I am leaving on a six week vacation and am hesitant to activate the alarm as the LED
light on the dash will be blinking for six weeks and could wear down the battery—or is the battery drain from an LED so weak that I have nothing to worry about.
The LED is nothing but the alarm itself plus other parasitic loads may indeed drain the battery…
It’s reasonable to be concerned with a six week storage as far as the battery drain is concerned. It’s also reasonable to disconnect the battery or put a trickle charger on.
My 02 Chevy Prism could easily be left for that time w/o concern. My 4Runner is another matter and in the winter, I would do either of the above. It’s car dependent.
The led may have associated power usage with it. I say that because we had a minivan with a sticking brakelight switch. It sincerely discharged the battery but the brake lights would blink off when the led alarm light would blink on. A battery maintainer would be best, you won’t loose your radio stations and won’t reset the computer on applicable models. The plus side is if I give mine about 20 minutes it will charge a dead battery enough to start the same minivan mentioned previously.
If you measure the drain current, you will find that it is almost exactly the same with the alarm disarmed as it is with the alarm armed. (The LED drain is almost nothing.)
I would either disconnect the battery, or put a battery tender on it. Six weeks is enough to noticeably drain the battery on most cars these days due to all the electronic loads on them.
You can buy a sun popwered charger that will take car of things unless park under cover.
Why leave it armed anyway? is there anyone around to hear it go off?
O Yeah! My garage is just 3 feet from the street. Also, there have been a lot burglaries in my neighborhood in the past couple of years.
1.5 Watt solar battery charger. 20 bucks at harbor freight.
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