Club 80-90 Forums

About a year ago I bought a stereo (dash mouted) that will play DVDs (video or mp3) and its great except.....

If its connected to a residual 12v supply so it remembers stations and last track it played, my battery is flat as a pancake in 3 days. Anyone else had a similar prob? Surely it can't use THAT much juice to power the memory?

wouldn`t have thought it should drian the battery that quickly.

if you put an amp meter in line between the battery neg and the battery neg lead (with it disconnected) you shouldn`t be getting much more than about 0.3 amps. if you`re getting more and you can prove its the stereo then somethings wrong.

lee.

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We have got a flip off front one that shows an lcd pattern when flipped in - this drains the battery too so you have to remember to flip the front out a bit everytime you stop -
Could put it on the Liesure - but then I would flatten that instead...

can't wait for some oik to nick it ---oh no - they don't seem to bother doing that nowadays tho.

Most modern radios have 3 states they can be in, on (playing), soft off (dormant, may be desplaying a clock or anoying you with a stupid desplay on the screen) and a propper off hybernate mode. Removing the faceplate usally puts them into hybernate automaticly but I wouldn't garantee it.

The radio will have 2 power feeds, one is the perminant live that it runs off, the other is a trigger ment to be switched with the ignition so the radio comes on with the key and goes into a sort of hybernation mode when this surply is cut (parked) so it uses very low current.

Problem is, whilst most modern cars are wired this way and the radio makers often assume this is how they are setup, most T3's have both these wires as perminant live, so the radio might not be turning off fully, just going to a soft off when you press the off button, still useing more than negligable current. Whilst the plus side of the standard T3 wireing is the radio works without the keys in it, the down side is it doesn't always put modern stereos into hard off when you press the off button, there is often an option somewhere to turn them hard off though even though the switched surply is perminant live. This might envolve holding the off button for afew seconds, changing a setting in the overly complex menu system, or changing a microswitch somewhere on the radios caseing, probubly only accesserble when removed from the dash.

If you don't have such an option, you could wire it into the ignition circuit, add a seperate switch to this feed to turn it off independantly to the ignition, or have a swith that lets you selcet which one you want so it normally goes off with the key but if you want to listen when parked you still can - any of those should stop battery drain.

Some clever headunits will still let you use them if the ignition feed is off anyway, but it will only run for about 30mins at a time to stop it being left on and flattening the battery (aparently my Blaupunkt should do this, sounds like the sort of detail germans would have thought of!) - sounds handy but mines still running on 2 perminant lives at the moment so I've never been able to test this feature.

Its worth noteing that most radios only really draw a significant current from the specified perminant feed (used for all operations from keeping memory to powering the unit in operation), and they get upset if you disconect this feed, but that doesn't mean disconecting the other feed [switched] with seemingly no current won't reduice the current on this feed, if you get what I mean.

I run mine using a switch.

The permenant live is wired to the auxilliary battery.

The memory wire is run to a switch, with ignition on one side and leisure battery on the other.

With the switch to the ignition the headunit knocks off with the ignition.
With the switch in the leisure side, when camped up I can use the radio when I like without fear of flattening the battery.

Simon Baxter wrote:I run mine using a switch.

The permenant live is wired to the auxilliary battery.

The memory wire is run to a switch, with ignition on one side and leisure battery on the other.

With the switch to the ignition the headunit knocks off with the ignition.
With the switch in the leisure side, when camped up I can use the radio when I like without fear of flattening the battery.

so permanent powers is always lesuire and then a 2 way switch(3 pole) on the memory wire one to ign live other to lesuire battery again?

[img:643:561]http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9977/radioci1.jpg[/img]

something like this?

I have a Sony flip front, you have to turn the actual power off, not just take off the flip front, otherwise the unit is still on,

mine is run from the leisure battery, for both memory and switched power, the latter through a relay, so when the key is off it goes off, with a override switch for when camping......

gti mad man wrote:[img:643:561]http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9977/radioci1.jpg[/img]

something like this?

Just like that.

[img:200:193]http://data1.blog.de/blog/h/horse1/img/tommy.jpg[/img]

haha im cracking up just gona say tommy cooper~:)

need to check my wiring as i have "pooh" loadsa fruses by the batteries duno where they go! and now gna add another lol

I dunno, all you posh people with leisure batteries. I just have the one and a fully charged spare for those "NO!! not now!" moments synonymous with volkswagens.

I think my problem is that I had both live feeds plumbed in permantly which explains the drain......

By the way, in common with every v-dub I've owned I still haven't got bored with it. Every trip out is fun - every time. Despite the fact it drinks fuel, its been worth every penny. Must get someone to check the lpg set up i mine. I've never actually used it and it looks well fitted but really needs an expert (Steve?) to check its all ok. I might even use it then.....

Just a quick thanks to heads up on my stereo wiring. Memory for last track played is now retained but no more flat battery after three days. Clearly the constant live feed left the amp permanently on even though it was off on the display. Cheers for that - happy bunny now!