Battery Drain, Anyone measured the amp draw? Options

[Kerrys914]

I have a slow battery drain on my '74. Has anyone measured the amp draw on their teener? I am wondering if a stock FI car would/should have any amp draw?

I have a new battery and it seems to be going dead on me, 3-4 days of no use.

My dam craftsman multimeter is junk.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) I set it to read amps and the dam thing keeps climing till it maxes out. I can't measure a thing with it. I am going to buy a new one tonight and try to find the drain with it. Should I expect 0.0 for a reading?

One of the 4 red wires, which connects to the + , gets a nice spark when I reconnect it to the terminal. That tells me I have a nice draw on that circuit, correct?

Thanks
Kerry

Tyring to get ready for my first big road trip...8/8/04 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beer.gif)

[bperry]

Ok, so curiosity got the best of me and I decided to actually
take some measurements.
Pulled my clock out of its storage box (I replaced it with a CHT in the console many years ago).

On the bench, I set my variable powersupply to 13volts and
measured the current draw of the clock with my analog VOM.

The current draw of the clock in this controlled environment
was 14.5ma

I remembered from years ago thinking that the VDO console clock was a
power pig. It is purely mecanical driven by a motor so I guess it is
probably not that bad of draw considering what's inside.

BTW, several aftermarket car alarms that I've measured actually
draw more than this at around 15-20ma.

So, if you have the console with the VDO clock, I'd bet on the clock
drawing your 15ma.

--- bill