Friends 2010 Escape windows retain power allowing them to be rolled up after key off and before the door opened.
Supply power to radio only when car is running?
- Thread starter jnojr
- Start date
Friends 2010 Escape windows retain power allowing them to be rolled up after key off and before the door opened.
Yeah, I learned a long time ago on tapping into wires...even relying on the manual, I have found out that single wire may have other connections, and uses. I once tapped into a wire that was supposed to be on with key, but when I opened the passenger door the left high beam light came on!
I purchased a LIND inverter a few years ago, because I was going to buy an old beater car for down here at the lake, but the day I went to buy it, they sold it before I got there.
I ended up giving it to my sister for one of her vehicles. LIND has some great items! Good luck!
Same...
Our Jeep after you exit the car, and lock the vehicle, after a few hours all items powered have no power to them. I sat in the car, after I locked it once just to see. It does the same if you do not lock the doors too.
Even the cigarette lighter outlet that is hot, and not on the switch has no power. Now, the trunk inverter, is after market and is not wired in line with the battery tender I have wired up to a relay that when the key is off the inverter goes off. We only use the inverter on trips for the fridge for meds. Normally the inverter is shut off at the switch on the inverter when the fridge is not in the Jeep.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
"Retained Accessory Power". AKA: RAP. Most modern vehicles have it. It's useful for triggering radios. One of the few places I agree with tapping existing vehicle wiring.
2017 and 2018 F-350's have a dedicated "ignition" circuit taped off behind the passenger side kick panel. It's specifically provided for this sort of use. I think they are fused at 5 amps. I've used it on my work truck and my personal truck for triggering the Lind timer.
Most of our patrol cars have them. The upfitter also installed a small momentary push button that sends 12v to the timer to reset it. Kind of handy for the officers if they are sitting in the car and the timer times out. As long as they don't do it too many times, we've never had an issue.
So a lot of discussion has graced these pages. Bottom line is a Lind relay/timer is an industry standard for police/fire/ambulance and it has an adjustable timer to turn your stuff off after 10min or 30min or a couple of hours if you wish with no power draw after its off. A simple relay as some have suggested has no timer. A hams brain can't focus on turning off a radio every time so they are doomed to have a dead car battery. Find a Lind timer relay on eBay cheap and you will have what the big boys use and you will be happy. Anything else, not so much.
robertwbob
KE0WRU
and week later if you actually forget ,unless you have weak battery ,your vehicle will start. they dont draw any more juice than the computer does in a modern vehicle
paulears
Member
I find it odd that any ham would have issues with a 12V relay, energised from any car circuit only active when ignition is on. Surely this is a ten minute job, and at most 5 wires?
Certainly if that ham can understand the content of the test that they took to become a licensed amateur radio operator. As an aside, timer control relays have bee used in industry for many years. While the Lind that was mentioned earlier in the thread is well regarded by the pro oriented folks here, it wouldn't take much effort to find a suitable alternative if the Lind weren't available.
The problem with using the relay method, SOME radios get pissy when they are on and the starter is cranking and will reset due to voltage drop, or some vehicle circuits will kill accy circuits when cranking.
The beauty about the Lind timers, they don’t require a switched trigger wire. They will power on when they sense the voltage increase from the charging system, and also trigger the shut down timer when that charging voltage goes away.
This also helps smooth out your system draw as well.
The beauty about the Lind timers, they don’t require a switched trigger wire. They will power on when they sense the voltage increase from the charging system, and also trigger the shut down timer when that charging voltage goes away.
This also helps smooth out your system draw as well.
nd5y
Member
Have you actually measured how much current various radios draw when turned off?
- Joined
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The part that does that is not reliable for many of us and did not come with a warrantyWhat a novel concept...and so simple.
I had this with the FTM400 in my last vehicle, but my Silverado doesn't do this with my NX-5K decks. It's not uncommon for me to go get gas or a coffee and come back, restarting the vehicle with no radio reboot. It may be both the radio, and the fact that this car was done right (4GA to a BlueSea fuse block). The use of ignition sense really is a godsend.
Is it a common problem when restarting that these ignition timers drop power?
Most commercial Kenwoods have auto ignition sense and power off timers built in , in addition to yellow wire ignition trigger. Sounds like you have the if sense enabled.
All my vehicles have Lind timers and they all work off the voltage sense. I haven’t wired any of them to use the trigger wire for activation. Think of it as a soft start circuit.
Some Motorolas still require power all the time to hold scan lists, and we get some issues where customers come in complaining about dead batteries and their mechanic says the radio is draining the battery, but when parasitic draw tests are confirmed to match the factory specs.
To appease, we will send back to Depot and 9/10 times the decks are returned with “ no fault found”
^THIS!The part that does that is not reliable for many of us and did not come with a warranty
If you are someone who never ever EVER forgets to "turn off the radio", then good for you. I am not one of those people, and someone on the Internet admonishing me that I SHOULD remember won't make that happen.
I have a Lind timer in my truck. It's great. I normally park and shut off the truck then reach down and turn off the radio and scanner. There have only been one or two times in the past year that I started the truck and the scanner came on (Ooops! Forgot to shut it off!) but I like having the security that if I do forget and leave them on I won't come back to a dead battery the next time I want to drive the truck, which might not be for several days. Yes, I understand that a scanner or ham radio that is just receiving doesn't draw much current. But "not much" is not "zero".
"You should be able to put in a relay since you're a ham" has also been mentioned. But I *want* the scanner/radio to stay on when I shut the truck off, whether it's for 10 seconds so I can shut down the scanner so it writes to the SD card, for five minutes while I pump gas or run into the store, or for 15 or 20 minutes when I'm sitting waiting for someone. A relay won't do that since it will open immediately when the engine is shut off.
I think the Lind timer is a great option and I highly recommend it. If you feel a different solution is better, then by all means use it instead.
I swear there are times when I feel like I fell asleep reading RR and woke up on QRZ ....
All the Lind timers I’ve used had a switched trigger wire.
Yes, but at least with the one I have that's optional. It works just fine without one.
Correct, but they don't have to be hooked up and will voltage sense off the alternator for trigger and shut down timer.
Instructions
rescuecomm
Member
You haven't lived if you have not experienced a dead car battery at a mountain top repeater site. A Motrac transmitter power supply did the trick in three hours.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Easy way to address this is to power the radios directly off the battery and use the Lind timer to trigger the ignition sense leads. Since the older Motorola radios I've owned did not have internal timers, this gave me what I needed.
Never had an issue with dead batteries in any of my vehicles caused by radios wired this way.
