"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
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On Fri, 12 Jul 2019 20:25:05 +0100, Rod Speed
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"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
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On Fri, 12 Jul 2019 18:55:20 +0100, Rod Speed
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"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
news On Fri, 12 Jul 2019 00:31:05 +0100, Rod Speed

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"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
news On Thu, 11 Jul 2019 23:43:38 +0100, Rod Speed

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"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
news On Thu, 11 Jul 2019 22:30:05 +0100, Rod Speed

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"Rod Speed" wrote in message
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"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
news On Sun, 23 Jun 2019 07:03:33 +0100, Xeno

wrote:

On 23/6/19 5:43 am, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 20:08:46 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Commander Kinsey" wrote in
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news On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 19:55:03 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Commander Kinsey" wrote in
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news On Sat, 22 Jun 2019 19:14:07 +0100, Rod Speed

wrote:

No news to me, boy.

He's probably as old as you.

He isnt.

I've met Bod and he's (I'm about to insult him most likely)
very
very
old
indeed. I'd have to guess 80 to 90.

Thats just the furious drunken grave dancing and flagrant
drug
abuse.

Smoking does make your face more wrinkly, but I'm sure he
told
me
his
age once.

For some reason I've always assumed you're about 70.

You're still wrong.

What is your age then?

And back on topic, I just bought a 16 amp 13.8V power supply,
that
ought
to keep the bloody frog car charged up. It's currently
maxing
out
my
2.5A supply all night, and still not starting in the morning.

That's telling you your battery is knackered. Try a high rate
discharge
test on it. You will see it fall over very quickly.

Wrong yet again. I've changed the battery twice. It's
consuming
power
overnight - presumably the alarm - I've actually measured up to
4
amps
(randomly, sometimes it consumes nothing) coming off the
battery
with
a
meter when all the fuses are pulled.

Sounds more like a wiring fault. An alarm shouldnt
ever take anything like that when its not sounding.

But if it's broken....

There is no fault in an alarm that would produce a result like
that.

I don't know enough about alarms to disagree, but couldn't it be
sounding
the alarm without noise as something is broken?

Nope. Its the sound that takes the current.
It if isnt sounding, there isnt the current.

A speaker with a short?

They normally use the car horn and you should be able
to check that that still works.

It does, I hoot at arseholes regularly. But I've not heard a car use
the
horn for an alarm since about the early 90s,

My 2006 Hyundai Getz does, because its the loudest thing in any car.

Loudest by what measure?

How obvious it is that the alarm is going off.

Maybe more watts, but the human ear will notice high pitched wails more.

Must be why all car horns have been replaced by high pitched wails.

and that was on a Morris Marina which had had one fitted aftermarket and
just borrowed the horn. They all make higher pitched noises now.

But those dont take the same current when they have failed

Dunno, I've never analyzed a failed alarm sounder.

I know how they work.

and there is no evidence that the alarm is being triggered
either. If it was, it wouldnt let you start it normally.

True.

And if it was the alarm, that should stop the car being started next
morning and you have said it does allow you to start fine.

The reason I suspect the alarm is it can use power when all fuses are
pulled.

But there is plenty of other stuff which still works with the fuses
pulled.

Like what?

Like the safety systems and the ECM and the starter.

The alarm doesn't run off an accessible fusebox to prevent the theif from
pulling the fuse.

But has an internal fuse so the car doesnt go
up in flames when the alarm system fails badly.

If you played your stereo into a shorted speaker, it would consume a
fair bit of power.

Its very unlikely to have a speaker for that even in a frog car.

As above, no car uses the horn nowadays.

Mine does.

But yours is cheap ****.

Wrong, as always.

You have heard an alarm sounding?

Yep, I have managed to set mine off when the seatbelt
didnt retract fully

I don't have that problem as I never use it.

I'm not that stupid even if you are.

and I slammed the door on the
buckle tong do the door didnt close properly.

Why on earth would that sound the alarm?

The car got got confused when it decided that the
door had closed and then opened again because
the latch couldnt grab the bit it normally grabs.

