the second connection is a ground I believe. That heavy duty blue cable 0 gauge is what the original battery cables got replaced with. The only amp connection are the 4 gauge cables you see on top of the battery terminals

 

Is the only way to fix this issue to either keep the car connected to a charger? If I removed the constant headunit wire from the battery would that do the trick or would I have to remove the amp power wire as well?

 

OK...I am really confused again. It almost sounds like the circuit breaker is on the negative side. Is this how the wires route? Is the shorter loop attached to the frame next to the battery compartment, if not where do the two wires exactly go? Edit: Does the blue wire go to the negative connection on the power amp then?

 

the positive from the pico goes to the positive on the battery. The negative goes to the main grounding point underneath the car. The terminated cable you see to the right of the pico comes from the front of the car. The only car audio cables in that photo are attached directly to the top posts of the battery. The red cable is the constant for the deck and the braided is the positive for the amp. The negative post has the negative for the deck and the amp.

 

Titanle-

Yes, a small charger would be the ticket- DON"T buy a cheap one- get a good one as I have seen too many cheap ones catch fire and wreck batteries-




redvette-

The purple goes to the pos side terminal....
The "protected" side of the circuit breaker goes to the starter

 

Thanks again...so the circuit breaker does not help with any quiescent current from the deck or power amp. Protects the starter and associated follow-on circuits from an over-current condition and when tripped keeps the car from starting acting like a kill switch. In my case I went with a Battery Tender Junior with a max current rating of 750 milliamps which seems like more than enough current to overcome any constant draw. The battery is a standard flooded cell type and the charger typically float charges it to 13.2 volts and when removed the battery shows 12.7 volts. About $30-$35 USD.

 

Yes the circuit breaker when tripped kills all electronics on the car so nothing happens when the key is inserted or switched on etc. I always trip it when I park it. I just recently installed the audio system since I had everything lying around for so long.

but since it has this draw and I don’t drive the car very often I might just remove it.

if I remove the headunit constant or the ground from the battery will this eliminate the draw?

 

Both might be drawing some current...you can likely just disconnect the positive amp lead and the deck constant lead and reduce down the amount. Do the positive lead rather than the negative as it is safer if the loose wires contact the chassis or frame. Might want to use electrical tape on the ends to isolate the free leads to be safe. As others have said there will still be some draw due to the clock.

Not an uncommon problem with cars that sit, especially the newer ones with all the electronics. Other C3 owners have reported issues after a month or so but you have a newer battery and should make it at least that long. I use an inexpensive cigarette lighter plug-in volt meter to see how my battery is doing. Once the battery starts getting close to 12.0 - 12.3 volts things can get dicey with starting. If a battery sits too long discharged below 10 volts it can also be internally damaged and may not recover.

If you are not worried about your deck presets (radio stations, time and date etc) you could put another switch between their positives (amp and constant) and the battery positive when you want to save the battery from discharge.

Edit update: Forgot to mention that the plug-in volt meter draws some current also. If battery is not on a charger then it is best to un-plug it when not checking the voltage.



Battery Volt Meter

 

I just removed the entire piece that was connected to the positive terminal which held the constant and power wire for the amp. I placed the piece inside a ziplock and tucked it in the compartment between the battery and the wall.

 

That will work. Also if you change your mind you can wire the amp and constant positive wires (small red wire and large black sleeved blue wire) to the output car side (where the large purple wire is) of the Pico switch. That will kill everything when you trip the breaker off.

 

Since OP seems to be using the circuit breaker as not only as a current draw stop- but protects the car AND give some theft protection - great idea by the way- it would not make sense to reset the radio's control every time you park it for a bit.

But rather use a smaller size 30-40A circuit breaker on the top terminal- thus when you go in long term storage you'll trip that on too-

AND would even help more in theft protection as the would be thief would see the top breaker is turned on!!!

Richard

 

Yep...all this make sense to me now. Titanle has lots of options to choose from.