Have had battery drain down overnight the last two nights. Have an 07 Ram Mega Cab 1500 with 5.7 Hemi with auto in a Laramie Package, which I bought new 7 years ago. Did a parasitic current draw test with amp meter on a disconnected positive battery lead and found a 2.0 amp draw at Fuse 11, IOD (Ignition Off Draw) and a .75 amp draw at Fuse 36 (Audio_Amp). There is a parasitic draw of .24 amps that I can't find, so assume it may be normal for the ECM or some such. Does this indicate there may be a defective radio or both a defective radio and amplifier? Any insight into this would be appreciated. I realize there could be any number of ignition off components that are defective but since the audio amp was involved also figured it might be the radio. Electronics for sure isn't my strong suit. Thanks for any replies.

 

Have the battery LOAD tested at an auto parts store.... most do it free..

because a 5 amp draw should take 48 hours to kill a truck battery... not overnight...

 

Did a load test of 100 amps for 30 sec. with a Harbor Freight Battery Load Tester on a 2.5 year old Interstate battery after it was on a 4amp charge for 4 hours. Battery registered 12.2 volts after the draw down. Don't think it is the battery. There certainly shouldn't be a 3 amp draw from the two fused circuts, so believe that to be the culprits. Thanks for your reply!

 

Question.. do you have intermittent head light issues?

the electronic fuse box on some years has issues.. and sometimes the lights will turn ON even with the truck OFF and light switch OFF...

because a 650 amp hour battery = 650 amp for one hour
or
1 amp for 650 hours... in theory

I am NOT saying You are wrong... but a second test by a second tester may be in order.

but to drain a fully charged battery in 8 hours ... is lots of power.

 

Have not experienced intermittent headlight issues, nor high beam indicator light flickering as someone mentioned in a search I did for this issue on one of the other forums. My 6 disc CD changer did a lot of cycling and goofy stuff when I turned the ignition on after doing the parasitic load test and removing the fuse and took awhile to reboot or whatever and finally start producing sound from CD and radio after a little messing around with it.
Battery wasn't fully drained, it would light the underhood light weakly and the starter solenoid would click, so it must have had some life left in it.

 

I know from other posts that there is a good amount of draw right after any activity in the truck. Hook up your amp meter, and let the truck sit. Check the reading every 15 minutes for an hour. Every time you disconnect the battery, this can re-set that clock. This may eliminate one or more of the circuits and narrow down your search.

 

The .24A draw is the only one that seems right. Two amps is WAY too much.

 

Thanks to all who have replied. Buggsy, you were correct. I drove the truck over 100 miles today, after having left it on a battery charger overnight. No issues, all seems to work fine, drove with headlights on. I noticed the battery charger was down to 1 amp this morning at 6:30am. At 12:30pm when I left, it was at 4 amps. What the???? So, when I got home, I super cleaned the battery terminals and connections, (they weren't corroded since I had sprayed them with Permatex purple battery connection spray when the battery was new. Then I hooked the amp meter up to the negative terminal and left it hooked up with jumpers. Had the initial 3.0 amp draw, then it slowly, after 10 min. or so went down to .04 amps after everything had shut down. I checked the battery voltage with both the battery load tester and my amp meter before and after the next load test which was 100 amps for 30 seconds. Battery drew down to 10.5 volts during test, then rose immediately back to 12.2 volts and slowly achieved 12.6 volts. Same voltage with both meters before and after the test. Engine started fine afterwards. I'm shaking my head on this one.