Bonnet closed... All shiny and OCD under there. And new mobil 0w40 full synthetic, and filters etc.
While I was polishing stuff I got out my clamp meter, and did some residual drain current testing.
This vehicle has a solar panel on on top, and a charge controller in the rear that holds the battery at 13.4V all day every day. Because it needs it. This was turned off temporarily.
Because like all these adapted minivans theres a large battery drain 24/7 from
something. This drain current on my van 141mA continuous. Its higher when first turned off, and the van then takes 12 mins before everything goes to sleep leaving 141mA draing the battery. Then it never drops below 141mA. Without solar panel, that means its new 68Ah Odyssey battery will be 100% dead in 20days...
To be exact thats 68,000mAh batt div by / 141mA. Thats 486 hours... Or div by 24 hours = 20 days. But its not that simple. A battery thats around 50% discharged is unlikely to be start a motor in winter. So thats 10 days. And a less than full battery deteriorates fast. And in winter the battery may be less than 100% to begin with if you are doing short trips all the time. So maybe 7 days, and it wont start.
These is all quite 'normal' to many of these ramp vans. Hence the solar panel and charge controller I addeda few years back.
My investigation as to the exact cause went like this.
Clamp Amp meter that measures to 1mA accuracy, over battery cables. Reading falls to 141mA after 30 mins with the van locked up and bonnet up. Remove every last fuse and relay
one at a time and watch the meter. Which fuse made a difference? NONE! So Bugger. But one of these battery cables is not stock, it ONLY feeds the rear computer and the ramp/kneel system in the back behind the side panel. There ARE fuses there. Remove one and the residual current drops. They all feed the Rollx computer. This is pretty much identical to the ones in every make of dropped floor minivan. Guess what. It draws 119 mA on its own. And never fully sleeps. So the VAN takes an acceptable 22mA when off - which is normal.
That means it would be ok for a month or three undriven in winter. If no rolly entry system was fitted. So I am now fitting a REMOTE SWITCH with another radio button on the key fob. When I lock the van, this will allow me to also switch off the computer in the rear. So that the battery drain will drop from 141mA to just 22mA. It will go for 70 to 100 days before not starting instead of 10...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-12v-1CH-2 ... 0010.m2109So a fix... And its hard to believe this van is more than a month old. It looks and feels better than new. not only outside but underneath and engine bay and insde. And has various mods that improve it over a stock one. But it is now 12 years old. With 9k dry only summer miles! Never saw a wet road.