In Car Charging

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May 2, 2009
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I'd like to leave my 730T hooked up in the car but when I do the recharging green light is on. I don't have a switched outlet. This must be draining the car's battery. How much current does the 730T use to stay charged?

Do you think I could leave it in the car for four or five days and not have to worry about a dead battery or should I remove the 730T and take it into the house every time I garage the car?
 
Once the device is fully charged the load on the cars electrics will drop to around 100mA but that will still extract about 13A/Hr from the battery over five days which is quite a lot, I would take the device in the house so as not to flatten the battery and also less chance of theft (even in the garage its not 100% safe) - Mike
 
I would think a bigger concern is leaving the device in the car in the first place, even a closed garage.

That said, I would think it is possible over time for a battery to drain if connected to an electronic device. I wouldn't think a 'healthy' battery would get drained in only a couple of days but tomtom is not really 'off' when shut down, it is still using some power

I certainly stand to be corrected on this post, btw!! ;)
 
It sounds like you're both suggesting that I remove the TomTom and take it to the house where it sits in its charging cradle by my computer. That's probably the best thing to do. Thank you both for your input.
 
Check your car manual. Some cars will shut off power to the lighter plug when the battery gets to a certain point..
 
As I mentioned in my original post, I don't have a switched outlet.
Understood - but what he was saying is that some vehicles will kill even your unswitched outlet if the vehicle battery drops to a certain level. It's a way of keeping people from killing the vehicle battery with plugged in accessories that they might forget to turn off.

I was pleased to see that my wife's new vehicle included 1 switched and 1 unswitched side by side.

Mike's right, BTW. 100mA doesn't sound like a lot, but it will kill a car battery over time. I'm the designer for a product that takes 105mA of vehicle juice when in its "sleep" state, and we've had public agency vehicles left to sit for a week that were taken down easily. We TELL them to hardwire them to the SWITCHED side of the ignition, but think they listen?
 
Understood - but what he was saying is that some vehicles will kill even your unswitched outlet if the vehicle battery drops to a certain level. It's a way of keeping people from killing the vehicle battery with plugged in accessories that they might forget to turn off.

I was pleased to see that my wife's new vehicle included 1 switched and 1 unswitched side by side.

Mike's right, BTW. 100mA doesn't sound like a lot, but it will kill a car battery over time. I'm the designer for a product that takes 105mA of vehicle juice when in its "sleep" state, and we've had public agency vehicles left to sit for a week that were taken down easily. We TELL them to hardwire them to the SWITCHED side of the ignition, but think they listen?

I guess I'll need to check the owner's manual to see if the switched outlet has a "fail safe" function built in. I really don't know.
 
I thought you wanted to check for a fail safe shut off of the unswitched outlet.


I think I got my terms mixed up. The one-and-only outlet I have is always ON. So when I turn the car off there's still power going to the TomTom and draining the battery. I'll just have to take it out of its cradle and back into the house at night when I know I won't be using the car for a few days.
 

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