Havis Charge Guard Issues

[KC4YIN]

I have a Charge Guard in my truck configured for DC mode and 30 minute power off delay.
I have recently been experiencing parasitic battery drains after the truck sits for 3 to 4 or more days.
Just curious to know if its possible for the Charge Guard to fail in such a way as to cause a parasitic drain.
The Charge guard does function normally as far as start delay and power off delay is concerned.
Thanks.

 

[toby1193]

I have a Charge Guard in my truck configured for DC mode and 30 minute power off delay.
I have recently been experiencing parasitic battery drains after the truck sits for 3 to 4 or more days.
Just curious to know if its possible for the Charge Guard to fail in such a way as to cause a parasitic drain.
The Charge guard does function normally as far as start delay and power off delay is concerned.
Thanks.

I had the same problem on my Toyota Sequoia. Nothing worked until I changed it from DC to IGN

 

[mmckenna]

I have a Charge Guard in my truck configured for DC mode and 30 minute power off delay.
I have recently been experiencing parasitic battery drains after the truck sits for 3 to 4 or more days.
Just curious to know if its possible for the Charge Guard to fail in such a way as to cause a parasitic drain.
The Charge guard does function normally as far as start delay and power off delay is concerned.
Thanks.

How is it wired?

Are you feeding the main power for the radio through the Charge Guard, or just using it to power an ignition sense on the radio?

I agree with Toby, if you are relying on the DC voltage to trigger, it's always going to be drawing something. I use Lind timers and always wire them to an ignition trigger circuits. Never had an issue, even when wiring radios direct to battery power and only using the radio ignition sense to the timer.

 

[jpb]

I did not have ignition sense anywhere near the rear of my vehicles where my ChargeGuard and radios are mounted. (The only fuse block with ignition power is in the engine compartment). I switched it to "AC". which means it detects the slight AC ripple/voltage change when the alternator is running. When I start the car, evereything fires up, and when the engine shuts off, the timer starts. Perhaps they have changed circuitry recently, but my ChargeGuard has a hard shutoff at 11.0 VDC if the battery gets too weak.

 

[wa8pyr]

I have a Charge Guard in my truck configured for DC mode and 30 minute power off delay.
I have recently been experiencing parasitic battery drains after the truck sits for 3 to 4 or more days.
Just curious to know if its possible for the Charge Guard to fail in such a way as to cause a parasitic drain.
The Charge guard does function normally as far as start delay and power off delay is concerned.
Thanks.

What's the main radio and is it wired directly to the battery?

We had an issue where vehicles were coming up with drained batteries after about the same amount of time (shut the car off Friday afternoon, and by Monday morning it was dead); turns out the cameras and stuff were wired through the Charge Guard, but the main part of the radio (APX6500) was wired direct to the battery. Even powered down (ignition sense or button push), the radio still drew just over 2 amps. Drained the battery neat as you please.

We ended up having to put a battery cutoff switch in the line between the battery and the radio; cleared it right up as long as the vehicle user remembered to shut off the switch.

In later installs they wired a relay with high-current contacts into the Charge Guard to automatically switch off the main radio when the Charge Guard shut everything else down.

 

[KC4YIN]

How is it wired?

Are you feeding the main power for the radio through the Charge Guard, or just using it to power an ignition sense on the radio?

I agree with Toby, if you are relying on the DC voltage to trigger, it's always going to be drawing something. I use Lind timers and always wire them to an ignition trigger circuits. Never had an issue, even when wiring radios direct to battery power and only using the radio ignition sense to the timer.

Main power as well as the ignition sense is fed through the Charge guard with a switch to turn off power to all equipment when the truck is in for service etc.
There is an XPR 5550 and an XPR 4550 and a PSR 600 scanner installed.

 

[KC4YIN]

Forgot to add that that power goes directly to the battery and grounds are located on the frame near each radio.

 

[KC4YIN]

What's the main radio and is it wired directly to the battery?

We had an issue where vehicles were coming up with drained batteries after about the same amount of time (shut the car off Friday afternoon, and by Monday morning it was dead); turns out the cameras and stuff were wired through the Charge Guard, but the main part of the radio (APX6500) was wired direct to the battery. Even powered down (ignition sense or button push), the radio still drew just over 2 amps. Drained the battery neat as you please.

We ended up having to put a battery cutoff switch in the line between the battery and the radio; cleared it right up as long as the vehicle user remembered to shut off the switch.

In later installs they wired a relay with high-current contacts into the Charge Guard to automatically switch off the main radio when the Charge Guard shut everything else down.

This is exactly what is going on here.
In brainstorming the issue I had the same idea to put a high current relay in just as you said in your last statement. In fact I already ordered one just to try and it will be here tomorrow. As soon as it warms up, will try it.

 

[KC4YIN]

I had the same problem on my Toyota Sequoia. Nothing worked until I changed it from DC to IGN

I had not considered ignition sense mode but will certainly try it first before I do anything else.
Just curious to find out exactly what's going on.
Thanks to everyone that replied. All of your advice is helpful and will report back on my findings as soon as it warms up.

 

[wa8pyr]

Main power as well as the ignition sense is fed through the Charge guard with a switch to turn off power to all equipment when the truck is in for service etc.
There is an XPR 5550 and an XPR 4550 and a PSR 600 scanner installed.

Being sort of an offshoot of the APX mobiles (especially the 5550), I suspect you’ve got exactly the same problem with the high-current side of the radio.

Definitely want to try the cutoff switch.

Ignition sense probably won‘t help, by the way. The issue is that ignition sense only shuts off the low-current side of the radio; the high-current side is always hot and sucking 2 amps continuously for whatever silly reason. This was exactly our problem; ignition sense was hooked up but didn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

The spec sheet gives .85 amps continuous as standby current draw, but repeated checks showed 2 amps, in multiple vehicles and multiple radios. Never could figure out why. However, even .85 amps will drain the battery pretty effectively, just not quite as fast. I’d definitely get the multimeter out and check the current draw; also look for any “power vampires” sneaking around.

 

[N4KVE]

I use a common 5 pin relay between the 12 volts, & main wiring to the radio. IGN sense energizes the relay to pass voltage to the radio. Sometimes I don’t drive my car for 2 weeks, & the battery is always strong. 2 cars ago, before I started using the relay, if the car wasn’t started every three days, the battery would be dead.

 

[Echo4Thirty]

on several vehicles we did, we had to switch them to ign to work properly. Then we found the ign line we were using would pulse about every minute or so and would then reset the charge guard timer.

 

[KC4YIN]

Well after a couple of days of thinking about it I decided to do the most logical thing and swapped out the Charge Guard with one a spare.
Only change one thing at a time. This spare was set up the same way, DC mode with 30 minute timer. Problem solved. Apparently the original charge guard did malfunction in some way to cause the battery drain. I had the Charge guard set up in DC mode for several years with no issue in two vehicles so I was pretty sure this one in the truck had failed. When we get through with our share of the approaching storm I'm going to put the original Charge Guard back in the truck and see if the problem returns just to verify. For now with the spare unit in place everything is functioning normally as it used to.
Thanks again for everyone's help.