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Do electrical relays draw power

bot0611

bot0611

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DO they draw power when not activated by switch?

my battery went dead 2 times, first time i charged it laste 2 days, so being an optima i figures out it sucked because i had drained it 2 other times and ho i rewired a switch panel, lights and battery feed i feel something iss of somewhere
 
No i use a switch for it, and the realy has power at every moment from the battery wich is how you hook up a relay trigered by the dash lighs, so im guessing it is a bad battery
 
Check the battery test. they will do a load / recovery test. but I would guess youve got something putting a DRAW on the battery. You need to do the amp batt. draw test. Just put a test light or volt meter set on amps and put it between your negative batt terminal and disco the neg battery cable. If you show more then .25mA then youve got a draw on the batt. Just start pulling fuses til your meter reads Zero.

I had a bad draw and it ended up being my Tach. It was an autometer that had the power wire hooked up to be constant hot. I since moved that wire to be keyed on only, fixed my draw problem.
 
i already changed the battery, took advantage of the warranty, still ill test for a draw, if i remember right the tach is wired hot directly, but how long did it took to drain the battery my friend
 
ok so i used a tester, as soon as i touched the battery post the alarm whent on so i shut it off and the light stayed off but that was with amps, tach and relays disconected,

with them on the ligh blinked really fast like 2 times per second, took the off and blicked 1 time per like the blickers do.

so im guessing the relays or the tach i had hot always cause of the fast blincking.

so what setting is it for the multimeter...mA?
 
Yea mA is good. Just disco the neg battery cable and use the meter as a link inbetween the cable and the terminal. Make sure you dont have any lights or doors open or anything going. I got lucky cuz I have an aux fuse panel on my firewall and was easy access without opening the door. That may be the first fuse youll need to pull is the door jam interior light one.
 
ok V mA and wich setting A DC

i dont even have a light there, seems it does not work, ill plug eerything back again and try it i just want to make sure on the setting.
 
autozone will only load check the battery, and he said he already put a new 1 in, i don't think they will help track down a phantom drain.
 
badmix said:
I had a bad draw and it ended up being my Tach. It was an autometer that had the power wire hooked up to be constant hot. .
Click to expand...

Well i re-wired most of my thing and yeah i had the tach on a hot wire as well damn it....i changed the power source to the key at im testing the battery if a drain is still on.

Someone slap me on the head..:wink1:
 
Well i put my mustangs battery in there (83 4 cyl.) and made some readings, obcourse doors closed, stereo cable hot to keep presets and such, took the tach off the hot wire and bridged it to a key wire and the readings are:

12.6V 11:40 saturday morning
12.7V 5:30 saturday evening
12.55V sunday morning

Is this right, i know the 12V are ok for a shut off engine but what gives the differences in the readings
 
Batteries go thru a process throughout the day. Its nothing to be concerned with it. Now if you check it in a day (without driving it) and you see the numbers going down, then youve still got a draw

12.7 = full charge

12.5 = 3/4 batt

12.4 = 1/2 batt

anything at 12 or below = dead batt.

These are the numbers ive always known, they will fluctuate a lil.
 
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