Battery drain issue solved | FerrariChat

Battery drain issue solved

Discussion in '360/430' started by myblist, Jun 12, 2014.

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  1. myblist

    myblist Rookie

    Mar 22, 2014
    17
    Dallas
    I bought a F430 back in March, put in a new battery used it every few days until the middle of May when the rains came. Went to use it first week of June and the new battery was dead! Recharged it and found that there was a 130mA continuous load jumping to 300 mA. The manual states the max is 30 mA. After pulling every fuse in all the panels I found the AC main was pulling 110-280mA. I was a bit disappointed since the AC system is buried, as I was following the power wires I found that there was two tiny wires splices into the 50A main AC line. The two wires went to a black box above the glove box. Two more wires went to a battery that was glued to the first box. The last two wires just dangled. The box is made in Canada with only one marking on it. k1972665a along with a 14 by 14 dot pattern. I suspect it is some sort of tracking device installed by the first owner. Never the less, removing the box the current is down to 12mA which is ten to twenty times lower.
     
  2. whatheheck

    whatheheck F1 Rookie
    Owner

    Mar 27, 2006
    4,148
    Seattle, Wa
    Full Name:
    Dan L.
    Excellent! Glad to hear you got it resolved.

    Battery drains are often caused by after market parts.

    Thanks for the update.

    Great job!

    Dan
     
  3. F456 V12

    F456 V12 F1 Veteran
    Silver Subscribed

    Mar 13, 2004
    5,262
    Coto de Caza
    Full Name:
    Christian
    Wow, I am impressed.

    Nice story, good ending,

    MB
     
  4. Fatty

    Fatty Karting

    Jun 5, 2010
    235
    Australia
    Good work. Did you take any pictures of the device? Would come in handy if you posted them up.

    Thanks.
     
  5. English Rebel

    English Rebel Formula 3

    Aug 13, 2013
    2,158
    Piedmont Area of NC
    Full Name:
    Alan
    Sounds like a LowJack. My car has one but then I always keep it on a tender when not in use. Not sure why it would draw so much as it doesn't transmit -- only when activated by LowJack.
    Good advice to keep on a tender anyway as low voltage (and I'm not talking of much) leads to the Ferrari electrical gremlins.
    Alan
     
  6. myblist

    myblist Rookie

    Mar 22, 2014
    17
    Dallas
    It does seem like a LoJack device, it was made from a Motorola 120 cell phone PCB, really, the board righ out of a Canadian cell phone, they even left the volume and power buttons, they only soldered the antenna wire where the antenna was connected. The other board has a transmit driver to the second antenna. The battery was a led asid battery which was dead and would not take the charge the board was trying to push to it. So it looks like someone could call and activate the transmitter which sounds very LoJack like. But since it draws so much current it gets retired. Maybe I'll pick up a modern day version. But as for now the total drain is only 12mA which should last 90 plus days. So far no issues.
     
  7. Michaelzeiss

    Michaelzeiss Karting

    May 5, 2013
    108
    Toronto
    Full Name:
    Michael Zzzz
    Leave it to those tree hugging Canucks to do silly things like that😝


    Sent from my Ferrari F430 and 360
     

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