Interstate CB battery drain ***SOLVED***

[BonS]

I bought a used clarion / Yamaha venture CB that is a plug and play with the IS wire harness. I simply removed the outside water proof box and plopped the CB head unit just behind the battery in the "tool box" void. The radio works fine and is controlled by the handlebar switches without any problem: Except one. The CB causes a continuous battery drain that flattens my battery in about a week. I recently unplugged the CB to test this observation and the battery has been fine for two weeks so far. This may be a problem limited to my sample-of-one or it may be more common. Anyone else seen something like this?

[Grumpy]

Where did you hook the power to ?  I have the same setup and do not have any problems with it. Behind the right side cover is a harness where all the radio connections run to, there is a plug in there that has 2 wires, that is the power lead for the CB, it powers off and on with the key, radio will work on accessory position and ignition on position, key off, radio off.  If you need I will look at mine and see what color the wires are. I remember the plastic plug is brown, and I believe the wires were green and red.

[BonS]

I'm out of town tonight but I'll check this out tomorrow. I don't remember with certainty but I believe that I did connect to a two prong plug in that vicinity. That does bring up a point though; I only disconnected the round 9? pin connector from the CB to the radio head unit and left the power plug attached. For what that's worth.

[Grumpy]

I'm out of town tonight but I'll check this out tomorrow. I don't remember with certainty but I believe that I did connect to a two prong plug in that vicinity. That does bring up a point though; I only disconnected the round 9? pin connector from the CB to the radio head unit and left the power plug attached. For what that's worth.

Should not affect it, check the wires you hooked to with a voltmeter, and make sure it is cycling with the key switch.

[Thrud]

The CB power connector on the Interstate is a 3-position connector: +12Vdc (ACC+), Ground, and Audio Backup.  The Audio Backup lead is a constant source of +12Vdc so the last settings on the radio are maintained when the Ignition or Accessory is switched off.

WRT the battery drain, consult Page 16-6 of the shop manual and perform the Current Leakage Test.  Your current draw should be 0.1 mA maximum.  Anything higher than that indicates a problem circuit somewhere.  Disconnect the CB power lead and re-test to see if this is the culprit.  On my Interstate with the Honda CB radio I saw 0.01 mA draw across the negative battery cable connection.

Steve

[BonS]

Thanks Grumpy and Steve. I checked my wiring this evening and everything is wired where it should be. I see the ground, switched and the continuous voltage. My RS meter is junk so I'll bring home a Fluke tomorrow and check out out the current draw. Mañana, guys.

[BonS]

With the CB disconnected I have around 1.5 micro amps. After reconnecting the CB I have the same draw. I'd only be guessing as to why disconnecting the 15 pin CB connector stopped the current drain on the battery. And I'd still be guessing as to why it didn't come back when I reconnected the CB. It may be a while until I let the bike sit long enough to see if the problem is truly gone of if it comes back after a bit.

[BonS]

I found my battery drained again. I again measured the quiescent battery drain and found it to be around 27ma. Disconnecting the 3-pin CB connector removes the drain. Otherwise the CB seems to work fine. I'm either going to replace it (big bucks) or put in a switch in line with the CB standby voltage wire which is almost free. I'll lose my CB channel and volume memory but that's not a big deal. The CB is the Yamaha Clarion JC-215R model from 2002.

[BonS]

Fixed! I purchased my CB on ebay and don't have any idea about the history of the unit. I just plugged it in and it worked - mostly. After associating my mystery battery drain with the CB I pulled the unit out. The picture shows the connector as I received it. The wires had been soldered and heat shrink was in place and all this was covered with electrical tape. I pulled off the electrical tape and gave it a visual inspection. Ahha! The red wire was soldered to the red/black wire and the red/black wire had been soldered to the red wire. Backwards. I pulled the two pins and swapped them. Fixed. The CB now draws about 0.5 ma instead of the 25+ma. (I had been misled by one of my earlier tests and thought the battery drain was intermittent. It was not.)

Again, I don't know who or why the CB connector had been modified. This CB did not come from Big Mike. I don't think that it originally had the 3-pin connector and this was added by the previous owner as it was adapted to a Valkyrie. If the two red wires are inadvertently swapped the CB works and retains it's settings but it will draw excess current. Easy fix once it was spied.

After setting the wiring straight I tested everything and all is good. I wonder if the ebay seller couldn't figure it out and dumped the CB?  

[PhredValk]

I went to the basement and dug mine out of the pile (haven't installed it yet). It's the Yamaha branded Clarion JC-215R that I got off Ebay, and it's power connector looks exactly like that photo without modifications. Green, red/black, and red wires.

How long is the wiring bundle? Mine is all of three inches long (not long enough to escape the enclosure, in fact), so the PO may have lengthened it for his bike (note the black/red wire connected to the green) and got the wires mixed...
Glad to hear that it is plug and play with the IS system.
Fred.

[BonS]

The power wires are factory as they come out of the enclosure and are about 15" long until they get to the splice that you see in the picture. The wire with the 15-pin round plug is probably around 12" as well. My Clarion JC-215R came with a large, external, weather tight box so it was meant to be mounted externally much like our OEM Valkyrie CB's. That might explain the longer leads.

My picture might fool someone about the wire color order. I left the, spliced, mismatched wires alone and just moved the pins in the connector body. The correct order in the connector body is green, red/black, red.