Warn Winch 50ma constant draw

[Overwatch]

Hi there,
The forum has been helping me chase down a battery killing (literally) issue in my 392 (so no ESS). It turns out my Warn Zeon 10-S may be to blame. When I placed my amp meter between it and the battery it turned out a constant 50 milli amp draw. The winch was turned off and the Jeep has been sitting for a few days. Two questions for those that know:

1. Is 50 ma enough to kill my battery? (I had to start charging it nightly)
2. Any idea what this means is wrong with thr winch?

I called Warn and their tech said it's not possible, if the switch is off there is no power drain....

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[IceBerg]

Send them a picture or a video of teh draw and ask them again?

 

[smokeythecat]

Fifty mA is barely more than your typical breadboard LED pulls. Your battery is likely in the 50 Ah range so this doesn't look like an issue. On the other hand, I am not an electrical engineer and I struggled mightily with calculus.

A bigger concern might be that you don't have a cutoff switch in between your battery and the winch. This helps reduce opportunities for vandalism but it also protects you in the event of a crash where the cables might get severed or otherwise shorted out, causing a fire.

 

[Terrymo]

Just curious if you have the standard Zeon 10s with wired controller or the Zeon 10s platinum with wireless controller.

 

[Overwatch]

Just curious if you have the standard Zeon 10s with wired controller or the Zeon 10s platinum with wireless controller.

The Platinum with the Buetooth.

 

[doc73]

Probably the Bluetooth staying live looking for the controller to give it input

 

[Terrymo]

Probably the Bluetooth staying live looking for the controller to give it input

Yes this was my thought but I am far from an expert. Just brainstorming.

 

[Bob Burd]

Are you sure you're measuring the winch current and not the whole battery? That's pretty close to what the Jeep electronics pull when off (which shouldn't drain your battery in a few days, btw).

 

[TheRaven]

Not a problem. You could have 50ma on that battery for a year and your Jeep would still fire right up. 50ma isn't really enough to be considered "draw".

Did you disconnect the battery and put a meter on it? If your disconnected voltage is below 12.5V you have a battery problem, not a phantom draw problem.

 

[Overwatch]

Thanks all! So the longer version is my battery did go bad from a parasitic draw. I have a new one coming tomorrow. Before I pulled it I attached the red winch cable and then used my amp meter in line per the instructions. With the switch off it should draw no power, even the Bluetooth according to Warn. However it was drawing 50 ma. That’s why I posted. I’m just not sure what it all means. In the end it may not matter, but it does sound like the winch is not working right, maybe the solenoid.

 

[Hard Rock Jeep]

You need to give the vehicle time to settle down all the “wake up” components. When you connect the circuit with your multimeter across the neg post and the neg cable, you wake up the door locks, lights, the head unit and other things waiting for you to get started or looking for your wireless input. It may take several minutes, 5, 10 or more, to drop back to steady state parasitic draw. Your winch bluetooth may be giving you several extra minutes to get set up by staying awake.

Here are some pictures taken at sequential times to show how immediate amperage drops over several minutes.

Initial reading 2:53pm:

2:58pm:

3:05p

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