Hi All,

I've got an '04 F-150 and recently the battery has started dying if I leave it sit for more than a few days.

I've found that with no accessories on, I have a 600mA drain on the battery.
about half that comes from the "Keep Alive Power" circuit. 300mA seems like a lot of keep alive power??? Can that be right?

The other half seems to come from my head unit / sirius receiver. I've got a JVC-KHDR1 and SIR-JVC1 installed. When I unplug the head unit, I drop the 300mA. When I plug the head unit back in, and unplug the Sirius tuner, I also drop the 300mA, so it seems like the Sirius tuner is the culprit here.
I'm going to work on RMA'ing that.

Anyone have experience with this? Any advice?

I have verified when testing that the drain lasts at least 20 minutes after turning off the truck and almost the entire drain goes away when unplugging the 2 sources mentioned above.
There are no lamps or any kind of lighting on.

Thanks all!!!

 

Sounds like you've found the problem, the Sirius unit isn't powering down properly.

 

I agree, I found the main culprit.
But it seems like that's only half the problem.

What about the Keep Alive circuit? What do other people pull on that?

 

Which circuit are you referring to as "Keep Alive". ie, fuse?

Steve

 

Fuse #21, labeled in the manual as "Cluster Keep Alive Power"

 

That fuse provides always-hot power to the instrument cluster alone, nothing else.

Does seem abnormally high, but I don't have any indication of what the expected current should be.

Perhaps an owner can connect an ammeter in-circuit and see what they're getting.

Steve

 

ieee, did you ever find out what the issue was with that 300mA draw from that fuse?? Because I'm having the exact same issue you described, Pulling about 325-330mA with key out of the ignition, if I pull out #21 fuse (Cluster Keep Alive Power) it drops down to 15-25mA.

*** UPDATE *** After leaving the truck with the meter attached for a good half hour without doing anything causing the system to reset anything (keyless entry, opening a door, etc..) the 330mH went down to 15mH. Seems like it takes a good 20 minutes for everything to full power down after you leave the truck. Which brings me back to square one unfortunately and has proved my drain is truly intermittent.

 

I've posted on this several times. In my 05 King Ranch, I have a 500mA draw when everything is powered down. I've decided this is "normal". At 0.05A, a fully charged battery should last about 41-42 days in "storage".

Because I also have a Gryphon which also uses 0.05A keep alive power, my storage time is only about 21 days. I keep a Battery Minder on the battery when my "garage queen" is home.

I don't think your 0.06A draw is excessive. Looks to me like it's the price you pay for the Sirius radio.

Edit: See the posts below. MY current draw is really only 50mA, not 500! And, a 600mA draw IS a bunch! (Thanks Code58 and MGDfan)!

- Jack

 

I had the same problem with my 04. If I let it sit for a few days my truck wouldn't start. After checking everything and everybody telling me that a 500mA drain isn't really that bad. I went out and bought a big battery (Diehard Platinum P-2) with 930 cold cranking amps...I can let it sit for a month and it will start up. Now i leave my xm player on all the time with no worries.

 

Hi Jack- How are the desert critters liking the cold desert nights? Better than I would, I'll bet.
Jack, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying you have a 500MA draw when you're powered down. When I went to school that was a 1/2 an amp. Later you say that you feel 0.05 amp is normal (or acceptable). Wouldn't that be 50MA rather than 500MA? 500MA is not really normal except in the case of added equipment that has a parasitic draw. When i did outfitting, we had problems from time to time with parasitic draw running batteries down on cars that were heavily equipped. In checking the draw (at least on a CV), between 200 & 300MA seemed to be normal before they were equipped, interestingly, most of that being on the ABS fuse. There may have been other things with KAM on that, I don't know.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Hey, Jack's only off one order of magnitude .. pffft!

I have approx the same draw - 500ma. And use A Wally-Mart / Schumacher battery tender for that reason. (under $20 - deal of the century - I bought 4 of 'em, lol).

 

Damn! I hate it when I post something stupid like that!

Yes, the parasitic draw is only 0.05 Amps. (I had my ammeter on the 10A scale when I measured it). And, as you BOTH so kindly pointed out, that is equivalent to 50mA, not 500! Sheesh! *slap self up side the head*

So, NOW I have to say that a 600mA (0.6A) draw is VERY excessive! MDGfan, do you really have 1/2A on your truck? That gives you only about 4 days of non-use storage time.

What Ragged05FX4 posted though, is about what I experience. Right after shutting the doors, the current draw is VERY high. My 0.05A draw is what I measured about an hour after shutdown (and I had to do it very carefully too). The act of disconnecting the battery and "splicing" in the ammeter in series brings on the high draw again for a while. So, I connect one ammeter lead to the negative cable, then slide the cable connector up and to the edge of the post so I can hook the other ammeter lead to the post without breaking the circuit.

Thanks guys! Glad someone knows about orders of magnitude!

- Jack

 

No Jack. I screwed up too! I must have contracted BlueJay's bifocal affliction!

But, your batt minder advice is right on, so your rep is intact, lol.

 

Ha! What little of it remains after this debacle! I hate it when I'm stupid! :o

- Jack

 

Ahh- We all visit that club once in a while Jack- just as long as we don't join and take up residence there. I've always said, better to learn to laugh at yourself, or somebody will do it for you!