Car Stereo - Drain on battery when not used

[HomerMarge]

I am a new caravanner and pick up the caravan on Saturday. I just bought a £60 Goodmans car stereo from Argos to fit in the van when we get it. This has a digital display as with all modern stereos and I was wondering how this will work in the van to keep the memory of all the stations? Do I keep it running on the battery all the time, if so is this likely to drain the battery in between uses...or is it better to power up at every trip and re-program. As I say I am new so not entirely sure about how the 12v/240v system works until I get the van at the weekend?

 

[PeterT]

Be careful if not on mains - I had a fitted radio which I found from the makers took 8 amps ! They said it was a car radio and the alternator would always make it up. At some car boot sales, people running tape / CD players while sitting selling sometimes have difficulty starting up to go home !

 

[Damian]

Paul, I also have a radio/cd player in my van which needs to have permanent 12v supplied to it to retain the memory, however, when the van is left for more than a short while without the battery being charged, it soon drains it, for example when in storage, or not in use and not connected to the house mains.

If you are moving about, having stations stored is not really very useful, as different places use different frequencies for a lot of radio programmes, so I just retune it wherever we are, and disconnect it when the van is not in use.

 

[WatsonJohnG]

You will have to recode a coded radio every time you disconnect it.My Blaupunkt has the facility to use it without the code so it would bee worth checking to see if this is possible.

Battery drain for just the memory should not be very great anyway but only trying it out will tell.It will certainly be a lot less than when using the amp.