Omega Owners Forum
Omega Help Area => Omega Electrical and Audio Help => Topic started by: diesel16 on 10 January 2011, 08:03:38
-
I have an Omega B 2.0DTi estate with battery drain problems and I am running out of ideas. When the car ‘goes to sleep’ there is a 215mA drain. I have replaced the battery, isolated the starter, alternator, and then proceeded through all the fused circuits. Here comes my confusion, on the fuse board below the steering wheel if I remove fuse 12 or 20 I get a very slight reduction, when fuse 12 is removed after a few seconds the cabin blower starts at full blast and then reduces to slow and continues to run. When both fuses are removed together the drain drops to a few mA’s and the fan stops. I also have a airbag light, whether this is related I haven’t got that far.
When locking the car normally all lights and displays extinguish, vanity and glove box lights are off, removing radio has no effect.
Running out of ideas, can somebody find me some inspiration.
Many thanks in advance.
-
dose it have an amp fitted ?? have you checked the arial amplifier??
dose the light go out after doors are locked?
there are alot of stuff that can use the battery up
have you tryed removing all fuse's or have you had a meter on battery to find power drop time
alarm and immoboliser will use power when locked,
-
isn't this a powersounder issue??? check the maintainance guides and see how to disconect it and then see if it is still deraining
-
Welcome to the forum. :y
Do bear in mind that there is a timer that continues to power some of the accessories for a few minutes after closing all the doors. It might be worth closing the car up with an ammeter on the battery, then go and have a cup of tea. If it's still drawing 200 mA when you come back, I'd say you have a problem. You may find it's dropped to an acceptable level, though.
If you do have a problem, it's really going to be a process of disconnecting devices until you find the problem. The power sounder is a good place to start, but get yourself a wiring diagram and work through each of the large fuses in the engine bay, then, when you have found the offender, start on the smaller fusebox fuses that are fed from it, until you find the circuit that's causing the problem.
Kevin
-
Thanks for the replies guys, powersounder is already gone and all lights, extinguish as they should. The drain quoted is after leaving the car for a couple of hours with the ammeter in line with the battery. I haven't looked at the aerial amplifier, would this not power down with the radio removed? The isolating of fuses in order is the process I employed but as I say it is not cleared by one fuse. I have to remove either the two right hand large fuses in the engine bay or fuse 12 and 20 together under the steering wheel to drop the bulk of the drain to 15/20mA which I think is acceptable for a 'sleeping' alrm system. James.
-
Thanks for the replies guys, powersounder is already gone and all lights, extinguish as they should. The drain quoted is after leaving the car for a couple of hours with the ammeter in line with the battery. I haven't looked at the aerial amplifier, would this not power down with the radio removed? The isolating of fuses in order is the process I employed but as I say it is not cleared by one fuse. I have to remove either the two right hand large fuses in the engine bay or fuse 12 and 20 together under the steering wheel to drop the bulk of the drain to 15/20mA which I think is acceptable for a 'sleeping' alrm system. James.
If standard radio fitted, Yes, if aftermarket radio badly fitted, then possibly not.
-
F20 is fed by one of the jumbo fuses you removed.
F12 is fed by the other.
F20 feeds Alarm/Central Locking, rear seat heating, sunscreen motor.
I would expect a bit of drain through this fuse due to the alarm.
F12 feeds a whole host of stuff
Diag connector, hazard light switch, instrument panel, MID/CID/GID, Climate Panel, alarm feed to turn signal relay, Radio, Telematics, Interior lamp, Seat memory.
Kevin
-
2 Questions:
1st to diesel16 , what stereo do you have fitted ?
2nd, to everybody else, and apologies for the can of worms here, but what is an acceptable current drain in the Omega ?
-
2nd, to everybody else, and apologies for the can of worms here, but what is an acceptable current drain in the Omega ?
There is an "official" statement in TIS somewhere which I will try to locate. I think it mentions 80mA as being the figure above which there's a problem. I'm trying to remember what I've measured in the past. :-/
Kevin
-
2nd, to everybody else, and apologies for the can of worms here, but what is an acceptable current drain in the Omega ?
There is an "official" statement in TIS somewhere which I will try to locate. I think it mentions 80mA as being the figure above which there's a problem. I'm trying to remember what I've measured in the past. :-/
Kevin
Thought that there would be an "official" figure somewhere - I know it can vary considerably from vehicle to vehicle, and some vehicles, BMW X5 for example, do not appear to be able to tolerate ANY form of drain whatsoever - in fact its now advised when fitting external multimedia to them that all memory supplies are put on a relay as even the backup drain from a DVD player remembering where the disc stopeed is enough to send them over the edge.
