Battery Drain after Pioneer 360 DAB radio fitted

[prthomas]

Hi, I fitted a Pioneer SPH-DA360DAB to my ducato based Dethleffs Trend last week. After leaving the van for a few days found the hab battery low and then noticed from the solar controller it is gradually losing charge every day. Only change is the new radio so must be that. I have taken it out now to check that this is correct.

Is the radio wired from the hab battery but not isolated by the hab electrics switch? The radio works regardless of the tab electrics being on or not. Also I assumed the radio was wired to the engine battery but this looks like I am wrong.

Any advice what to do? I don't really want to wire in a switch as no doubt I will forget, can I wire it to the engine electrics so it is only powered when the ignition is on?

 

[Jev88]

An after market radio typically has a red for permanent live (memory) and a yellow for ignition connected power - turn on radio.
Not sure if same still applies on modern canbus system.

Measure battery directly with radio connected and earth disconnected as rough guide to power it is sucking.

 

[Lenny HB]

Pioneers are famous for high battery drain in standby the only cure is to fit a switch in line with the main power feed to the unit.

 

[VXman]

Our pioneer runs off the hab battery. It's a newish van (2021) and came built like that. So it switches on at all times - constant live. However, as long as I switch it off
with the Pioneer on of switch it doesn't draw any power off the battery. Not that I've noticed anyway.

 

[Two on Tour]

An after market radio typically has a red for permanent live (memory) and a yellow for ignition connected power - turn on radio.
Not sure if same still applies on modern canbus system.

Measure battery directly with radio connected and earth disconnected as rough guide to power it is sucking.

I have just fitted a new Andriod headunit and yellow was a permanent feed and the red was the ignition switched.
I had to swap the yellow and red pins over to match the existing 12v feeds on our Peugeot Boxer.

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[Lenny HB]

I have just fitted a new Andriod headunit and yellow was a permanent feed and the red was the ignition switched.
I had to swap the yellow and red pins over to match the existing 12v feeds on our Peugeot Boxer.

Red and yellow wires the function varies between manufacturers but they always use yellow and red, wierd.

 

[Two on Tour]

Red and yellow wires the function varies between manufacturers but they always use yellow and red, wierd.

Which is why as I did that you need to check your van is using the same 12v constant and switched as your new unit rather than just assume they will be the same.

Mind you, I did upset the canbus for a while trying to get the steering wheel controls to work.

 

[prthomas]

Our pioneer runs off the hab battery. It's a newish van (2021) and came built like that. So it switches on at all times - constant live. However, as long as I switch it off
with the Pioneer on of switch it doesn't draw any power off the battery. Not that I've noticed anyway.

What pioneer model do you have? I can understand some residual current but it seems excessive on my model and i wonder if it is faulty or I need to change some settings. I have a vanbitz system too which is drawing some current for alarm and immobiliser but never any problem with that.

 

[Lenny HB]

What pioneer model do you have? I can understand some residual current but it seems excessive on my model and i wonder if it is faulty or I need to change some settings. I have a vanbitz system too which is drawing some current for alarm and immobiliser but never any problem with that.

As I said it's a known problem appears to be with most of the double DIN models. Carthago fit them as standard wired to to the starter battery it's well known if you don't turn off the media switch on the control panel with cuts the power to the unit you will often get up in the morning to a flat starter battery.

 

[VXman]

What pioneer model do you have? I can understand some residual current but it seems excessive on my model and i wonder if it is faulty or I need to change some settings. I have a vanbitz system too which is drawing some current for alarm and immobiliser but never any problem with that.

AVIC EVO1 DT2 C.

https://www.pioneer-car.eu/es/en/products/avic-evo1-dt2-c-gr

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[Drexxer]

I have just fitted a new Andriod headunit and yellow was a permanent feed and the red was the ignition switched.
I had to swap the yellow and red pins over to match the existing 12v feeds on our Peugeot Boxer.

Which Android head unit did you go for, does it support voice to text commands?

Thank's

 

[Ditcha]

Hi, I fitted a Pioneer SPH-DA360DAB to my ducato based Dethleffs Trend last week. After leaving the van for a few days found the hab battery low and then noticed from the solar controller it is gradually losing charge every day. Only change is the new radio so must be that. I have taken it out now to check that this is correct.

Is the radio wired from the hab battery but not isolated by the hab electrics switch? The radio works regardless of the tab electrics being on or not. Also I assumed the radio was wired to the engine battery but this looks like I am wrong.

Any advice what to do? I don't really want to wire in a switch as no doubt I will forget, can I wire it to the engine electrics so it is only powered when the ignition is on?

I bet even though the unit is turned off you can still connect to it via Bluetooth with your phone you can on ours so doesn't actually shut everything down.

