Dashhawk drain battery?

[montrealms3]

As the thread title states, can the Dashhawk drain the battery? All of my being tells me no, but I have had the DH on my car now for 2 weeks, it stays plugged in all the time and this weekend my battery started to die. I tried recharging my battery and it never fully charged, which tells me my battery is not doing well (it would only charge up to 2 amps, never got back to 0). I know the DH shouldn't do this, but I just want to make sure that others are doing the same as me (i.e. leaving it plugged in all the time, even with the car off) and aren't having any issues, so please let me know.

 

[shadrag]

Sounds like you just need a new battery, probably not related to the DH.

 

[montrealms3]

Yeah . . . that's what I was thinking . . . but the car isn't even two months old . . . guess I just got a bad battery . . .

Sorry about the dumb question . . . I was just worried that perhaps I didn't read something that would tell me to unplg the DH when the car isn't on . . . but I can't see it pulling that much juice anyways.

 

[numbnuts22715]

Its powered off when the car isnt turned on. I'm sure you jut have a bad battery. Ive left my car alone with the dashhawk plugged in for like a week without starting it, and when i went to start it the other day, it fired right up. I wonder if the battery wouldbe covered under warranty or something?
If itsonly 2 months old... thats weak.

 

[AutoXRacer]

Just FYI, DashHawk is powered as long as its connected to the OBDII port; its just in the sleep mode. You will see a difference in screen contrast if you unplug it. The ECU IIRC, wakes up every so often which in turn sets off the DashHawk (not the screen though)...

In any case, the DashHawk according to MSD, should not drain out the battery...though if I wasn't planning on driving my car for a while, I would disconnect it.

 

[jmhMS6]

I had my car sitting for weeks at a time this winter, the first 2 week period I had my dashhawk plugged in, and the battery had died. After that I left it unplugged and had no problems leaving the car sitting.

More to the point, they have had several threads related to this at the forums on the dashhawk site. It does use a lot of power where one person tested it and found the care to drain (This is where I forget the units) 15mAmp without dashhawk when the car was off and 75mA with Dashhawk plugged in

 

[montrealms3]

So, it is safe to say that if my battery wasn't very strong to begin with, that the DH may have had something to do with it draining quicker than normal . . . I know it isn't the root cause, but I am sure it didn't help. I'll head over to the DH forums to see what they say.

Thanks for your help!(bowdown)

 

[AutoXRacer]

DashHawk was supposed to change the sampling/waking up rates on the DashHawk to reduce or eliminate this concern... I wonder if they did it... (huh)

 

[Jays07MS3]

yeah the new 2.5 Beta is out that reduces the current draw in sleep mode even more. Haven't tried it yet though.

 

[montrealms3]

Just a quick update:

The battery had a crack in it . . . thus it dying prematurely . . . as for the obvious damage from the battery acid, I asked the dealer what they did about it and the service guy looked at me and said "Hold on a sec" and went in back to talk to the tech.. He then came back and told me that the next time I bring the car in they will sand and repaint whatever the acid touched that was metal . . . but I have to bring it in again . . . what a bunch of hackers!!