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  1. #1
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    Battery goes down

    I'm wondering if there is a draw on the battery when my Dragon Fly is off. If I let my boat sit a couple of weeks the battery goes down . The Dragon Fly is hooked up direct to my starting battery. thanks for help !

  2. Honda / Raymarine Moderator Hickory Legend's Avatar
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    #2
    Might need a battery disconnect switch.
    The GPS might stay powered up.

  3. Member
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    #3
    I'll try that. Thanks Mr Hickory

  4. Member MonteSS's Avatar
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    #4
    Unit will not drain the batterey if it is turned off.

  5. Member
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    #5
    (I started this post)-- The only other things that I can think of that might draw are:
    1-115 Honda outboard-doubt it though
    2- A short but I would think that would blow a fuse
    I'm not much of an electrician ,but I can't figure it out and its driving me crazy !!!!!!!

  6. Member
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    #6
    Have you unplugged the Dragonfly between trips to see if you get the same battery drain?

  7. Member
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    #7
    I'm doing that now . However it takes a couple of weeks to significantly affect the battery and I'm always starting up before then. Yesterday I put Dragonfly& marine radio on a separate circuit with a switch on it

  8. Member
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    #8
    If you have a volt meter you can check for a parasitic current draw pretty easy. Most voltmeters will work you just need to make sure it has the ability to read amperage with the test leads. If you have more than about 50 milliamps of current flow with everything off you need to figure out where. I could explain it here but it might take a bit. If you Google "parasitic current draw test" there is lots of info.

    Since you installed a switch for the radio and the Dragonfly circuit it would only take about 5 minutes to do the test - if you have a voltmeter and you can get to the battery pretty easy.

  9. Member
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    #9
    I do believe that I read where there is a milliamp draw on the DragonFly series, I will have to see if it was in the setup instructions, I do believe that the manufacture recommends that the unit be disconnected if it was not going to be used for long periods of time.
    Jerry "Rat-L-Trap" Lehman
    Never Enough "Traps"
    Triton TR-21 Merc Optimax 225
    Living Life Large at Toledo Bend

  10. Member
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    #10
    Interesting !!! I put the Honda on a separate circuit and the battery went from 12.37 to 12.07 volts over 10 days . The Dragonfly was not connected so now I'm going to connect it and see if the battery goes down. I wish my tester read milli amps as someone suggested. I will read my my set up book and see if I can find the info on a constant draw. If you find more , please let me know. thanks

  11. Member
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    #11
    When you say you hooked up your Honda on a separate circuit - do you have a NMEA 2000 buss setup and is the power connected all the time. The NMEA 2000 buss draws power all the time and needs to be switched. Not sure if that might be an issue but I thought I would throw it out.

    I will probably get crap for this but you have to work with what you have so here goes. If you don't have a meter you can use a 12 volt test light (depending on what type it is and how much current it draws) or a regular old 12 volt light bulb that draws 1 to 1.5 amp (12 to 18 watts). If you disconnect the negative lead from the battery and use a set of jumper leads to connect the test light (or light bulb) between the negative battery lead and the negative battery terminal you should not illuminate the light with everything off. If it lights up, something is drawing power. The brighter the light the more it is drawing. Start disconnecting stuff until the light goes out.

    Same principle as a multimeter just instead of measuring current draw in Milliamps you are measuring it by the intensity of the light given off from the bulb (current flow through the bulb).

  12. Member
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    #12
    Thanks huntertn,I can handle that !