I have a 2011 E350 motorhome that has a parasitic engine battery draw of .5 amps, when I remove the 10 amp fuse, #26 in the under dash fuse panel for cluster it drops to .1 amps. When I remove the #5 fuse for Brake -shift interlock the draw drops to zero. I am now at a loss as what to look for that might be causing this problem. Has anyone else any ideas? Thank you.

 

Suggest you wait at least an hour before measuring draw. You have to give the modules time to get into sleep mode , then measure the draw.
.Let us know what you find.

 

Thanks for responding,
I had the motorhome plugged into 110 so I unplugged that because it would feed power through the invertor to the house battery and controller/solenoid system, not sure if that would influenced anything. Anyway I waited an hour with keys out and doors closed, took a reading and it was drawing .24 amps. I am not sure what is the minimum allowable. Thanks again.

 

Your vehicle is well under the general accepted limit of 50ma.
Would you tell us how you got into this ?

 

My issues began with my 1.5 year old engine battery not seeming to hold a charge so I had it load tested at the shop where I bought it and it passed. I started searching for what was drawing the battery down and at one point I noticed that with the negative terminal removed the interior light would come on when I opened the door. It seemed that there was an electrical current flowing back from the house batteries to the chassis system so I figured it was probably the solenoid sticking or possibly the controller to it. Because it was fairly inexpensive I changed out the solenoid which didn't change the .54 amp parasitic draw. At this point I took the Motorhome out for a camping trip and I had to get the truck jump started to get home. As it was running I took a reading on the voltage output and it was charging at 14.4 volts. I took the battery back to get it tested again and they said it ws bad and gave me a replacement. With my son's help we started pulling fuses until we found that removing the cluster fuse stopped most of the draw. As best I could I checked all the under dash connectors. The truck doesn't have a glove compartment light, just a cigarette lighter receptacle nor does it have an under hood light. Yesterday after unplugging the 110 to the RV it seemed to be okay dropping to .24 amps but this morning after sitting all night, not plugged in, neg. terminal off and the doors closed the amperage drop is back to the .54 it was before. I hope I have described it accurately to you.

 

How do you hook up the inverter? Which brand/model.
You said you unplug the 110, how and where at?
How often do you drive your van, how many miles per day or per week in average, stop and go or short trip or highway, the percentage of that.
Do you have single or dual battery in your van. Which brand/model and year.

 

It's a 2011 Ford E350 motorhome which I drive to camping occasionally then it can sit for days at a time. The truck has a new single 850 battery. The 55 amp connvertor ( I mistakenly called it an invertor earlier) is built into the motorhome which is activated when I plug into 110 volt land power at home.

 

What we need to know;

Is the charging system of the vehicle working to it's full capability. We need to know the amperage output. If it charges only one amp the lite goes out and that is just insufficient to keep a battery charged.
Evidently, when plugged into 110 everything is OK.
Is there any way you can get that info? What is the condition of the battery cables?
If internally corroded , difficult to charge any battery and full power is never available from battery Power is measured in AMPS, voltage just looks good on a meter.
There may no problem with a parasitic drain. We could be chasing a wild goose here.

 

The battery is new, the clamps and connections are in good shape. The altenator is producing 54 amps at idle and when I turn on the headlights it goes to 68 amps.

 

Thanks for the info, so now lets see what is going on.

We known that alt is capable of putting out at least 68 amps..
My next question is,
If you raise the idle speed, how long does it put out that much?
It should drop down in increments , does it ? With a new battery it should not require that kind output longer than a minute or so unless the battery is heavily discharged.

If Heiko can provide a schematic diagram , it may show a battery saver relay in the instrument cluster, which if in there, may be malfunctioning.