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How long before X930BT drains the car battery?


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I got a 2012 Subaru Outback with an X930BT in it. The Subaru dealer told me that without the car engine running the Pioneer system would completely discharge my car battery within 5 to 7 minutes. Do any of you have some experience with for instance watching a video while the car engine is off? How long can you go before needing a jump start?

 

Marc

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um unless there is some sort of specialty battery or charging system that is only meant to hold a 5 or 7 minute charge without it recharging

then that is bogus and they have no damm clue what they are talking about

 

if that does happen i would have to say your battery is bad the CCA amps of your battery are going bad or you have a electrical constant drain in your system somewhere

 

but even with my 2000 seville and when my battery was dieing all the time i atleast had 15 minutes before the battery would be down to 9amp and no starting power

ones i put a good fresh battery in i can now run it for about 45 minutes no issues without charging it with key On

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well at full volume, the AVIC will eat up less than 10 amps (much less if the volume is kept at a reasonable level) if your car cant support <10A for any longer than 7 mins, then you either need a new car, or battery (or just a new dealership)

 

 

 

just for shats and giggles, ask them how long the car should run on the stock radio.

 

since the fuse doesnt blow with the new radio, that means that the old radio was fused about the same, and probably uses about the same amount of power.

 

 

now of course if you have any external amps, that could definitely decrease the amount of reserve battery time.

 

also every time you drain a battery to the point of needing a jump start, you cause damage to the battery, and reduce its capacity.

 

however there should never be a problem with a brand new car battery lasting around 30 mins and still being able to start the car (assuming of course, no external amps) unless the car has a battery from a lawn mower.

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well at full volume, the AVIC will eat up less than 10 amps (much less if the volume is kept at a reasonable level) if your car cant support <10A for any longer than 7 mins, then you either need a new car, or battery (or just a new dealership)

 

 

 

just for shats and giggles, ask them how long the car should run on the stock radio.

 

since the fuse doesnt blow with the new radio, that means that the old radio was fused about the same, and probably uses about the same amount of power.

 

 

now of course if you have any external amps, that could definitely decrease the amount of reserve battery time.

 

also every time you drain a battery to the point of needing a jump start, you cause damage to the battery, and reduce its capacity.

 

however there should never be a problem with a brand new car battery lasting around 30 mins and still being able to start the car (assuming of course, no external amps) unless the car has a battery from a lawn mower.

 

Agreed!!! The factory radios usually support add-ons (ex. satellite radio tuners, media hubs, etc.) that all pull power from the main wiring harnesses that feed the factory radio. During my install (930BT + Sirius + backup camera) I had the radio running on battery well beyond 7 minutes without any issue. What about the factory NAV units???? I guarantee that the NAV units pull similar amps as a AVIC.

 

Why did the dealer tell you that in the first place?? It is your car and your radio!!

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Just to clarify my original post, this Pioneer nav unit IS the stock unit on 2012 Subaru Outback Limited in Canada. The 7-min discharge comment came from the person at the dealership whose job is to explain everything about the new car when you take delivery. The radio part took most of the time as it is more complicated than the rest of the car :). She was wrong, i.e. contradicting the car manual, on a few other points so I assume she got that one wrong as well.

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oh wow i had no idea that pioneeer was used as a OEM stock HU in any cars anywhere cool

i wonder what other cars use them

This is new for Subaru Canada this year. In previous years Canadian Subarus had the same Harmon Kardon radio as the US models. I wonder if Subaru of America is contemplating switching the US Subarus to Pioneer next year, which would be good since the more there are the bigger the user community and maybe Pioneer support (like updated maps). I was happy to see the switch to Pioneer for Canadian models since people were saying that the navigation system interface on the Harmon Kardon unit feels obsolete.

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OK, almost everyone in this thread is talking about CURRENT (i.e., amperes, or amps) as if it's the same as CAPACITY (i.e., Watt-hrs or Amp-hours depending on the way you think of it). None of this thread makes any sense. You guys have to multiply the typical power drawn by the unit in the mode you would be using it in (in WATTS) and multiply by time...then do the necessary conversions.