The door wasn't closed properly as you locked it up. It should be
detecting changes later on.

Too expensive and unreliable to monitor the lock mechanism itself.

They make high pitched wails like house alarms.

Mine doesnt. And there is no evidence that your alarm
is being triggered even with a false alarm because you
can start the car normally in the morning as you said.

And those sounders dont take the same current when they
have failed and are silent when the alarm is going off.

And you can trivially test that yours still
works by deliberately triggering the alarm.

Not sure how to make my alarm trigger.

Should be visible on youtube.

It's never tried to prevent me starting the engine though.

Yeah, it wont be an alarm fault.

Can be a real bugger to find if its a pinched wire somewhere if
it
isnt
obvious where a wire can be pinched like at one of the doors etc.

Surely a physical short like that would just burn out eventually.

Nope, 4A isnt enough to do that.

I can't see a loose wire doing that.

Its not a loose wire, its a wire jammed between two
pieces of metal with an edge cutting thru the insulation.

At some point it will either burn itself

Not with 4A it wont.

I would have thought a wire severed as you stated

I didnt say severed, I said pinched. The insulation pierced by the
metal edge with the conductor then shorted to the body of the car.

would use more than 4A.

Depends on the gauge of the wire and so the resistance
and how good the contact between the conductor and
the car body is.

Either that or part of it would become hot enough to stop being there
and
shorting.

4A thru the car body isnt going to get hot.

But the heat is in the area of the highest resistance, the point of
contact with the wire,

That isnt the point of highest resistance with a pinched wire.

Of course it is.

No it isnt.

If it wasn't then you'd get a huge current, whatever the wire could take,

Which isnt necessarily all that much with a sensor or switch wire.

which should blow a fuse.

Not when there are only a limited number of fuses with
most of the switches and sensors on a fuse or two.

so that bit burns out.

Nope, you are talking about arcing, not a pinched wire.

I'm talking about a current flowing through one or two of the strands of
wire.

Thats not necessarily going to be more than 4A with
a switch or sensor wire and plenty of stuff isnt fused
in the fuse box in a car.

or a fuse.

It cant be a fused line given that you still get
the battery flattened with no fuses installed.

Which means it has to be quite a heavy guage wire,

Nope, it may well be a relatively light gauge
wire and thats why it self limits at 4A.

No, the only wires connected before the fusebox supply the whole
fusebox,
so are heavy guage.

The wires that go to the stuff in the door arent heavy gauge.

Those are after the fusebox.

You dont know that with a frog car.

so a low amperage seems odd.

Not when it self limits at that when pinched.

Guess it could also be a failing electric window switch.
Electric windows do have limit switches for obvious
reasons and they do take something like 4A when
driving against the limit switch until you stop pressing
the button because you see the window at the limit.

Presumably it does have electric windows.

Yes it does, but the fault occurs with the fuse for the windows removed.

It's been doing it for 3 years. 4A at 12V is 48 watts, a lot of
power.
Think how hot a 48W bulb gets.

Thats with the entire 48W being dissipated in the
very small filament. With a pinched wire, thats
mostly going thru the metal of the car body.

Surely most heat would be where the resistance is highest, at the
pinch.

Nope, not with a decent pinch.

A decent pinch would take more than 4A.

You dont know that it is a decent pinch.

A poor pinch would make bad contact and burn out a few strands of wire.

Wrong, as always.

How long does the 4A last for ?

It can flatten the (new 50Ah) battery overnight.

Sure, but I was wondering if it was 4A all night or just in bursts.
You really need a proper data logger to see that, but just visual
inspection of the multimeter might be enough.

It's not continuously, as I've never seen it happen while I'm watching
the
meter.

Which presumably means that the car need
to cool down overnight to see it happen.

Now I have it on a charger, I have actually seen it take a high current
just after stopping the car, with the engine warm.

It's purely random.

Unlikely.

The only thing I've seen that seems to stop it is starting the car for a
few seconds.

So it wont be the alarm.

After more thought, I'd be checking the electric window switches
if its got electric windows.