I went out to my car this morning to find the battery totally dead. I strongly suspect that the empeg was the culprit.

Last night I changed the oil and filter, then started the car and ran it just long enough to back down off the ramps, then shut it off before the empeg had finished booting.

When you do this, the empeg continues the boot process, and goes into play mode (not standby).

My car is wired so that the amplifiers receive power only when the ignition is on (or the key is switched to accessory) so no sound was being produced.

It doesn't seem reasonable that the empeg by itself, drawing less than one amp, could have killed the battery in just 12 hours. That battery was stone cold dead -- it wouldn't even give a glimmer of dash lights when I switched on the ignition. I know that the empeg will shut itself down when battery voltage drops to 10-11 volts, so I don't see how it could have completely drained the battery. In fact, the empeg requires more voltage to keep going than my starter motor does. I can play my stereo until the empeg drops out, and still have enough battery left to start the engine!

So... did the empeg kill my battery? If so, how did it do it? If not, what might have done it?

tanstaafl.

It seems very unlikely that the empeg could have drained a functioning battery completely in such a short time. It does present a very small load even when off, due to the linear regulator for the 5v analogue line, but this is on the order of a couple of mA. A good battery should sustain that for weeks.

It sounds like your battery is either faulty (low acid in one or more cells?) or you have another load on it somewhere. The last time this sort of thing happened to me it took ages to track down, and eventually turned out to be a faulty alternator. It was putting a 5A load across the battery when in the right position! I suspect it was a faulty diode in the rectifier.

pca