In article ,
wrote:

I have a slow drain on my battery and I can't track down where the
problems is. I spent this afternoon tracking down where the problem
might be. I thought it was with a modification to my lighting system I
did but I eliminated that and I'm still having the drain problem.

I just checked my system and it seems that both of my amps are showing
continuity between their power and ground terminals. Continuity also
shows between those terminals and the remote terminal. This doesn't seem
right to me.

When I put the probes from my old multimeter on the power and ground
terminals the needle swings all the way past 0 Ohms and slowly drifts
back past 0 Ohms and eventually stops around 1k Ohms.

Is there something wrong with my amps that's causing this battery drain
or is this continuity on these terminals normal for a disconnected amp?
Or is it some sort of stored charge on the internal caps that are
simulating this continuity?

BTW, the amps are PG ZXTi's, a 475 and a 600. The strange thing is these
amps seem to be operating normally.

Any ideas would be appreciated, this is really pi**ing me off.

Chris

That's not the right way to diagnose the problem.

Pull one of the cables off the battery. Wrap one stripped wire around
the battery post and another around the cable. Put the cable back on
the battery post loosely. Attach an ampmeter (5+ Amp range first)
between the two wires. Now lift the cable off the battery and monitor
the current. It's important that the car's electrical system be powered
to 12V before sending current through the amp meter; the rush of power
would kill it. Slide the cable back on the battery while you change
ampmeter modes to avoid current surges.

Now start pulling fuses and disconnecting things. You'll see exactly
how much current each device is using by watching the reading on your
ampmeter drop.

It's possible that nothing is drawing too much power. Anything less
than 50mA is OK. That's 1.2 AH per day of drain. Batteries can self
discharge if they're in poor condition or if unpure water has been added
to them.