Is my alarm/immobiliser causing a parasitic drain?

[Lord Snooty]

2020 1250GSA, a few weeks ago the battery was taking an age to charge on the Optimate, as it was six years old I replaced it. However I seem to have a problem with a parasitic drain, I left the bike just for a few days off the Optimate after using it and the battery was down to 10v, the only accessory I have is an Innovv camera system connected via the USB port. I disconnected that and the drain still happened so that rules that out as the culprit. Could it be the alarm/immobiliser?

 

[squibb34]

Ideally you want a clamp ammeter, to watch precisely what is happening after shutdown, rather than trying to guess the culprit.

Assuming you don't have a tracker, then the DWA would seem to be a likely target (any dash warning?). Are you making sure the main remote & emergency keys are kept well away from the bike, preferably in a Faraday bag or tin box?

Otherwise, that USB port you mention - this uses a built-in step-down buck converter integrated directly into the socket housing, which converts the bike's switched 12V DC down to a regulated 5V DC output. I guess this could be hanging - any chance it could have water ingress, not that we have seen much rain of late?

 

[Santa-2512]

If you have a tracker fitted, it will prevent the bike from going to sleep, battery will be flat in about 10 days

 

[littleade]

2020 1250GSA, a few weeks ago the battery was taking an age to charge on the Optimate, as it was six years old I replaced it. However I seem to have a problem with a parasitic drain, I left the bike just for a few days off the Optimate after using it and the battery was down to 10v, the only accessory I have is an Innovv camera system connected via the USB port. I disconnected that and the drain still happened so that rules that out as the culprit. Could it be the alarm/immobiliser?

My 2020 GS had a datatool stealth fitted at the factory FOC, so if yours is the same that could be the problem. I disconnected mine after the initial subscription ran out as it was draining my battery (my optimate was frequently in charging mode which reverted to normal once I disconnected it) the tracker is at the rear of the bike underneath the silver panel that's held o
in place by the torx bolts.

 

[Lord Snooty]

My 2020 GS had a datatool stealth fitted at the factory FOC, so if yours is the same that could be the problem. I disconnected mine after the initial subscription ran out as it was draining my battery (my optimate was frequently in charging mode which reverted to normal once I disconnected it) the tracker is at the rear of the bike underneath the silver panel that's held o
in place by the torx bolts.

I think you are on to something here Ade, I do have a fob on the keyring with DATATOOL on it. It has no buttons to press and I've never figured out what it was for. Could you post a pic of the location of the panel for me please?

 

[Lord Snooty]

Ideally you want a clamp ammeter, to watch precisely what is happening after shutdown, rather than trying to guess the culprit.

Assuming you don't have a tracker, then the DWA would seem to be a likely target (any dash warning?). Are you making sure the main remote & emergency keys are kept well away from the bike, preferably in a Faraday bag or tin box?

Otherwise, that USB port you mention - this uses a built-in step-down buck converter integrated directly into the socket housing, which converts the bike's switched 12V DC down to a regulated 5V DC output. I guess this could be hanging - any chance it could have water ingress, not that we have seen much rain of late?

DWA? The remote is well away from the bike. I'll check the USB port on the slim chance there is damp in it.

 

[littleade]

I think you are on to something here Ade, I do have a fob on the keyring with DATATOOL on it. It has no buttons to press and I've never figured out what it was for. Could you post a pic of the location of the panel for me please?

I've PM'd you

 

[Lord Snooty]

Thanks all, so after owning the bike since 2024 I have discovered that I have a Datatool tracker - who knew! Littleade has been very helpful and has sent me the info I need to locate and disable it which I will do next week.

 

[Lord Snooty]

If you have a tracker fitted, it will prevent the bike from going to sleep, battery will be flat in about 10 days

It is actually draining the voltage to 10v in about 4-5 days Martin.

 

[Victor c]

Thanks all, so after owning the bike since 2024 I have discovered that I have a Datatool tracker - who knew! Littleade has been very helpful and has sent me the info I need to locate and disable it which I will do next week.

I’ve read, that if the Datatool Scorpion tracker does not have an active gsm subscription, it can go into a state of continuous searching for a signal. This could be the cause of excessive battery drain by it.

 

[richtel]

I had exactly the same with my Datatool tracker. Although the tracker 'worked', mine was taking in the region of 60-70mA when sat doing nothing. Datatool offered to replace it for £125ish even though I still had a couple of years of subscription left, but by that point I'd just had enough. Their customer service is pretty rubbish.

I've always found a dc clamp meter pretty flaky to measure currents of only a few tens of mA. A good and quick way of testing for the current taken by the 'standard' datatool tracker installation without needing to mess with the battery connection and before pulling the bike to bits at that point is to use a decent multimeter which can read microvolts across the small red 10A fuse under the rider's seat. That fuse provides power to the tracker and one or two of the bike's auxillary systems. Using a sensitive enough multimeter to read the voltage drop across the fuse and having a chart correlating voltage drop to current for that fuse type and rating you can get a really good approximation of the current being supplied by that fuse.

The 10 amp fuse under the seat (bright red)-




Here's a clip of the chart used for the minifuses under the seat-



In my case a reading of 500microvolts or half a mV or so meant a current through that fuse of 60-70mA, and after disconnecting the tracker, that current fell to zero. The tracker was actually warm to the touch. Piece of sh!t. In my case the tracker worked and had an active subscription, but its battery or its charge circuit had probably failed so it was consuming significant current in its dormant non-transmitting state.

Helpful hint- If you do disconnect the tracker, you need to remember to plug the exposed loom back into the canbus termination under the seat.

Snooty I have a few photos I took as I was uninstalling mine including the cables, fuse and canbus term block. Let me know if you'd like them.

Rich.

