I live in New York City and my car is it in a communal garage. After roughly three years my moronic landlord feels the electricity from my trickle charger is costing him money so he decided to cut down my wire that was tapped into his light fixture so I now have no trickle charger. I offered to pay him extra but you can't reason with him and choking him probably would not be a great idea.
My battery is pretty new and my charging system is fine so I can go a few weeks and the car will start but after four or five weeks my car was dead and I had to jump start at today. I can't imagine continually draining the battery would be good for it. I would get a quick release and disconnect the battery but I have a pioneer double din radio with a bunch of different settings that would be a pain to reset up each time I use the car. Can anybody suggest something that would save my radio stations even if I have to have it professionally installed so I can disconnect the battery or any other ideas?

 

 

I know the peace you talkin about, unfortunately they don't last very long. I'm looking for something that would last weeks or a month.

 

 

My car is in a cement bunker so that really will not work LOL. I came up with two different ideas. First, I will hook up the power wire to the stereo in front of the disconnect switch so it will remain hot. I also think I'm going to have a conversation with my landlord LOL.

 

Splice into your 12v and ground wire off your stereo. Run 2 leads down to your passenger side floor. Have female spade terminals on each. Pick up a 12 volt 10 amp hour battery. Something like this, but 10amp.

plug your 12v lead and - lead on the battery and disconnect your car battery. Fully charged the extra battery will be about 14.6 or so. But be careful, they get hot fast if you rapid charge them, need to watch it. I have 3 of these in my sons power wheel. 2 to run the car and 1 for the cd player and led lights. Have his 2 wired in series that run the car to push out 29 volt when both are fully charged. Hope that helps you.

 

I guess that's similar to what I was told to do by my stereo guy today. They're going to tap into my radio power wire and I'll hook it direct to the battery with a switch on it.

 

The draw on it shouldn't be much at all, you can throw a meter on it and determine how much. Usually a radio can drop below 12v and stay functional. Around 11.3 or 11.4 is when i need to recharge the 1 in my sons power wheel. Hope it works out bud.

 

Thank you very much for your guru insite.

 

Started doing car radio/stereo at 14, then did that plus remote starters / alarms professionally for 6 years. Moved to NC for a year to work on all the installation of electronics in state trooper cars. Ill help out where i can.

 

Anytime bud.

 

I was in the aftermarket accessory business for a long time including selling alarms and remote starts but I'm smart enough to know that I'm not handy.

 

Hello! I feel your pain that you're dealing with your PIA landlord. Sounds like a cheap slumlord to me...

Here's an inexpensive solution. Problem is your battery is discharging because of your radio/clock/security and sitting for long periods of time between usage, but you need your radio/clock/security powered and you have no green options (bunker) so you don't loss your customized settings if I read your post correctly... Bummer.

Install an additional equally rated 12v battery to your system wired in "parallel"(Important!) and put an On/Off switch on both Hot leads so they both get charged during operation (when both are switched ON). Parallel wiring just gives you larger capacity on reserves while maintaining 12v (increases CCA rating with the pair).

When you plan to park for an extended periods of time , turn off #1/A and use the On/Off switch #2/B switch to power the system when idle. So, #1/A battery will become your main "starting" reserve battery that doesn't discharge to any draws during idle periods because it will be connected to #2/B battery for your radio/clock/security systems.

You could try starting with #2/B battery only 1st, if she fires great, if not switch to A main battery which hasn't been used. Always recharge the depleted battery 1st, then switch primary battery on to top it off (starting the engine is a large pull on batteries).
1. Addition battery mounts, cabling & battery
2. 12v 100A battery switch, cables and mounting hardware.

Hope this helps. It addresses your idle time drain/starting issues and you don't have to luge batteries around and mess with chargers. Mount the switch inside the vehicle for convenience.

This is the "front-end guy" way of doing it or you could deal with all the manual stuff every time, over and over and over and over...

Inexpensive <$20

 

Great info, my landlord is Hasidic, 99% of them just don't get it. I am going to send him a letter and make him an offer he can't refuse lol. If that doesn't work I an going to do what you say or add a quick disconnect and run the radio direct. My buddy is going to check to see if I have a parasitic drain today.

 

I hope he is amiable...

It's quite possible there is a vampire somewhere and doing a check is a good place to start.

While you're "into it" might as well go over the entire supply infrastructure. Check all connectors for lose, corroded, flakey dirty connections, shoddy wiring, etc. Make sure to get some battery terminal spray protector and coat all connection points as preventative maintenance (PM) measure so you don't ever have to be concerned with in the future. All connections need to be squeaky clean and have terminal lub on them, especially the positive terminal which get caked with acid buildup.

I was thinking about your situation after posting my suggestion. So you understand when I mentioned installing the switch inside the vehicle, I meant the engine compartment as close to the batteries as possible to keep the cabling as short as possible. Some folks install for access without raising the hood or accessing the interior, not a good idea. The longer the cables, the higher the resistance and potential for shorting. You can weld with a battery and way back in the day I had a high ampere cables running to my truck for a power amp and the cable (hot + lead) got shorted inside the engine compartment thankfully and it fried the cable in half. Would have to torched the vehicle if it had been near and flammables, hence the lesson of fusing near the battery terminals. You want them to pop and not creating a heating element!! LOL

So, in addition you definitely want to install an inline positive lead fuse link equaling the battery switch rated max. I think the links I sent you were rated at 100 amps, so maybe a 50 fuse would work well and keep you and your vehicle safe and you can always take these mods with you when you revert the setup back to stock if you ever sell the vehicle, so it's an "investment".

I know I can start both of my vehicles, a light truck and a full-size, old school, power sucking luxury car using my battery charger/starter which pushes out 12v 50 amps in start mode, so the 100 amp switches should be fine that's what they're engineered for.

Good Luck with the offer!

 

I have an amazing 12 volt professional that will do this, I'm smart enough to know I'm not handy and I want it right.I'm drafting the letter to my landlord now, I'll let you know how I fare LOL.