Battery keeps Dying

[loopkiller 10+ year member]

Then what is powering the cap when the engine is off?

 

[atsaubrey 10+ year member]

A cap is nothing more than a storage device. If it is indeed faulty and "leaking power some where then it is possible to drain the battery. I for one have a 35f cap in my car and after being on vacation for more than two week this month my car stated perfectly.....if caps drained the battery, dont you think over a 2 week+ period in 30-40 degree weatehr I would have been in trouble?

Back to the original poster.

Do you have more than one battery?

 

[Enellz 10+ year member]

I had a db link that had a voltage display and it drained my battery sometimes. So I tossed it

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

Then what is powering the cap when the engine is off?

are u sure you even know what a cap does? a cap stores power then releases when the amp needs it. it doesn't just flow through like leaving a light on does.

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

back to OP if you disconnect the amp from the batt does the car still die?

 

[atsaubrey 10+ year member]

I think everyone should throw all caps they have in their car cause they serve no purpose.

If caps all **** what about the ones on the amp board? Do caps really do nothing? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif

 

[beema04 10+ year member]

i disconnect the new parts i have installed from the battery, so, cap and amps and i have no problems the head unit was installed a couple of years ago.

the remote wire comes from the remote wire on the wiring harness, i spliced it at the back of the car to run both amps.

the amps are off when the car is off. the only thing that stays on is the cap display and the digital display on the distribution/fuse block, which turn off after about 2-3 mins.

i only have one battery.

Thanks

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

so both the cap display and the digital display turn off after about 3 mins? ok now let's do this one piece at a time. connect just the digital dblock and see wat happens then. basically we're gonna find out if something there is leaching the power. if the cap is bad, and not holding a charge it could kill the battery, as i said earlier. but that's if it's bad if it's not it's not likely that the cap is doing it. but anyways connect it one piece at a time and see what happens.

 

[beema04 10+ year member]

1 reply earlier mentioned a battery cut off switch. any comments on this idea? is it an automatic thing or will i manually have to go to my boot everytime i turn the car off? is there something kind of the same i can install up front to turn power off to the cap/amps?

i will try connecting each of the cap and d/block seperately thanks horseman.

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

the battery cuttoff thing goes up front and is a quick fix but won't really remeady the problem. it's better to actually track down the source of the drain then to quick fix it and forget about it.

 

[beema04 10+ year member]

this is very true. just connected the d/block. will give it an hour or so and check it out. will let ya know. thanks.

 

[It Hertz 10+ year member]

I think you need to start looking into ALL those **** grounds. If you have had the Battery and Alt. Tested and there are not the problems.... then check the grounds if that does not fix it then remove the caps from the equation... see if that fixes the issue... not that I have ever seen a cap "Go" bad unless it was hooked up backwards and then reconnected correctly.

From there I would start looking into shorts in the wiring some where.

Something in this tells me.... that we are not getting the whole story.

 

[beema04 10+ year member]

Just checked the battery, after 4 hrs it has dropped from 11.8 to 11.4.

This may sound stupid... but what tells the cap and d/block to turn off when i turn the car off? does it need a remote wire like amps do?

 

[shaneb 10+ year member]

Just checked the battery, after 4 hrs it has dropped from 11.8 to 11.4.
This may sound stupid... but what tells the cap and d/block to turn off when i turn the car off? does it need a remote wire like amps do?

Not sure how tha Dblock works.

But capacitors are dumb machines. They basically discharge then refill on their own, at a rate which you wold never notice in daily listening. Your capacitor will refill, or charge, basically all the time, so when you turn the amps off, there is no where for that cap to discharge, because there is no load on it. So in effect, it never "shuts off" it just doesn't do anything.

Although, Assuming that DBlock is in line after the cap, maybe that dblock is drawing from the cap after i is turned off, which is why the digi readout stays on. Are you sure it goes off after 3 minutes then never comes back on, on its own?

 

[loopkiller 10+ year member]

A cap is nothing more than a storage device. If it is indeed faulty and "leaking power some where then it is possible to drain the battery. I for one have a 35f cap in my car and after being on vacation for more than two week this month my car stated perfectly.....if caps drained the battery, dont you think over a 2 week+ period in 30-40 degree weatehr I would have been in trouble?

That would depend on the ESR of your cap and the AH rating of your battery, combined with any other additional loads present.

are u sure you even know what a cap does? a cap stores power then releases when the amp needs it. it doesn't just flow through like leaving a light on does.

Yes I am sure how a cap works and does not work. If you think a cap is helping him in any way other than being a fancy DMM, then you have no idea how they really work. If you have not already, read the studies of Richard Clark. The guy selling you caps at your local store surely has not read it. Caps have a relatively high ESR which leads to them needing to be contantly recharged. It is exactly like having a light on, just a very small one.

I think everyone should throw all caps they have in their car cause they serve no purpose.
If caps all **** what about the ones on the amp board? Do caps really do nothing? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif

Yes they should quit buying caps and toss out the ones they have now. The only people who bennefit from the purchase of a cap is the people making money in the transaction. The caps onboard an amp are not constantly powered. They are only powered when the amp is turned on. Therefore, they do not pull power constantly.

Just checked the battery, after 4 hrs it has dropped from 11.8 to 11.4.
This may sound stupid... but what tells the cap and d/block to turn off when i turn the car off? does it need a remote wire like amps do?

Nothing turns off those devices. The cap will continue to try to power itself endlessly. While it leaks voltage due to it's high ESR and heat output, it is draining your battery. While it sounds like you have either a rather defective cap or some other device that is draining your battery that quickly, the cap is really not serving you any good at all to begin with. It should be removed nonetheless.