leisure battery drain following some electrical work

[ccrobins]

last weekend i followed pippins instructions to move the interior lights and radio from the normal battery to the regular and i thought all was ok but this evening i have realised leisure battery is discharging itself fo no reason ! On sunday i charged it to max and now today i have just checked and its dead - enough to power the internal lights but nothing else -clearly i have done something wrong but what ?

i cut into the wire on fuse 1 for the internal lights and fitted a 10 amp inline fuse to the leisure battery, also did the same with fuse 8 for the radio and cigarette lighter (used a 15amp inline fuse), i have checked and all wires and all are insulated etc and not touching

the wierd thing is that when i took the fuse out for fuse 1 (internal lighhts) the radio stopped working so i put it back in and turned the radio back on, it worked so i pulled the fuse from fuse 8 (cigarette lighter) and the radio went off ?? i guess this is my problem but whats the problem ??

i have now taken both fuses out and put the battery on charge just to prove that this is not down to another issue but i think its too much of a coincidence - i guess this is what they call battery drain ?

i am no auto electrician so dont have much of an idea as i simply follow the instructions but any clues would be well appreciated

[stilldesperate]

Put the battery back in, with a meter set to "amps" in line with either pos or neg, and see if it's drawing current out with
everything switched off.

I suspect that the radio needs a permanent 12v supply (one of your fuses), and a switched 12v supply (via the other fuse).

SD

[ccrobins]

so i would have the permanent live to the car battery through the normal fuse board and the other live through the leisure ?

makes sense i suppose just some extra wiring but something i can manage - i hope. the battery is back in and i will check tomorrow evening as i have removed both the new fuses so i hope the charge in the leisure wont go down by tomorrow night - if thats the case i will try with a voltmeter with the fuses in

why however when i remove the 10amp fuse which should just be for the interior lights does the radio go off ?

[stilldesperate]

........

why however when i remove the 10amp fuse which should just be for the interior lights does the radio go off ?

It sounds as if the lights fuse power the radio as well. Usually you need both the permanent 12v and the switched 12v to make the radio work, so removing either fuse will turn it off.

In the past, I've wired both the perm and switched wires together, onto the battery (we're talking Mk1 escort days here!), so the radio would work with the ignition off.

Another way is to wire the two together and put onto the switched feed, downside is that your radio might loose the preset stations if you do.

You're battery not being able to hold charge is a possibility, check how much the voltage has dropped tomorrow if it's been left disconnected.

SD

[francophile1947]

Fuses 1 and 8 shouldn't have any effect after completing Pippin's modification You should have effectively bypassed them by taking the feed direct from the leisure battery. Did you actually cut the wires, rather than tapping in to them?

[ccrobins]

yes i cut the wires and connected to the inline fuse however i dont understand why this should make a difference

[francophile1947]

Puzzling ain't it Removing fuses 1 and 8 shouldn't cut the power to anything now, as it should be coming from the leisure battery

[ccrobins]

when i say i took the fuses out of 1 and 8 i mean the inline fuses - the physical fuses for 1 and 8 in the main fuse board are obviously redundant as nothing is going in

[francophile1947]

Ah - sorry

[ccrobins]

still a pain of a problem though !

i hate these ones that can take hours if not days to figure out - why do i keep tinkering ??

theres a lot to be said for 'if it aint broke dont fix it'

[Muzorewa]

I had a similar problem on ours, I had the blinds, ciggy-lighter and interior wired to the leisure battery but only a day afterwards the leisure battery was flat. The 'interior' includes the radio, electric mirrors, interior lights etc.

I just reverted to how it was, and put up with the exhausting effort required to manually operate the blinds

[bigdaddycain]

The issue may not be the way you wired things in, it may be down to the radio being on "standby" as opposed to it being switched off completely. All head units are different, it may appear to be switched off, when in fact it is in standby mode, this can often draw half the current of it actually being switched on. (like your tv,satellite receiver etc).

I'd check the instructions that came with your stereo, i had a few head scratching moments trying to work out how to completely switch mine off prior to wiring it to work from the L/B.

[ccrobins]

if without the radio plugged in the LB doesnt lose charge i think i will switch over the radio from my Land Rover - seems the easiest way

Its a Sony Xplode in my bongo and a Goodmans something or other in the Land Rover if anyone knows if the Sonys take plenty of juice if not turned off correctly ?

[bigdaddycain]

I have a sony unit in my bongo too... Think on, in "normal" cars, the radio isn't actually switched off, it goes off when we turn off the ignition, and that's fine by us generally speaking. When it's powered in such a way that the ignition has no bearing on the stereos operation, we are then left with the dilemma on how to actually switch off the unit completely! Removing the stereo face won't automatically do this, you will (in all likelihood) see a button (top left corner?) with "OFF" on it. Pressing this once switches to standby mode,holding it for 4-5 seconds should shut the unit down completely, with an audible beep to confirm this. (all the above depends on model of stereo fitted of course)

[ccrobins]

sounds like the sony is my issue then as i never turned it off like that or heard a beep - maybe switching the goodmans will take away the issue as you know i will always forget to turn the sony one off correctly or the wife wont anyway !