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OK, almost everyone in this thread is talking about CURRENT (i.e., amperes, or amps) as if it's the same as CAPACITY (i.e., Watt-hrs or Amp-hours depending on the way you think of it). None of this thread makes any sense. You guys have to multiply the typical power drawn by the unit in the mode you would be using it in (in WATTS) and multiply by time...then do the necessary conversions.

 

Most standard car batteries can supply about 45 amps/hour. If you radio is drawing about 10A, you should be able to use your radio for 4.5 hours. There are a lot of factors but the fact is you won't drain your battery in 5 to 7 minutes!

 

Doesn't matter if you work with amps or watts.....it is all the same. V x A = W

 

Standard battery = ~45A per hour or ~540W per hour

Radio = <=10A or <=120W

 

12V system with a draw of 10A....all comes down to ~4.5hours, regardless of if you work off of Amps or Watts.

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OK, almost everyone in this thread is talking about CURRENT (i.e., amperes, or amps) as if it's the same as CAPACITY (i.e., Watt-hrs or Amp-hours depending on the way you think of it). None of this thread makes any sense. You guys have to multiply the typical power drawn by the unit in the mode you would be using it in (in WATTS) and multiply by time...then do the necessary conversions.

 

your completely right, not one word of what anybody has said has made any sense. except for the part where we all know what the voltage is (12v rounded off of course for simplicity for anyone who cant keep up with with the conversation so far) and i dont recall every seeing a power rating in Watts anywhere on the label of the radio, so to try to figure this out, we would have to do extra work to get that value, all while we know what the current limit of the radio is because there is a big red chunk of plastic hanging out side of the radio that does give us that information. then there is the finale bit of information needed the actual question at hand here, which is the variable... TIME

 

by knowing the voltage, current, and time, you should be able to answer the OP's question

 

 

also the most common ratings found for battery's (aside from Cold Cranking Amps, which wont help us with this problem) would be

 

Reserve Capacity (RC). This is the number of minutes a fully charged battery at 80 ° F will discharge 25 amps until the battery drops below 10.5 volts.

 

and

 

Amp Hours (AH) is a rating usually found on deep cycle batteries. If a battery is rated at 100 amp hours it should deliver 5 amps for 20 hours, 20 amps for 5 hours, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

also since it is much more common to see a battery's rating in amp-hours instead of watt-hours, why would we bother to try to figure any of this out in watt-hours?

 

 

lets try this again, for the sake of removing all theory, lets say that this was the exact same battery that came in his car (its close but not quite of course)

http://shop.advancea...____#fragment-2

here are the specs

Battery Type: Lead Acid

BCI Group Size: 35

Cold Cranking Amps: 640 amps

Cranking Amps: 800 amps

Deep Cycle/Starting: Starting

Height: 8 13/16 in

Length: 9 11/16 in

Maintenance Free: Yes

Reserve Capacity: 100 min

Terminal Type: Top Terminal

Voltage: 12 v

Weight: 38 lbs

Width: 6 7/8 in

 

hmmmm. dont see a watt rating in there. i do however see that it has a reserve capacity of 100 mins.

 

well from above i know that the RC is how long a battery can provide a 25 amp draw for a 100 mins until it is down to about as low as you want to let it get before recharging. now i can either sit around and figure out math that wont help me with my problem or i can use the info i already have to know that 10A is less than 25A (by 2.5 times for those counting) and 2.5 times the 100 minutes is about 250 minutes that battery should be able to power up that radio (not too mention, at full blast ) which just happens to be a little over 4 hours as String had mentioned.

 

so now do you understand this topic?

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I already stated this in my previous post. 4.5 hrs * 60 mins = +/- 270 mins.

yep, your right, you did, as referenced here...

 

which just happens to be a little over 4 hours as String had mentioned.

 

the last post was more of showing the math based off of a real world example for anyone having trouble keeping up with the conversation thus far while also showing the OP just how wrong the dealership was.

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