i left my camaro sitting in the garage over the winter because i had spun a bearing. when i went to kick on the stereo i realized the battery was totally dead. could a capacitor continue to pull power from the battery? also, when i disconnect my negative terminal and reconnect it after a couple minutes i get a nice spark from the terminal. could this mean that i may have a short pulling power from the battery draining into the car? thanks.

 

You need to measure the current with the car off. Got a DMM?

 

indeed i do

 

Disconnect battery, put it in line with the positive terminal and the disconnected positive cable with ALL the accessories off. Make sure the DMM is rated to handle 10 amps. When thats done see what happens. Under .5 amps is usually acceptable. If it's more though, try pulling fuses to see if that breaks the circuit that's causing the parasitic draw. Then diagnose from there.

 

check the battery itself also, leaving a battery alone in the cold without running it will drain the battery. cold is it's enemy.

 

just requesting someone with a little more dmm knowledge than myself to tell me how to connect the dmm to the battery to test for draw.

 

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As far as the cap draining the battery, that isn't the case, a capacitor basically stores a charge, once it has charged up, it will remain idle in the circuit not drawing any current. Its purpose in a system is to provide an additional source of current so that when your woofer pounds it doesnt suck the electrical system dry.

Does your car have keyless entry or a car alarm? devices such as this will remain in a standby mode drawing a bit of current, over time they will definately drain a battery.

 

big thanks recaroguy. been trying to find this with google for a couple days now. probably didnt use a decent keyword combination. i'll have to try it tomorrow as i got work in an hour or two.

 

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