High Current Draw When Turned Off Ideas

[Dee_82]

Hi folks

Just wondering if anyone knows of any good suspects that would cause the battery to be drained flat in 36 hours of it being off

The car gets double locked at night, everything turns off with the exception of the LED in my USB adaptor and the LED display on the cluster. doesn't matter how long its left off for its the same story.

The battery is brand new and its charging fine once it gets going.

im going to work my way through testing all the different systems one at a time but I was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions to look at first. and if there is anything that should be pulled out via removal of the fuses. I read somewhere someone had some issues with pulling all the fuses one at a time but cant remember where I saw it...

just now its drawing about 650mA, even after being off for a while, Ive heard it should be 10 times less than that so something is creating a draw on it...

[alexp999]

Have you tried unplugging your USB?

[iantt]

60-100mA when shut down, are you checking it locked or unlocked, and how long are you leaving it before checking reading?

[Dee_82]

lol, actually no but it is on my list of things to check, nothing is plugged in to it however and the problem was there a while back, I changed the battery as it was past its best but didn't make any difference

[Dee_82]

Disconnect the battery, attach my meter, leave it for over half an hour with doors closed, take a reading.

not sure if the bonnet open keeps the ECU alive, in any case, the battery is defo almost flat after around 41 hours, it was enough to turn it over however but only just by the sounds of it so I cant be sure how depleted it was.

[iantt]

Need to connect meter, make sure the car is locked , and bridge bonnet switch.

but to lock it will force to much current through meter, so before locking bridge the positve and terminal connector with thickish wire while locking. Basically wire is in parelel with meter.once its locked take wire off and wait around 30 mins before taking note of amp draw

[Dee_82]

I was doing a similar thing to connect the meter to the circuit anyway without having to disconnect the battery so that's fine, but ill try locking it and see if there is any difference

[iantt]

There will be a difference, when you know how much it is then you know how much more than normalnit is, then its time to start disconnecting stuff, radio, instrument cluster etc

[AdeMk1]

Search YouTube for 'Eric the car guy parasitic draw test' this video will show you how to find a parasitic battery drain step by step using a multimeter.

[Figgis41]

Sounds daft but do you leave an in car charging dock or kit still plugged in to the 12v socket ?

The 12v sockets in Fords are always on and most chargers still draw power even if its host device is not connected.
The answer is probably no ,,, but you never know. :)

[Dee_82]

yeah I do, I cant imagine it would draw half an amp on its own though, I will rule it out in any case.

does the cluster turn off on any ones after a fair amount of time? I could have swarn it used to turn off after a while

[Barry T]

Hi Darren

I had problems with the battery discharging overnight on my mk1 Focus

650 mili amps is a big drain.

I would test it on a day when the car is not used, over a period of say 4 hours and note the readings every 1/2 hour to see if there is a difference.

Check out each circuit in turn, you may have a faulty relay. If the drain drops below 650 ma you may have found the circuit that is responsible. Do not operate any high drain devices or try to start the engine when the meter is connected in series you could damage the car as well as the meter.

I would advice you take your car to a garage to sort out, you may do a lot of damage. I have dabbled in electronics from a early age and I still make mistakes.

I had a faulty door lock, does all the doors lock and open, by accident I found 1 door was not locking, I replaced the lock,

The door could continually try to lock draining the battery.

Good look,

Barry T

[Figgis41]

hi,, whan you say "cluster" i presume your meaning the display screens etc,,, mine go in to standby showing the Ford icon on the display but once the car is locked they all go off.

Im sure its all suppose to go off when the car is locked,, or after a certain period of time if its not locked.

I did read about the keyles 06 Focus cars having problems with teh cluster displays staying on through a faulty microswitch in the steering lock mechanism or a faulty ignition barrel.

[iantt]

Some fords go off straight away , other dont and do take a while to go to sleep. Early kugas took ages to go off.

[artscot79]

The dash cluster can remain illuminated anywhere from 10 to around 40 mins this is to monitor the under bonnet temps and basically keeps the car in standby mode it should be off after a maximum of 40 minutes the drain is negligible though if it remains on there's a fault somewhere the dad cluster can be changed using the elm config and has different times the minimum being 10 mins I believe

[troy45]

You could try disconnecting the head unit or pulling it's fuse, read someone else having a battery drain which was traced down to the head unit.

I've occasionally left my USB charger connected in the 12V socket without realising it, but the amount of juice it pulls must be tiny - it's only powering 4 dinky little LED's while connected.

[Dee_82]

The cluster display doesn't turn off at all, I might pop the old HU in again and see if that's keeping it alive, cheers guys, looks like im going to need a solid day or so to pin point this.

does anyone know of any fuses not to pull?, im sure I read somewhere that pulling a couple without disconnecting the battery can be harmful

[Dee_82]

Righty, spent the whole day trying to work this out

So car draws between 690 and 710mA when the car is locked, dropping to about 500 to 600mA after a few min then to about 200 to 220 after about half an hour

This in its self doesn't bode well, 200mA is still high but shouldnt drain a battery over night so I may need to look in to the alternator after all. Don't suppose anyone knows how much an alternator passes back to the battery when running?

anyhow, its still much higher then it should be so I dug further

when I pulled the fuse 107 and locked the car we had the following numbers

350 when locked to 200 after 5 min to 10mA after half an hour

Fuse 107 is the instrument cluster

That seemed to hit the spot.