 

[Two on Tour]

Which Android head unit did you go for, does it support voice to text commands?

Thank's

I bought a TS800 from Aliexpress.
It will do voice commands with an app to operate the unit.

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[Sapper520]

Our Pioneer Unit is only connected to the vehicle battery. However, it as a rocker ‘on / off’ switch to power the unit when the ignition is switched off.

Always leave that switch in the ‘off‘ position so hopefully no power drain……doesn’t appear to be, but we do have solar that charges both Leisure and Vehicle batteries anyway.

 

[prthomas]

I took more of a look today. The 12v constant and 12v switched for the radio is always on and wired to the hab battery. This is in regardless of the hab electrics switch.

I was thinking of adding a relay on the 12v switched which is triggered from the engine battery say via a tap into the 12v cigarette lighter power. Any thoughts on that?

Cheers, Peter

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[prthomas]

Also. One more question. Would i actually need a relay or can I tap the cigarette circuit 12v and connect as switched live for the radio?

 

[pappajohn]

If you turn the head off at the on/off switch there should be no drain.
If you just turn off with ignition switch it will still draw power.
The permanent live memory wire will draw a few milliamps.

It shuts down the inbuilt amplifier which is power hungry but leaves a lot of circuitry on.

If you fit a switch to this wire you need to rescan channels every time you switch back on.

 

[Ridgeway]

As I said it's a known problem appears to be with most of the double DIN models. Carthago fit them as standard wired to to the starter battery it's well known if you don't turn off the media switch on the control panel with cuts the power to the unit you will often get up in the morning to a flat starter battery.

And for the reason Lenny mentions we now have a simple cut out switch on the dash, off means it will only work with the engine on, and on means it will work as the demented Germans intended it to…..

By the way we now carry a set of jump leads

 

[the1andonly]

My pioneer on a Rapido had a separate dashboard mounted switch. It died and for the life of me couldn't find a dead fuse. The wires dissapeared behind the dash fusebox, no way was i going to remove that. I jury rigged power to the LB (12v socket on dash already converted) and lo and behold the radio burst into life , so permamently wired that way .
Eventualy noticed on the CBE unit was a music symbol, yes this was the blown fuse.
Ridgeway
we now have a simple cut out switch on the dash, off means it wont work with the engine on or off, and on means it will work as the demented Welshman intended it to…..
By the way we always carried a set of jump leads

 

[Googlebot]

Had the same issue.

I changed it to draw from the leisure battery. I have a shunt so could see what was happening.

It was drawing an amazing 1.4amps on standby with the screen blanked and switched off. When on it barely used more which is quite a feat. Even unused it was eating the 200ah of power I have rapidly.

I ended up putting a rocker switch in the dashboard, when I am not using it, it’s switched off and no more issues.

The permanent live doesn’t draw much at all, so little I couldn’t measure the difference. The switches live however, is the death knell for batteries if not switched off.

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[VXman]

The permanent live doesn’t draw much at all, so little I couldn’t measure the difference. The switches live however, is the death knell for batteries if not switched off.

The permanent live should just be to maintain settings, programme memory etc.

In my opinion it is best wired to the leisure battery ( as Burstner models such as mine are) as then you can use it easily when parked up.

 

[prthomas]

I thought of rewiring just the switched live to the engine battery and leaving the constant live and ground as is. Will that cause a problem or is the ground common for engine and hab - I have a B2B installed. I tested the ground circuits and it seemed weird that sometime open circuit and sometimes closed - but maybe that was me.

 

[Sandancers]

I thought of rewiring just the switched live to the engine battery and leaving the constant live and ground as is. Will that cause a problem or is the ground common for engine and hab - I have a B2B installed. I tested the ground circuits and it seemed weird that sometime open circuit and sometimes closed - but maybe that was me.

It should be fine to do that.

I re-wired a Pioneer double din permanent feed into the hab batteries and used an ignition wire (via a relay, but only as I added a timer circuit to it) as the "switched" power supply. No noticeable power drain at all.

 

[MichaelT]

Our dethleffs has a 3 way rocker switch, up to run off cab battery, middle off and bottom for hab battery when on site.

 

[prthomas]

I thought of rewiring just the switched live to the engine battery and leaving the constant live and ground as is. Will that cause a problem or is the ground common for engine and hab - I have a B2B installed. I tested the ground circuits and it seemed weird that sometime open circuit and sometimes closed - but maybe that was me.

An update to conclude this thread. Once i sorted out the wiring polarity all was fine. So i wired off the 12v for the cigarette lighter to switched live for the head unit. Pretty easy access to the back of the cigarette lighter socket - just one screw under the cup holder.

I was considering a timer relay for controlling the constant live, but we don’t really use the radio when stationary anyway so didn’t bother.

All is working well now. No noticeable drain from the constant live either.

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