XPR 5550 power up

[RadioChief55]

Hi, I have a Mototurbo XPR 5550 in my work truck. If the truck sits for 4 or 5 days the battery is dead. If I pull the fuse on the radio and let it sit, the battery isn't dead. I know quite a few other work trucks with Motorola radios have this same issue. So a power cutoff was installed in the main power line off the battery. When the key is **** off, the relay opens and drops power to the radio on the content power line from the battery. The smaller wire for the ignition is on the same relay now. My problem is, when I start the truck, the Moto radio doesn't power up on it's own, I have to turn the power on with the button. (and I forget all the time) I also have a Kenwood radio on the same relay and it goes on with no issues. I looked in the CPU and didn't see an option to change to let it power up when power is restored to the unit. Any ideas how to do this through the CPU or any other way to get it to go on with the ignition and not kill my battery all the time? Thanks

 

[ramal121]

That sounds a lot like my work van. Radios and other equipment run off an aux battery with a master shut off. With power applied the Kenwoods' power up fine but the XPR 5550 would not. Now I could have run a separate constant B+ feed to the XPR and hooked the ignition sense lead as intended, but being low on my to-do list plus just being lazy this has not happened yet.

What I have found is you cannot apply power to both the B+ wire and the ignition sense at the same time and expect it to power on. What you need to do is delay the voltage on the ignition sense line by a couple of seconds. This allows the B+ wire to power up the microprocessor, gather its wits and recognize the ignition sense. In programming the default is "ignition and power switch" which is what you want.

I make a simple R/C delay timer mounted on the accessory connector to hold off the ignition sense lead for a bit and so far it has worked fine. I put this also on base radios that are remoted and hidden somewhere so when there is a glitch in the AC power the users aren't left in the lurch because radio failed to power on.

If you would like to pursue this I can look for the component values I used and what pins to plug into.

 

[RadioChief55]

That would be a help. I have the constant power and the ignition wire. So, if I put a delay on the ignition wire, it will give a few seconds for the power up of the constant power line and then the power up of the ignition line?

 

[RadioChief55]

I'm thinking this relay on the ignition wire will do the trick. Any thoughts?

https://www.amazon.com/Timer-Delay-...5166587&sr=8-3&keywords=delay+timer+relay+12v

 

[N4KVE]

I use a typical 5 pin relay for my radios. I also have a timer I set for 8 seconds, so there’s no chance the radio can come on while the engine is cranking. I do use an ign trigger wire too, but after the 8 second delay, both the relay controlling power to the radios, & the ign trigger get the juice at the same moment. All 3 radios XPR, & 2 XTL’s come on at the same time w/o pushing any buttons. Simply starting the car. Turning the key to off turns off all 3 radios.

 

[CanesFan95]

Am I reading this right. So basically the XPR5550 drains your car battery and that's just how it is? Why doesn't Motorola fix this?

 

[N4KVE]

In the past, when you turned the volume control. felt the click, & turned it louder to increase the volume, when the radio was off, it was off. But now, when you push a button to turn the radio on, the radio is partially on to know pushing the button is turning it on. When I went away on vacation with my previous car, I'd have to pull the fuse to not have a dead battery after my 10 day vacation. Of course, after 1, or 2 days of not driving the car, the car would still start. but with my current car, & the relay denying any juice to the radio, I don't have to pull the fuse.

 

[CanesFan95]

Yeah. I think they call that parasitic load, where devices use a little power even though they're (supposedly) off. I hate that. Gimme a hard physical on-off click that truly disconnects the power.

 

[N4KVE]

That's why I use the 5 pin relay.

 

[CanesFan95]

Dang, now I'm glad not having bought a 5550 after reading this.

 

[RadioChief55]

It's not just the 5550, we also have the same issue with MCS 2000.

 

[N4KVE]

Any radio that turns on with the push of a button, vs turning the volume knob.

 

[CanesFan95]

You would think these kind of radios should only be sipping milliamps, but I guess it adds up over 5 days.

 

[RightBatwing]

We had the same problem with multiple 5550's not sure if it its a 5550 specific problem but also techs often forget to turn them off when truck wasn't running and overnight it would kill the batt. especially if GPS ect. and screen brightness were on high. These were in multiple utility service vehicles (power trucks) and we installed ignition relays on all of them so the radio is only hot when the key is on. From now on that is the only way we install radios and electronics because of all the parasitic loads even when powered off.

 

[romanr]

You would think these kind of radios should only be sipping milliamps, but I guess it adds up over 5 days.

You are correct, it is only milliamps - about 250 milliamps in the case of the XPR5550 (if I recall my measurements correctly).
A couple of years ago (when I bought our first XPR5550) I started a thread on one of the "professional forums" asking if this was normal and I made a comment that I thought this was unreasonably high OFF state current drain. I got shot down and ridiculed for the comment - but I still feel it's a valid opinion.

 

[CanesFan95]

A quarter-amp just to make sure it knows to wake up when you hit the button? LOL.

 

[romanr]

A quarter-amp just to make sure it knows to wake up when you hit the button? LOL.

I share your opinion and THAT is almost the same comment that I made, but the "professionals" really shot me down for saying it. It's hard to rationalize that level of power consumption just to keep a modern microcontroller asleep, waiting for a button push.

Anyway, go measure it yourself and let us know if you get anything significantly different.

 

[Firebuff880]

Of course you can also do something like the shutdown timer to protect the battery --

Home | 12v Delay Timers | ACDC Industries Better than just an off switch as at times you want the hardware on..

Also, if you rather use a battery cutoff, bring the Radio / Devices to the cutoff but leave ignition sense wires on the ignition - From my experience I always had to cut on the cut off switch before I could climb in the drivers seat and start the vehicle.