So I replaced fuse 107

this time we had 710 at locked to 550mA after a few min and 10mA after half an hour!? no instrument cluster display! open door, close, and the same results, jackpot!

Decided to try turning stuff on, so turned key to position I

710 to 220 to 200...cluster display turns off again

Then tried turning to position II

710, 550 220, but this time the cluster stays on, the only way I can get it off again is by killing the power from the battery.

I was able to repeat all the figures, there was some small variation around the 5 min figures and the 30 min figures but it was mostly the same.

it sounds like there is something funking going on between the instrument cluster and the ignition switches, its possible the HU might have something to do with it, it doesn't in its self draw any additional power unless its turned on, as I tied pulling the fuse to it at various points, it does however turn on in ignition position II. I ran out of day light today but I will try pulling the canbus connector from the HU and in a separate test the main connection block / fuse whilst its in the state the cluster wouldn't normally turn off.

So It seems the cluster display should turn off, it seems like the car should draw no more then 10mA when asleep.

What I don't know yet is the effect of the HU

I don't know how much the alternator should be recharging the battery

200mA is a lot less than I had previously detected (I had the bonnet closed this time)

but even at 200mA it shouldnt kill off the battery unless its not fully charged.

the Battery is a 72Ah battery, even if its drawing 200mA for 48 solid hours that's 10Ah gone, cranking the engine a couple of times would in the worst possible case take a full amp or two and finally, worst case, whack 50% of the available charge due to cold weather. That should leave at least 20Ah available from a full battery, worst case it should be lasting a week?

The battery is new....any thoughts?

[artscot79]

If the cluster doesn't turn off at all there's usually 2 possible issues one is that the cluster itself is defective or the timer nodule is at fault assuming you haven't wired up anything recently.as you say it shouldn't be killing the battery though which is equally odd

The smartchargewill work like this on a Cold battery the alternator will put between 14.4-14.8v into the battery as a cold battery takes the charge better as the electrolyte temp increases the smartcharge reduces the current into the battery this can drop to 13v if required but on a Cold battery you should get 14.4-14.8.if you see a lot less than this then it could be a fuse in the engine fuse box there is a fuse for the smart charge system trace the wires from the alt and you'll find it if that's okay it could be a break in a wire or the alternator itself in that case its best having it properly diagnosed to find out which it is here's a few tests below

http://www.petercoopercarrepairs.co.uk/ford_focus_alternator_smart_charging.htm

[Dee_82]

ahh, Cheers for that, ill check out the smart charge system tomorrow as well, I don't have a scope but ill do what I can.

Would be a damn site lot easier if I didn't need to wait half an hour before trying each test!

Tomorrows tasks

Check voltage, on and off.

Find smartcharge fuse and check ok

With Cluster display staying on:

pull audio CANBUS adaptor and test

Pull connector block off HU and test

Replace OEM HU and test.

just trying some more maths there, the alternator should put out ~120Ah even if the car has only run on short 10 min trips twice a day its should still recharge the battery ok with the worst case I described above, never mind the long runs it actually does get a couple of times a week.

lets see what tomorrow brings

cheers for the help!

[Dee_82]

the mystery deepens

It seems that if I turn the radio on, the cluster will stay on, it doesn't matter if I disconnect the radio afterwards it will stay on and not go to sleep, the only way to get the cluster display to go off to sleep is yanking the battery after which it will happily go to sleep unless I turn the radio on again. So any bets on whats at play here? Cluster, radio, both?

next up is the battery itself, after doing some 3 hours of tests I checked the voltage, 11.7v, turned it on, 13.7v

is it possible that is simply a result of the tests ive been doing, seems rather low. battery is new.

[iantt]

So if you pull radio out and disconnect the wiring does instrument cluster switch off and go to sleep , and if it does can you repeat it a few times sucessfully?

[Dee_82]

nope, if I pull the radio out and or wires it still wont sleep unless I also disconnect the battery (I may also try pulling fuse 107 for the cluster to isolate it) see if that replicates the "fix" rather then pull the whole battery

the cluster display will only go to sleep if firstly the battery has been disconnected and secondly, if the radio hasn't been turned on.

[Dee_82]

after a similar issue on this thread

http://www.fordownersclub.com/forums/topic/59122-mk3-16-tdci-constantly-discharging-battery-to-zero/page-2

I pulled the BT module, my car is now getting a good nights sleep, for some reason the cluster remains on unless the BT module gets the nod to turn off from the head unit. very odd, anyhow, ive left it in situ and just pulled the plug, if anyone else is having issues with the cluster not turning off, this might well be the answer for you too!

[Cactus1]

Hi folks, I found that my multi function switch is shorted to the flash to pass and unplugged it.  This Stopped the over amp draw and I ordered a new one.