Ducman82

battery is good, (exchanged anyway, pays to know the part dude). car had trouble cranking after sitting for a week. battery charger for 10 min on 12v/6amp did the trick. full charge later that day off the battery maintainer.

used the volt meter between the positive cable and the positive terminal, got a reading of .08 amp draw..... no amp or stereo issues, no lights on.....

hummmmmmmm where do start?

Leon Speed

Start by pulling one fuse at a time, then relays.

neilh

red courtesy lights in the doors - bad door switch, maybe....

Ducman82

Hovers around this..... I'll give that a shoot tonight. Thanks

neilh

Second thoughts - 80 mA is around a 1 watt lamp, which would probably rule out the door lamps - more like a dash lamp, clock or 'keep alive' on the radio.

Ducman82

Hummmm.... From what I read 100ma is " standard for keep alive/clock/head unit ". Maybe it's fine......

Mrmerlin

take the IR gun and after the car has sat for 1/2 an hour,
go shoot the CE panel any relay or fuse that is hotter than the rest should be investigated

mickster

BRILLIANT!

Ducman82

Nice! I will hook the batt back up and wait a bit and try that...

Ducman82

Check all fuses. Nothing. Then I remembered the Sirius antenna /alpine interface box thing. Unhooked that. Dropped .06... !!! Down to .01. Think I found it...

What's normal anyway?

Bill Ball

Normal 30-35ma.

Ducman82

With that Sirius box un hooked, 15.3ma. Now the ma fuse blew . Went to radio shack to get another ,

One thick filament is the unit in the meter T315ma250v
The invisible filament is the radio shack 315ma250v. It blows just turning the damn meter on...... I need to find this super nice fuse.... Ugh

Alan

Is the sirius box hooked up right? it should have a switched supply I'd think?

@ ~15ma you are doing very good

Alan

Ducman82

Yup, direct to battery. Per the diagram. 80ma, was as high as I could get during testing. That still seems low. I'm hoping to upgrade my head unit soon, ditch the external alpine Sirius interface pile.....

danglerb

Messing with my wife's Lincoln, draw on the battery at idle was -56 amps, initial key off 2.5 amps, 30 sec drops to about 50 ma, five min or so 17 ma, bit over half an hour 1 ma or less.

I forget how long it is before the brain goes fully asleep on the 928, but I did come up with the idea of using a spare hatch lock so I can leave the hatch open during testing. For now I use a battery disconnect on the ground strap.

DC clamp meter is a handy item, good ones are expensive, but the Craftsman 82369 will zero down to about 10 ma and goes on sale around $60.