[Miata] "Dark Current" Discussion

[Ron Zander]

That's enough to kill the battery in a few days. Most of it is likely  
the alarm, the radio probably only draws a couple of milliAmps. I've  
aftermarket alarm kill cars before when I went on vacation and didn't  
run them for a week.


On Feb 5, 2007, at 8:00 PM, Luke White wrote:

> I believe there was a discussion on "dark current" here sometime  
> over the last couple of weeks.  Dark current being the tiny draw  
> from the car's radio memory, etc.  Should have paid more attention  
> at that time since the battery in my '93 died the other day.  I got  
> a new Westco under the pro-rated warranty.  When I was hooking it  
> up, I measured 50 milliAmps of current. The only contributors  
> should have been the radio memory/clock and the aftermarket alarm.   
> Does that sound reasonable?
>
> I'm 99% sure the problem was simply the battery - since when I put  
> it on the charger, it gave a open/sulfated cell error, but I just  
> want to make sure the car is not putting too much of a draw on it  
> when sitting idle.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Luke
> '93B
>
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