Question about Battery Drainage

[jrgolfpro]

Hi guy’s, I’m new to this forum and am really hoping I could get some help. About 2.5 years ago I purchased my friends 10 inch CRV kicker subwoofer for my 99 Olds Intrigue (3.8L V6) and purchased a small profile California mono block amplifier to power it. I can’t recall the model but I know it gives only out around 175 watts RMS at 4 ohms. Nothing huge by any means. Along with that, the vehicle already had an older alpine MRP-F257 amplifier in it to power the 4 speakers which I believe gives 75-100 watts RMS as a whole. (its an old model I know). Now I’m a college student and didn’t want anything fancy… just something that sounded descent and the 4 channel amp had been installed for close to 5 years and I didn’t notice any issues whatsoever with the battery until after I purchased the sub and installed it. Every winter from then on I’d notice that my battery would be very low or almost dead after a few days of sitting outside. At first I thought it was the crappy Walmart battery in my car so I purchased an Optima Red Top and I also had a 1.5 farad cap that I installed with the sub that was faulty which I replaced with a different model because the little LCD output wouldn’t turn off after I shut the car down so I thought that was where the battery drain was coming from. Well this past winter over this past month I’ve been experiencing the same issues again but with my Optima I purchased last year. My car normally sits in a parking lot during the week and I don’t drive it because I live on campus but on the weekends I drive to work which is in town about 7 miles away…. Now after I noticed that my battery was low or dead (which occurred about 2 weeks ago) I started leaving the face plate out so the amplifiers wouldn’t turn on and pull from the battery thinking that the car wasn’t being driven long enough to charge the battery up from sitting all week…. Well it seems like that is not the case because after only a few days of sitting outside, my battery will show obvious signs of being low when turning the car over to start it…. Now I’m curious what you guy’s think the problem might be? I know the vehicle has a 105 amp alternator in it so I’m curious if you guy’s think it’s not strong enough to keep the battery charged or what the deal might be? Is it the capacitor that’s keeping the battery from staying charged? You would think that by not turning the amplifier on that the battery would charge the cap with the vehicle on and then the cap would quit drawing power but that doesn’t seem to be the case? Everything is grounded properly….

Just today I pulled the fuse out of the holder to power down the cap so my battery could charge up but I’m stumped as to what I should do… I’ve put so much work into getting this thing to work that I don’t want to take the whole thing out but if I have to I will… Should I scrap the 4 channel amp? Or maybe remove the capacitor? Is it really useful on such a small system? I don't listen to bass heavy music or crank the music that loud... on rare occasions if at all... Any feedback would be much appreciated!

This only happens in the winter as well. During the summer I've left my car sitting for a week or more and it'll start up just fine! I'm certain nothing is staying turned on inside the car when it's off and the cables and battery are in great shape. The sub by the way has 2 gauge wiring from the battery to the cap & amp if that makes any difference.

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[neverfinished 10+ year member]

paraphrase it noone is going to read your life story

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

paraphrase it noone is going to read your life story

People need to learn how to read, life isn't ****ing Twitter.

Just to rule it out, you do have the remote wires going to the head unit, not the battery directly?

 

[ramos 5,000+ posts]

You have a drain somewhere it seems. Check the remotes like Jim said first. If you have a clamp meter, you could clamp the power wire feeding your amps and see for sure if they are the culprit, and how much current they are pulling. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[jrgolfpro]

Yeah the remote wires go straight to the head unit. I don't think this has anything to do with the 4 channel amp because like I said, it happened after I installed the sub. I really have a feeling that the Capacitor is the culprit.... It seems as though the alternator is getting too much energy drawn from it to power both the cap and charge the battery fully. I've left the stereo shut off the entire month when driving it on the weekends to work and in doing so, both amplifiers have not been turned on and drawing juice but the capacitor will still be pulling a current obviously with the fuse left in so it seems to me as though the cap is draining slowly and in doing so, it's either slowly draining the battery when the car is sitting for the week or something to that nature....The system is not powerful at all so I have a hard time believing it's the alternator... Do you guy's think I should ditch the cap and just wire it straight to the sub amp? I had to the 4 channel amp professionally installed like 5 years ago and that simply has the power wire running straight to the battery uncapped and I've never had any issues. I have the cap grounded to the same bolt as the 4 channel amp is grounded too if that matters...

Thank you for taking the time to read this and help me out by the way, I'm running out of ideas and this was the last place I thought I'd turn before ripping everything out. It's just been a headache ever since I purchased this stuff.