Starter Battery Drain; How to stop ECU's etc from consuming battery when door opens?

[carpetman]

I have added a Victron Smartshunt to my starter battery so I can see the current drain when the vehicle is off. This allowed me to quantify how much current is drawn when you open/close any door etc. Basically, what I found is that opening any door will start a 15 min cycle. The overall power consumed in this 15mins is 0.4Ah. Any door open (or close), will put you at the start of this cycle. The vast majority of the power is consumed in the first 3 minutes, however, it takes the full 15 minutes to go to a full power down state. Having the overhead PWR switch on burns a constant 0.33A (my guess this is the power for the USB charger etc).

The Battery in the car is a 105Ah rated battery. The lead acid battery will not get fully charged from driving as it takes many hours to go from 80% to 100% charge. So, it will likely reside around 80% charged. The lead acid battery is effectively depleted at 50% charge. Therefore, there really is only around 31.5Ah of usable power before you will have trouble starting the vehicle. With each door open/close consuming 0.4Ah, you can do this 78 times before draining the battery. If the PWR switch is on (with no other switches on) It will consume the 31.5Ah within 4 days.

I have looked into what fuses can be removed to eliminate the door opening current. In all cases I waited 15 mins for the current to go to its lowest state (20mA) before pulling any of the fuses.
I tried the transport fuse (FC04) Cockpit electrical, this does not work.
I tried the Door Lock (FI20) Interior Electrical, this will kill the locks, however, does not work at stopping the door opening current.

By pulling Body Control Module 1 (FC05) and Body Control Module 2 (FC06) it is possible to stop the current being consumed as a result of door opens. I tried removing only one of them, however, it seems that both need to be removed. There is a couple of side effects of pulling these fuses from a camping point of view.
1. You can't lock the doors (need to put the fuses back in to do this, not that big of a problem in my opinion).
2. the overhead PWR switch will not turn on.

I hope this may be helpful.

Regards,
Carpetman


More details on the fuses can be found below.

Post in thread 'Main fuses used in INEOS Grenadier'

May 5, 2023

COCKPIT ELECTRICAL CENTRE (FUSE BOX 2)

This Fuse Box is located to the left and slightly down from the steering wheel on a right-hand drive vehicle. It has longer JCase fuses and Mini blade fuses. There are no relays in this fuse box.

JCase fuses used (JCase Fuses (495/PAL Fuses)
This fuse box uses JCase Fuses (495/PAL Fuses) (the longer ones) are rated at 30 amps (1 fuse) and 40 amps (4 fuses).

Mini blade fuses used
The Mini blade fuses are used are rated at 5 amps, 7.5 amps, 10 amps, 15 amps and 20 amps.

Diagram and photo

...

• TheDocAUS

• 

 

[HereinDaRockies]

I have added a Victron Smartshunt to my starter battery so I can see the current drain when the vehicle is off. This allowed me to quantify how much current is drawn when you open/close any door etc. Basically, what I found is that opening any door will start a 15 min cycle. The overall power consumed in this 15mins is 0.4Ah. Any door open (or close), will put you at the start of this cycle. The vast majority of the power is consumed in the first 3 minutes, however, it takes the full 15 minutes to go to a full power down state. Having the overhead PWR switch on burns a constant 0.33A (my guess this is the power for the USB charger etc).

The Battery in the car is a 105Ah rated battery. The lead acid battery will not get fully charged from driving as it takes many hours to go from 80% to 100% charge. So, it will likely reside around 80% charged. The lead acid battery is effectively depleted at 50% charge. Therefore, there really is only around 31.5Ah of usable power before you will have trouble starting the vehicle. With each door open/close consuming 0.4Ah, you can do this 78 times before draining the battery. If the PWR switch is on (with no other switches on) It will consume the 31.5Ah within 4 days.

I have looked into what fuses can be removed to eliminate the door opening current. In all cases I waited 15 mins for the current to go to its lowest state (20mA) before pulling any of the fuses.
I tried the transport fuse (FC04) Cockpit electrical, this does not work.
I tried the Door Lock (FI20) Interior Electrical, this will kill the locks, however, does not work at stopping the door opening current.

By pulling Body Control Module 1 (FC05) and Body Control Module 2 (FC06) it is possible to stop the current being consumed as a result of door opens. I tried removing only one of them, however, it seems that both need to be removed. There is a couple of side effects of pulling these fuses from a camping point of view.
1. You can't lock the doors (need to put the fuses back in to do this, not that big of a problem in my opinion).
2. the overhead PWR switch will not turn on.

I hope this may be helpful.

Regards,
Carpetman


More details on the fuses can be found below.

Post in thread 'Main fuses used in INEOS Grenadier'

May 5, 2023

COCKPIT ELECTRICAL CENTRE (FUSE BOX 2)

This Fuse Box is located to the left and slightly down from the steering wheel on a right-hand drive vehicle. It has longer JCase fuses and Mini blade fuses. There are no relays in this fuse box.

JCase fuses used (JCase Fuses (495/PAL Fuses)
This fuse box uses JCase Fuses (495/PAL Fuses) (the longer ones) are rated at 30 amps (1 fuse) and 40 amps (4 fuses).

Mini blade fuses used
The Mini blade fuses are used are rated at 5 amps, 7.5 amps, 10 amps, 15 amps and 20 amps.

Diagram and photo

...

