Here is my dilema: I am kind of an audio "hobbyist", I have my 94 Loyale rigged up to put out some music. The problem is that my Loyale has a fantom electrical leak somewhere, to combat this I put in a simple switch that cut off the ground to my battery. This was all fine and dandy until I bought a 1.5 farad power capacitor to help supply power to my amp when needed. When I switch off the ground for my battery, the power is sucked from my capacitor (a storage unit for power which gives it up very quickly) and my capacitor drops in volts very quickly (not good for a capacitor). If I install a switch on the ground of my capacitor and turn that switch off before I switch off the battery, would the capacitor still drain? Any ideas? TIA

Here is my dilema: I am kind of an audio "hobbyist", I have my 94 Loyale rigged up to put out some music. The problem is that my Loyale has a fantom electrical leak somewhere, to combat this I put in a simple switch that cut off the ground to my battery. This was all fine and dandy until I bought a 1.5 farad power capacitor to help supply power to my amp when needed. When I switch off the ground for my battery, the power is sucked from my capacitor (a storage unit for power which gives it up very quickly) and my capacitor drops in volts very quickly (not good for a capacitor). If I install a switch on the ground of my capacitor and turn that switch off before I switch off the battery, would the capacitor still drain? Any ideas? TIA

i think the capacitor would still drain. from what i understand they don't hold a charge all that long anyway. but wouldn't the capacitor drain anyway when you shut off the car??(if the radio is wired as an accesory)... it sucks but the best solution is probably to solve the original problem.

it sucks but the best solution is probably to solve the original problem.

 

Here's my vote too!

Yeah, last night I took the ground wire off with the power wire still on and the cap drained. I did find out however that if the capacitor is off before I throw the master switch, the cap doesn't drain (the cap has an auto-turnoff feature after like 30 seconds). So my choices are either take apart the cap and see if I can tap into the relay that turns it on, or figure out the electrical leak in my car. I think I will devote a weekend to the latter, it would be nice to not have to turn that da|\/|n switch on and off all the time.

The capacitor should hold its charge if you remove the capacitor from the circuit with a switch. By disconnecting the ground or power lead there is no current path for the discharge to occur.

 

You should try to find the current drain by placing a test light in series with the negative battery lead. Start pulling fuses one at a time and when the light goes out you have found the path the current is being drained on. If you don't find it with any of the fuses check the alternator by disconnecting the leads to it. Sometimes the blocking diodes can go out and cause this problem.