Let me list my stats first so you know what I am working with...
2000 Ford Excursion (Diesel) Pioneer AVIC-N2 Navigational system 2 yellow top Optima Batteries one is 1 year old and the other is about 6 months old. 1200 Watt Power Acoustic AMP (Probably like 200 watts) 1200 Watt inverter. 2 12" Rockford's with a 1F Cap Also a 160 amp alt with a small pully for more RPM on the alt and a 00 gauge wire "ADDED" from the discharge terminal directly to the battery with the amp on it.
Ok I have a company vehicle and I only drive my excursion on the weekends. I have a drain somewhere and my batteries are only getting worse every week. The amp is hooked up directly to one battery with 0 gauge wire. The Inverter is connected to the other battery with 0 gauge wire as well but is never on only when switched and I am not sure if it is drawing. I know the amp is drawing... for some reason that is beyond me. It is almost like I have to get a kill switch for it. Every time I take off the battery cable with the amp on it, it sparks. I know it is drawing but why? And how can I fix this? Also the Cap is connected to terminals on the amp where the wires go to the battery directly. I think there is a short somewhere in the amp that maybe causing this but this is just me and I know a buddy of mine that has the same problem in his 300zx that he keeps garage kept and needs to disconnect his batteries because of the same problem. I dont want to have to do that because I drive my truck every weekend and I don't want to have to reconnect the wires every time! Please help!
The amp shouldn't pull any current when off...is the remote lead connected to a 12 volt constant wire??
ur problem is ur batterys are different age. you can get a battery isolator or get a battery tender which i have on my summer car because it draws sitting over the winter because of the alarm...
Ok, I posted this to a few different sites so I am going to reply to everyone at every site that I posted my issue.
First off:
I took out the 4 fuses out of my amp to cut the power from the amp to the battery. Correct me if I am wrong but I think this might help!
Secondly:
The amp and cap are still connected to the battery as well as the inverter via wires.
Thirdly:
My Excursion came stock with the two batteries for the diesel so as for an isolator, I imagine Ford should have covered it but I am not positive and I will research it if I still have the same problems.
Fourthly:
On Sunday night I checked my voltage with my multimeter (Fluke) and I was getting 12.62 amps (DC) at the AMP and CAP. The batteries were a little higher like 12.65 maybe .66. Then I tested the voltage again on Monday (yesterday) at the amp and it was like 12.52. Tonight, (tuesday) I didn't get a chance to check it. We will see what happens.
As for my remote lead from the stereo, to the amp it had no power according to my test light so that isn't drawing anypower and the amp light is not staying on. As for the cap... No digital display, just two lights one red and one green on a small circuit board. One to tell if it is charging and the other to show you that you are discharging it.
So I appreciate all your help, maybe that will give you a little more insight to what is going on!
I am just going to add some of my personal experiences with yellow top batteries and diesel trucks. With my F350 that I have i tried to put two yellow tops in the truck and the first time it was cold outside I did not have the cranking amps that I needed to start truck. I felt something was draining the system at first then I just realized that these batteries were not good for diesel trucks. I changed my batteries out to some high cranking amp Interstate batteries and put the Optimas under the truck as a auxillary power source. But like I said this is just the experience that I had with my truck. Hope this helps.
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1 Memphis Mojo 15
1 Memphis 4000 watt amp
1 Memphis 75watt 4 channel amp
2 Memphis 6.5" MSQ's
splaudio wrote:
ur problem is ur batterys are different age. you can get a battery isolator or get a battery tender which i have on my summer car because it draws sitting over the winter because of the alarm...
I would not recommend a battery isolator as there it too much of a voltage drop.
I'd recommend a heavy duty relay....something like this
https://www.sonicelectrnix.com/item_5287.html