PDM15 Flattens Battery

[rayhall]

I have a PDM15 in my rally car. If I do not use the car for a month, the battery is very low and will often not start the engine. After six weeks the battery is dead. The module was bought about 5 or more years ago and has always done this.

I am about to build another car and I am in the market for a power module. Has this problem being fixed in the latest version.

Ray.

[adrian]

The PDM draws about 5mA when in standby mode so if you have it directly connected to the battery then it will definitely drain it over a period of months if it is left untouched. Any power module that is connected to the battery will do this.

The PDM's were designed for race cars where you would typically have a main isolator switch/relay between the PDM and the battery so standby current is not usually an issue.

Any active input (ie a switch to ground) will also cause additional drain through the pull up resistors and if you have any of the outputs configured to run in standby mode this will obviously increase the current draw. What sort of setup do you have?