.12 amp power draw on room fuse, slowly killing battery - anyone seen this?
 

Hey guys -

Buddy of mine has a 93 Touring with a slow power draw. We've done some troubleshooting trying to find the source of the problem and are coming up empty.

With a meter between the negative terminal and negative battery post we're seeing .12 amps with everything closed and off, security system not armed. My car sees about .00 or .01 amps in the same situation.

Pulling the ROOM fuse by the clutch pedal kills the power draw.

We've tried unplugging the usual suspects - unplugging all aftermarket electronics, which is just gauges and stereo. Still have something pulling down a draw.

Has anyone else run into this and know of any common culprits to test?

Dale

when you say room fuse. Did you mean your dome lights etc? How about removing the bulb from the map/dome lights? And what fuse number is that?

I need those information to tell you what circuit is drawing.

-AzEKnightz

Here is the wiring diagram for the 10 amp room fuse. You will have to go through and check out each component.

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1296232458
https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1296231705

My suggestion:

Have your doors all opened but LOCKED.
Truck popped but LOCKED.
Glove box opened but have a tap over the switch so it is on OFF position.

And then with the amp meter on, start pulling bulbs and see which will will affect your parasitic draw.

Maybe have the alarm system by-passed so it wouldnt sound when you moved the car accidentally and cause a high amp draw which can in term blow the fuse in the amp meter.

-AzEKnightz

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm still baffled as to what circuit is doing a slow power drain. The weird thing too is sometimes you'll hook up the meter and see the .12 amp draw, sometimes you'll hook it up and see .00. Or, you'll have the .12 amp draw, pull the room fuse, put it back, and it will stay at .00. It's just damn flaky.

Keep the ideas coming!

If all else fails, we're talking about installing a relay on the room fuse circuit that only opens when you key on. It's a workaround but will solve the problem.

Dale

yeah, Ive got the same problem on my 02 for the last 5 years. Ok, I admit I havent tried to trace it. I ended up buying a 3 stage trickle charger, which I plug in if im not going to use the car for a couple of weeks.

Dale,

Whenever you pull the fuse out, you already disrupted the circuit and causes the "culprit" from any draws. But once you wait long enough with the fuse back in, it will start drawing again.

If all falls through, adding a relay is not a bad idea at all. That'll definitely fixes this current drawing problem.

Let us know if you find out what the problem is. (Many of the car's that I've fixed that's drawing current is from the DOME light 'map lights') So I would start with that.

-AzEKnightz

I would start removing light bulbs.

I had a draw on my battery and kept putting off tracking it down. Then while installing my AI system, i found a little box i did not recognize. Traced it down and found a low jack system on my car. Haven't had a problem since.

I did the same test on my fd. Make sure the hatch light is going out.

There is a small bulb that illuminates the ignition switch (it's behind an orange lens on the steering column hood), it should be lit whenever either of the doors is open. If I remember correctly, it will draw about 0.1A current. Try closing the doors (or activating the door switches as if the doors were closed); the drain should stop when the lamp turns off.

Good suggestions! We'll go through and pull some bulbs and see if that helps.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll be putting the turbos back in the car, once it's running again we'll get on the current draw.

Thanks, I'll keep you posted.

Keep the suggestions coming!

Dale

any mod done with the tail lights? besides after market gauges and stereo, tail lights come to mind next...

Same issue, turned out to be the rear hatch light not going out when closed.

radio maybe? the clock, radio station memory is on the room circuit too

Had the same issue on my Silvia, ended up being a bad alternator. I was getting parasitic loss and ended up pulling fuse after fuse. Ended up being the 12V fuse and was the alternator. Dunno if it helps..

power = v*I

watts = 12vdc*.12

1.44 watts which equals the door key and combination switch bulb. check to see if they are on. the bulbs can fall off the light rings, be on inside the door but not light the illumination ring

room fuse draw
 

I'm having the same exact problem did you ever figure it out? It's driving me nuts to pull the room fuse every time .

Bump having a similar issue. Dale did you find the culprit?

If you dont get it resolved, do like me and pull the Neg battery terminal overnight or whenever the car is not being used, especially if it not a DD.

I have a similar issue, was the car replaced with led bulbs by any chance?

Yep LEDs that i actually purchased from you rlee lol.

Looool I converted a majority of the halogen bulbs to leds (still having problem, but I don't drive the car much and I have a circuit breaker installed to unplug the battery)

The only one I didn't switch out where the indicator lights like check engine etc, I tried swapping it to all leds, but then some would be on 100% of the time, or never turn back on again...

The only thing I can think of is there is always a small draw, but by switching to leds (very low resistance) from halogen bulbs, the drain is more pronounced.

I had my battery going flat over two days,I tracked it down to the yellow 60 amp fuse relay thing under the hood, the copper thing in the middle of the fuse was all green, put a new one in checked the battery with a meter and the slow draw was gone.

I had a similar issue years ago. It turned out to be my aftermarket alarm. Even when it wasn't on, it was drawing current. I installed an on/off power switch to the alarm, and the problem was solved. Never an issue since then.