• TheDocAUS

• 

It’s amazing how stupid Ineos has implemented the electronics in this car

 

[TheDocAUS]

WE NEED A FIRMWARE FIX
Sounds like INEOS needs to offer a camping mode on the console, select it and the car shuts a lot of these systems down. Even better if you could select which systems to shut off in camping mode. Turn off camping mode when you go to leave.

Does leaving a window open, instead of a door, make any difference to power consumption?

Having an external power source you can access without opening doors will help. I have an external 50 amp Anderson I can access off the aux battery and some of the devices I plug into the rooftop power outlets have their own switches )no need to turn on/off using overhead panel. So I can make some behaviour changes to minimise power loss. But the biggest thing I did was add that solar panel as it seems to cover these power drains fairly well.

 

[TheDocAUS]

I have added a Victron Smartshunt to my starter battery so I can see the current drain when the vehicle is off. This allowed me to quantify how much current is drawn when you open/close any door etc. Basically, what I found is that opening any door will start a 15 min cycle. The overall power consumed in this 15mins is 0.4Ah. Any door open (or close), will put you at the start of this cycle. The vast majority of the power is consumed in the first 3 minutes, however, it takes the full 15 minutes to go to a full power down state. Having the overhead PWR switch on burns a constant 0.33A (my guess this is the power for the USB charger etc).

The Battery in the car is a 105Ah rated battery. The lead acid battery will not get fully charged from driving as it takes many hours to go from 80% to 100% charge. So, it will likely reside around 80% charged. The lead acid battery is effectively depleted at 50% charge. Therefore, there really is only around 31.5Ah of usable power before you will have trouble starting the vehicle. With each door open/close consuming 0.4Ah, you can do this 78 times before draining the battery. If the PWR switch is on (with no other switches on) It will consume the 31.5Ah within 4 days.

I have looked into what fuses can be removed to eliminate the door opening current. In all cases I waited 15 mins for the current to go to its lowest state (20mA) before pulling any of the fuses.
I tried the transport fuse (FC04) Cockpit electrical, this does not work.
I tried the Door Lock (FI20) Interior Electrical, this will kill the locks, however, does not work at stopping the door opening current.

By pulling Body Control Module 1 (FC05) and Body Control Module 2 (FC06) it is possible to stop the current being consumed as a result of door opens. I tried removing only one of them, however, it seems that both need to be removed. There is a couple of side effects of pulling these fuses from a camping point of view.
1. You can't lock the doors (need to put the fuses back in to do this, not that big of a problem in my opinion).
2. the overhead PWR switch will not turn on.

I hope this may be helpful.

Regards,
Carpetman


More details on the fuses can be found below.

Post in thread 'Main fuses used in INEOS Grenadier'

May 5, 2023

COCKPIT ELECTRICAL CENTRE (FUSE BOX 2)

This Fuse Box is located to the left and slightly down from the steering wheel on a right-hand drive vehicle. It has longer JCase fuses and Mini blade fuses. There are no relays in this fuse box.

JCase fuses used (JCase Fuses (495/PAL Fuses)
This fuse box uses JCase Fuses (495/PAL Fuses) (the longer ones) are rated at 30 amps (1 fuse) and 40 amps (4 fuses).

Mini blade fuses used
The Mini blade fuses are used are rated at 5 amps, 7.5 amps, 10 amps, 15 amps and 20 amps.

Diagram and photo

...

• TheDocAUS

• 

Thank you, great information.

It also explains why you use so much battery power when working on the car and opening doors/bonnet for an hour or two - the car never goes to sleep.

MY SETUP
Does your car have dual batteries? My car has the OEM dual batteries; a CTEK 120S and 250SE; and a roof amounted solar panel (160W).

I had the 250SE and solar panel installed. Using an external 7 stage battery charger, last week, my main battery was very close to 100% after 45-60 minutes. It was only on bulk charge a few minutes, and the last 6 stages were done in the remaining time. I did not check often enough so I do not known if the external battery charger stopped at around 45 minutes or 60 minutes. The two weeks before this I had done mostly short trips, mostly under 10 minutes.

It strongly suggests my setup is keeping the main battery well charged. My solar panel study showed the main and aux batteries were being charged by power from the solar panel, as discussed here with graphs supporting that observation.

 

[carpetman]

WE NEED A FIRMWARE FIX
Sounds like INEOS needs to offer a camping mode on the console, select it and the car shuts a lot of these systems down. Even better if you could select which systems to shut off in camping mode. Turn off camping mode when you go to leave.

Does leaving a window open, instead of a door, make any difference to power consumption?

Having an external power source you can access without opening doors will help. I have an external 50 amp Anderson I can access off the aux battery and some of the devices I plug into the rooftop power outlets have their own switches )no need to turn on/off using overhead panel. So I can make some behaviour changes to minimise power loss. But the biggest thing I did was add that solar panel as it seems to cover these power drains fairly well.

I'm sure leaving a window open will not have any impact on the power consumption. From what I see, leaving the car locked vs unlocked has no impact on the power consumption on my car.

I have changed my solar so I can charge either battery, and I added a trickle charger as well. I therefore expect that I will not be having issues this summer. See Electrical Setup

Regards,
Carpetman

Here is the powerdown current profile - very similar to the door open.

 

[HereinDaRockies]

I just tested this door behavior today. It’s egregiously stupid:

driver and passenger doors are both open for many minutes. infotainment has already turned off due to inactivity.

I’m done with with passenger side so I close the passenger door (driver door is still open).. that action alone triggers the infotainment to boot up..

wtf were they thinking ?