Ciggy Socket and Battery drain

[mrstella]

Hi All

Just a quick stupid question :D

I leave the 910 car charger in the ciggy lighter all the time, is it going to cause problems with my car battery. The light on the charger is on so i assume its drawing power but is it enough to drain the battery overnight for example.

Regards

Peter

[mikealder]

Peter, a single LED will only typically draw 20mA of power, even over a 48 Hour period this will only drain just under one amp hour from the battery which has a capacity rated for the type of vehicle (some are larger than others, due to required cranking power etc) - I wouldn't worry about it, unless the voltage regulator puts additional load on to the device (will try this tomorrow when I get access to lab supply that I can monitor).

One thing though is leaving this in the vehicle lit up will attract the low life types who might break in to see whats in the glove box, take it out of the vehicle to be sure - Mike

[neil01]

I would go along with Mike - battery drain is not the main problem.

[aeroflott]

Is this likely to reduce the life of the battery in your 910 though? Effectively you're leaving it on constant charge?

[mrstella]

Thanks guys.

A bit of black gaffa tape will sort the led out :D Its just a very snug fit and to be honest half the time i forget to take it out so dont want to get up in the morning to a flat battery. Yeah the tomtom is taken out every night as i paid for it my work supplied streetpilot was always left in the glovebox with the bean bag on the dash and my car never got touched once even though where we live is fairly "rough". But dont want to take the chance.

Dunno about the battery life in the 910 to be honest i will never use the battery as it will always be either plugged in the ciggy socket or in the home dock. I suppose it depends on what type of battery it is, the nicad (iirc) would need to be conditioned ie charged up and then fully discharged otherwise the batterys memory would get knackered, but on the lithium ion batts i dont think this is a problem.

Cheers

Peter

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