Of course, a "real car" like the Omega is man enough to take a bit more punishment than that - but just curious as to what the "official" line was.
-
Hi Dave DND, The radio is the standard factory fit that came in the car, radio and single CD drive.
-
Hi Dave DND, The radio is the standard factory fit that came in the car, radio and single CD drive.
That doesn`t really help - every stereo fitted to every car at the time of production is a "standard" one
My database has over 60,000 different models of "standard" stereo - which makes it a little difficult to work out which one you have?
CDR2005? Delco or VDO? Have you tried to remove it, and checked the drain then?
-
Thanks for the replies guys, powersounder is already gone and all lights, extinguish as they should. The drain quoted is after leaving the car for a couple of hours with the ammeter in line with the battery. I haven't looked at the aerial amplifier, would this not power down with the radio removed? The isolating of fuses in order is the process I employed but as I say it is not cleared by one fuse. I have to remove either the two right hand large fuses in the engine bay or fuse 12 and 20 together under the steering wheel to drop the bulk of the drain to 15/20mA which I think is acceptable for a 'sleeping' alrm system. James.
If standard radio fitted, Yes, if aftermarket radio badly fitted, then possibly not.
The feed for the aerial amplifier on the Omega also seems to go to the information display which blanks the middle line ready to display text from the radio (and wakes up the display if the ignition is off).
If the display isn't lit up then I would be reasonably confident that the aerial amplifier wasn't powered up either. (with the proviso that 'never make assumptions, assume makes an ass out of me and U')
-
Thanks for the replies guys, powersounder is already gone and all lights, extinguish as they should. The drain quoted is after leaving the car for a couple of hours with the ammeter in line with the battery. I haven't looked at the aerial amplifier, would this not power down with the radio removed? The isolating of fuses in order is the process I employed but as I say it is not cleared by one fuse. I have to remove either the two right hand large fuses in the engine bay or fuse 12 and 20 together under the steering wheel to drop the bulk of the drain to 15/20mA which I think is acceptable for a 'sleeping' alrm system. James.
If standard radio fitted, Yes, if aftermarket radio badly fitted, then possibly not.
The feed for the aerial amplifier on the Omega also seems to go to the information display which blanks the middle line ready to display text from the radio (and wakes up the display if the ignition is off).
If the display isn't lit up then I would be reasonably confident that the aerial amplifier wasn't powered up either. (with the proviso that 'never make assumptions, assume makes an ass out of me and U')
Other Vx models, particularly Corsa and Astra can do wired things to the info display if the internals of the aerial base have gone short circuit - still draws current, but will not necessarily power on. Omega has a different style of aerial amp, but theory may still be the same?
:-/
-
Thanks for the replies guys, powersounder is already gone and all lights, extinguish as they should. The drain quoted is after leaving the car for a couple of hours with the ammeter in line with the battery. I haven't looked at the aerial amplifier, would this not power down with the radio removed? The isolating of fuses in order is the process I employed but as I say it is not cleared by one fuse. I have to remove either the two right hand large fuses in the engine bay or fuse 12 and 20 together under the steering wheel to drop the bulk of the drain to 15/20mA which I think is acceptable for a 'sleeping' alrm system. James.
If standard radio fitted, Yes, if aftermarket radio badly fitted, then possibly not.
The feed for the aerial amplifier on the Omega also seems to go to the information display which blanks the middle line ready to display text from the radio (and wakes up the display if the ignition is off).
If the display isn't lit up then I would be reasonably confident that the aerial amplifier wasn't powered up either. (with the proviso that 'never make assumptions, assume makes an ass out of me and U')
Other Vx models, particularly Corsa and Astra can do wired things to the info display if the internals of the aerial base have gone short circuit - still draws current, but will not necessarily power on. Omega has a different style of aerial amp, but theory may still be the same?
:-/
I have only owned saloons with the aerial amp kept nice and dry under the parcel shelf.
Am I right in thinking that the estate has a roof mounted aerial with the amplifier in the base (like the Corsa & Astra) ?
-
I think the estate version is just a GSM aerial ?
But not sure what electronics may be lurking within the base ?
-
I have an Elite 3.0 mini-facelift, my quiescent current drain is about 35mA, pulsing up a few mA when the alarm LED flashes every couple of seconds.
