Normal battery drain current overnight?

I hope Old_Man drops by and posts up an answer to this. 8Mud you around?

Got a chance to trace the power gremlins draining my 85 diesel battery. One may have been a sticky door light switch, the other a radio stuck on pulling .90 amps (not sure why yet, but it stopped for now), but right now I am down to 2 hot wires right off off the battery that are pulling .01 and .03 amps (or was it .001 and .003 amps, shesh, I forgot already, I think it was .003 and .001).

But the question is, what is the normal power draw range, limit for stuff like the keep alive memory on a radio, and any thing else on a 4 banger 1985? One feeds the interior lights and I think the KAL radio memory.

The other wires are all zero amps draw with ignition off.

The one pulling .003 (or .03 amps) goes to a spring powered timer switch and to an old style ford starter relay, one of those 50+(?) amp brutes that I used for powering the diesel glow plugs (this is Eco-frankenjeep with the Nissan Diesel engine drive-train transplant).

I am wondering if the relay has some valid reason to be pulling a low current? I am not aware of any.

Is it possible for the ungrounded relay coil wire to be pulling any power, or is the relay going bad, and at some times shorting more and draining my battery in 1-2 days? I am not sure about the dash clock....

I think I am close to solving the mystery finally, as I have the entire dash pulled right now.

Using some on line info and the apx 140 min reserve capacity at 25 amps of the 1000 cranking amp battery I use for the diesel, I get about 50-90 days before the battery gets to 10.5 volts (pretty drained), using a .025 amp draw. If it is .003 amps I get 500-900 days?

Is this right?

Thanks folks!!!

Acceptable draw is usually .050 amps. I wouldn't worry if you're under that.

trippled said:

Acceptable draw is usually .050 amps. I wouldn't worry if you're under that.

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Thanks. What concerns me now is the .02 amp draw wire has no reason to drawing any power that I can see (yet), looks like just a relay and timer switch on it, and since they should not pull power (to the best of my knowledge, I am concerned it may be an early warning sign one is going bad). I will look it over again. I did verify the total for both wires is .03 to .035 amps. So that means I need to start, run and charge it about every 2 weeks since it is not a DD right now.

Thanks.