Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jessaustin 1167 days ago
Pulling fuses is a pretty reliable way to find the relevant fuse in the first place. If the battery doesn't run down while a particular group of fuses is pulled, the one you want to pull is in that group. Start with half the fuses, then narrow down.

You might have to reprogram your radio channels...
1 comments
bityard 1167 days ago
I can recommend searching for "South Main Auto parasitic draw" on YouTube. The guy is a genius at electrical troubleshooting.

His strategy isn't to pull fuses, it's to set the car sit for at least 30 minutes or so (with key off) and then check each fuse with a multimeter to see which has current on it, and then check everything on that circuit. Arm yourself with schematics and wiring diagrams, otherwise it'll end up being something of a wild goose chase.

(The idea being if you start pulling fuses, you can "reset" various computers in the car, which may show up as a false positive. It can take up to 30 minutes or so for all the various computers in a car to all go to sleep, although it's usually only a few minutes for most cars.)

link
Nextgrid 1166 days ago
"Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics" is also a very good source.
link
jessaustin 1167 days ago
It would take someone more skilled than I, or with better tools, to check current in a fuse box without removing fuses. Maybe I should watch that guy and get better...
link
gridspy 1167 days ago
You measure the voltage across the fuse. Then you look up the fuse's resistance in a datasheet. Current is Voltage / Resistance.
link
MaKey 1167 days ago
AFAIK the fuses have contact points you can use to measure the current.
link
cwillu 1167 days ago
You can check continuity across the contact points, but measuring a 75mA current via the voltage drop across a 0.0034ohm resistance (give or take) means reading 0.2mV, which is… borderline for a consumer multimeter.
link
aksss 1167 days ago
I wonder if one couldn't identify the time it takes for the battery to get to some low point (50%?) and then determine the order of magnitude draw they would be looking for. 75mA would take a long time (I think) to drain the battery to where starter can't turn over (like a week?).
link
pvaldes 1167 days ago
A multimeter is cheap and really easy to use. This is the safest way also
link