic of the loom...





steve


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