666sin

Concerning my mp3car, I have good news, and I have bad news:

Good news: If y'all remember, my comp was resetting every time I hit a bump. In fact, my mobo WAS hitting the metal frame it is mounted on, and grounding itself, causing the reset. One piece of foam later, it was fixed!! Thx for the help ppl!

Bad news: I woke up this morning to start the car. chug, chug, tick...... NO BATTERY!!! Could this be from the inverter?? Because even when I turn it off, the fan still spins once in a while, so I'm guessing that the inverter drained the battery while it was OFF! (in 24 hrs, btw) Has this happened to any of you guys?? How do I remedy the situation without wasting more batteries?!

Sorry for the long post

Maveric

Well in the first place, one fan shouldn't drain your battery in 1 day. And I have never heard of a inverter running a fan when it is off. Have you been running anything when the car wasn't started? How old is the battery?
If you put a switch between your battery and inverter, and use that to turn it on and off, the inverter will not draw any current from the battery.

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Aaron Cake

That's one hell of a coincidence. For reasons unkonwn, my player was left on over night. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but when I got home at 6pm I was preoccupied with fixing my broken wipers. I must have left it on by mistake. Either way, in the morning I went to turn the key and got nothing. Had to jump start from my mom's car...

Depending on the condition of your battery, the fan and standby current of the inverter (could be 1A or more) may drain it. If this is a constant problem, pick up an Optima Yellow top. These are deep cycle batteries, and are the best lead acid batteries you can buy. All the electric car guys use them.

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Raas

maybe this is not exactly your problem, but
i once had a faulty amp.

It was hooked up directly to the car's battery (fuse) and it would turn on by the signal that the head-unit would give.

When my key isn't in my dash-lock, the radio doesn't get any power except for the memory wire.... so it won't play with no keys in

one day i noticed the amp would turn on and off constantly with the radio playing. BUT ALSO WITH THE RADIO OFF.. (you could hear the amp clicking over and over again, but no leds on the amp would shine.. but i used a lot of power though.. you could even hear it on the speakers!)
There must be some faulty switch in it.

And this constantly on-and-off-turning off the amp(600w) drained my battery (85a) in less than 5 hours!!

So maybe there's something wrong with the inverter so that it still would use up the power in the car, even when it's not turned on..

this is not exactly what you're talking about but maybe I gave you a hint on whats wrong.

Anyway.
Succes and good luck solving your problem !

Greetzz
Raas

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Maveric

As i said before, putting a switch inbetween your battery and inverter/amp will solve all of this problem. It is impossible for it to draw any current when it is off. Now amps shouldn't draw that much power when they are not reciving a signal from your radio. Just because it is a 600w amp, it will not be drawing 600 watts from the battery. I have a 85w amp and RF modulator and I always have them on. Hasn't been turned off in 3 months.

__________________
http://www.mp3car.com/usersites/Maveric/ M.A.V.I.C. System
Asus MB, PII 266, 192 MB Ram, 6.8" LCD, 6 Disk CD-ROM, 21 Gig HD, All-in-Wonder Video w/ TV Tuner, Irman, Windows ME, Winamp, Cobra III -- All in a custom acrylic case.

http://www.mp3car.com/usersites/listings/ MP3car Listings - Please add to it! :)

jshrieve

I'm assuming you have your inverter wired directly to the battery. You might want to get a relay so it's only connected when the accessory line is on.

I have my inverter wired directly to the accessory line, not the battery, so it's always off when the car is off.

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Car: 1993 Nissan Maxima, Black Emerald

JamesB

One thing to consider: ALWAYS check your nominal "off-current" after ANY installation! You might be suprised how many amps your system is drawing even while OFF !

You all _SHOULD_ really be running a power disty. system with relays! That way there is _NO_ current draw from any "non-factory" additions. Simply use a relay hooked up to the second-stage ignition line to close the circuit when the car is running! It will save you ALOT of hassle!

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etrik

try this: http://www.batterymart.com/priority-start.shtml

works great!!!!

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