-
Here are my own measurements on an Opel Omega B 2.0 16V year 1998 with the following equipment:
- X20XEV gas engine
- manual transmission
- central locking
- 4 x electrical windows
- 4 x airbag
- sunroof
- automatic 2-zone airconditioning
- aftermarket Pioneer radio
- NO car alarm
- NO rear sunscreen
- NO rear leveling
Here are two measurement steps I took with stage-by-stage results (the two are actually very similar, you will see the difference yourself in steps 8 and 9):
Measurement 1:
1. car off, key extracted, doors closed (0.03 A)
2. insert key (0.03 mA)
3. turn key to position I (0,13 A)
4. turn key back to position 0 (0,13 A) (I did this just to see what would happen, you can skip this stage)
5. turn key to position II (contact, system wakes up) (fluctuates roughly between 3.0 A and 8.0 A)
6. turn key back to position I (30 to 60 seconds at 0,80 mA because the system is still awake; when it goes to sleep it drops to 0.23 A)
7. turn key to position 0 (still 0.23 A)
8a. extract key (0.13 A)
9a. open and close door (open door: 1.26 A; when closed, 5 seconds at 0.78 A since cabin lighting is ON, then drops to 0.03 A)
Measurement 2:
1. car off, key extracted, doors closed (0.03 A)
2. insert key (0.03 mA)
3. turn key to position I (0,13 A)
4. turn key back to position 0 (0,13 A) (I did this just to see what would happen, you can skip this stage)
5. turn key to position II (contact, system wakes up) (fluctuates roughly between 3.0 A and 8.0 A)
6. turn key back to position I (30 to 60 seconds at 0,80 mA because the system is still awake; when it goes to sleep it drops to 0.23 A)
7. turn key to position 0 (still 0.23 A)
8b. open and close door (open door: 1.34 A; when closed, immediately drops to 0.13 A because cabin light goes OFF instantly since key is still in)
9b. extract key (drops to 0.03 A)
0.03 A (which is 30 mA) is that ideal/normal idle current draw a car like this should have. All the measurements were done on the 20 A setting
on the multimeter which means that miliampere measurements are only exact to within one-hundredth of an ampere. 0.03 A displayed on the multimeter can
therefore mean 30 mA or 39 mA. The actual exact value is somewhere in between. I did not do an exact mA measurement since this was exact enough.
So what is important to note is that if I park the car, turn it off, then exit it and leave the key in the ignition, the current drain will stay
rather high at 130 mA which is over 4 times as much as if I remove the key completely ! This test was carried out on a cold car that has been parked
for days. It is possible that if the test was carried out on a car that just returned from a drive and was still hot, the ammount of time after which
the system goes to sleep would be higher than 30 to 60 seconds. The current the system draws while awake could also be higher than 0.8 A since some
additional sensor could be active which was not active in my case when the car (engine) was cold. For example some temperature sensor controlling
and deciding whether the big fan in front of the engine should run again or not. I would imagine she system could keep this sensor active for longer
than 60 seconds after the car was turned off in hot summer days and that would also use more current. Whether the car doors were locked or not was
apparently not important in my case. Perhaps that would be important in the car had a car alarm in which case it would use more current when locked
because the alarm would be active.
Again, these are the measurements on my particular Omega but yours should be very similar. The idle drain should be around 30 mA to 50 mA on a
high-end Omega with car alarm. Anything over that, especially over 120 mA would mean something is wrong. Either something doesn't turn off or some
relay is bad or the computer control unit is bad (doesn't tell the relay to switch the circuit off after 60 seconds or so).
I also checked my alternator while I was at it. I connected my voltmeter to the battery which read 12.4 V when connected to the car and the car was off.
Then when I cranked the car, voltage momentarily dropped to 10.3 V. That's still OK. If it would drop bellow 10 V, or to around 9 V or less, that
would mean that although the battery still has good voltage (12.4 Vor even 12.7 V), it does no longer have enough power to do it's job in the car.
It is probably old and needs to be replaced. After the car was running, the voltage went up to 14.25 V. That's the voltage the alternator is putting
out to recharge the battery. When I turned on the lights it dropped to 14.14 V and when I turned on the airconditioning it dropped to 13.95 V.
So that would be the voltage my alternator was at when I was driving around. It's actually pretty good, especially since I mostly take short drives
in the city. Otherwise the alternator voltage should be between 13 V and 14 V.
Hope this info helps you guys.