# Battery



## jeangenie (Jan 24, 2010)

Hi

We have just bought a two year old Hobby Van and are finding that after a couple of days on site that vehicle battery is showing a third down on the control panel. The only thing we have been using is the radio for about 10 hours over two days. Would a radio cause a vehicle battery to lose a third of its charge?


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

For some reason I cannot fathom cab radios are power hungry so your power usage seems about right. When not on hook up I use a portable radio, Alan.


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## Techno100 (May 8, 2010)

YES


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## sloath1980 (Jul 9, 2010)

drained my battery in 4 days. very hungry.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

YES.
But if you pull the detachable front off the radio when not in use it's cuts the drain right down.

Been lots of discussion about this over the months. Seems very common.

Ray.


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## gibbo (May 1, 2005)

If that's the case, I wonder how the people who have installed a car radio elsewhere in their van and run it off the leisure battery get on?

Another option, which we sometime use is the computer (I know not everybody has one). Go online and you can get all the channels you want BBC 4, 3, 2 & 1 and you can listen to programmes of your choice.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Other and older car radios didn't seem to drain the power when switched off. It just seems the more modern and sophisticated radios have two DC feeds. One to power the radio and the other to keep the memory etc.

I know my Sony multi disc and clever RDS van radio will drain the very large 110 a/h battery in about two weeks or so. Thats without an alarm, so I lift the face.

Ray.


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## rogerblack (May 1, 2005)

I had the standard radio replaced professionally with a more upmarket unit which takes sd cards, usb etc as well as CDs and also had the standard cab speakers uprated plus two decent speakers fitted in the hab area. The fitters installed a cut-off switch for the main power to the unit as they said even removing the face doesn't cut out the drain, since the main unit still needs feed for the preset channel memories etc. Since we are usually on hook-up at home and have Battery Master, I haven't needed to use it yet but if ever we are stored up off power for any time I will. 

So be aware - if your presets are still there after removing and replacing the face, the unit is still drawing power even when the face is off.

I had the subwoofer that they installed behind the driver's seat wired to be powered from the leisure battery, as it does take loads of power when in use. It's brilliant, since at full belt it easily drowns out the generator :wink:


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## rosalan (Aug 24, 2009)

Yes you are right Roger. I could not hear your generator when you had the radio on :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: 
Alan


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