 

[littleade]

Helpful hint- If you do disconnect the tracker, you need to remember to plug the exposed loom back into the canbus termination under the seat.

Snooty I have a few photos I took as I was uninstalling mine including the cables, fuse and canbus term block. Let me know if you'd like them.

Rich.

When I disconnected my tracker it was fed with a thin single 2 core cable that just supplied power to the tracker and I simply unplugged it. From memory (it was about 5 years ago!) I didn't see anywhere the female plug on the end of the supply cable would plug into so I just wrapped some insulation tape around it to keep any water out and that was that. Out of interest as the lead I disconnected was a single spur that only had 1 function which was to supply 12v to the tracker why would you need to plug it back into the loom, maybe yours was wired up differently? I never had and problems afterwards either with the bike's battery going flat not did I get any error messages. Was your's a factory fit one?

TIA

Ade

 

[richtel]

Mine (and others I've seen photos of) were the factory fit around 2020. To be honest I don't know whether they were truly factory fitted or fitted by the dealer once uncrated from new, but you had to have them regardless at the time- they came with the bike with the first year's subscription included.

The cable feeding the tracker unit itself looks like a commercially fabricated loom plugging into the short end of the tracker unit. The unit is supplied by something like four wires in that cable, one of which goes to a separate antenna. The loom is fed from the bike's aux multiway socket which presumably supplies a DWA if fitted. From memory that aux supply from the bike has five wires- presumably 12v from the 10amp fuse, ign, gnd and can high and low.

The tracker's loom is essentially a T from that feed, to the tracker and back to the canbus termination. I didn't probe out the tracker's cable itself, there was no need, but I'd be surprised if it took anything other than a power feed, ign and gnd from the bike's aux.

As a result, if you disconnect the tracker's loom from the aux supply, it's good practice to reconnect the aux feed back to the termination. The cable runs are very short so you'd be unlucky to have canbus issues if it wasn't reterminated, but still, good practice.

 

[littleade]

Thanks for the clarification, again from memory I thought my tracker was fed with a single thin twin cable via a male/female connector though I could of course be mistaken and no longer have the bike so I can't check. I didn't have the DWA on mine as I thought it was a waste of money having had it on my 1st GS in 2015 so maybe if one's fitted the loom to the tracker could be different. Either way it's good to know so LS can check how many wires are in his loom and that everything works as it should after he's unplugged the tracker and before he reassembles the bike

 

[Lord Snooty]

I had exactly the same with my Datatool tracker. Although the tracker 'worked', mine was taking in the region of 60-70mA when sat doing nothing. Datatool offered to replace it for £125ish even though I still had a couple of years of subscription left, but by that point I'd just had enough. Their customer service is pretty rubbish.

I've always found a dc clamp meter pretty flaky to measure currents of only a few tens of mA. A good and quick way of testing for the current taken by the 'standard' datatool tracker installation without needing to mess with the battery connection and before pulling the bike to bits at that point is to use a decent multimeter which can read microvolts across the small red 10A fuse under the rider's seat. That fuse provides power to the tracker and one or two of the bike's auxillary systems. Using a sensitive enough multimeter to read the voltage drop across the fuse and having a chart correlating voltage drop to current for that fuse type and rating you can get a really good approximation of the current being supplied by that fuse.

The 10 amp fuse under the seat (bright red)-

View attachment 525584


Here's a clip of the chart used for the minifuses under the seat-

View attachment 525583

In my case a reading of 500microvolts or half a mV or so meant a current through that fuse of 60-70mA, and after disconnecting the tracker, that current fell to zero. The tracker was actually warm to the touch. Piece of sh!t. In my case the tracker worked and had an active subscription, but its battery or its charge circuit had probably failed so it was consuming significant current in its dormant non-transmitting state.

Helpful hint- If you do disconnect the tracker, you need to remember to plug the exposed loom back into the canbus termination under the seat.

Snooty I have a few photos I took as I was uninstalling mine including the cables, fuse and canbus term block. Let me know if you'd like them.

Rich.

Yes please Rich, thank you.

 

[Lord Snooty]

Mine (and others I've seen photos of) were the factory fit around 2020. To be honest I don't know whether they were truly factory fitted or fitted by the dealer once uncrated from new, but you had to have them regardless at the time- they came with the bike with the first year's subscription included.

The cable feeding the tracker unit itself looks like a commercially fabricated loom plugging into the short end of the tracker unit. The unit is supplied by something like four wires in that cable, one of which goes to a separate antenna. The loom is fed from the bike's aux multiway socket which presumably supplies a DWA if fitted. From memory that aux supply from the bike has five wires- presumably 12v from the 10amp fuse, ign, gnd and can high and low.

The tracker's loom is essentially a T from that feed, to the tracker and back to the canbus termination. I didn't probe out the tracker's cable itself, there was no need, but I'd be surprised if it took anything other than a power feed, ign and gnd from the bike's aux.

As a result, if you disconnect the tracker's loom from the aux supply, it's good practice to reconnect the aux feed back to the termination. The cable runs are very short so you'd be unlucky to have canbus issues if it wasn't reterminated, but still, good practice.

That makes sense as mine is a 2020 bike.

 

[ProdigalGS]

I have been having problems with a tracker draining my battery, which took me ages to sort. I have 2 BMWs with Biketrac trackers, a car and a R1200GS. The bike is always connected to a trickle charger but the car lives in a lock-up with no power and would struggle to start after 2 weeks.

I suspected the Biketrac tracker was causing the problem, so I rang them and it turns out they can see exactly what current the tracker draws and when. The draw was tiny and there was no way it was draining the battery. Then I remembered...

When I bought the car in 2018, I got the BMW dealer to fit an RAC Trackstar tracker, which turned out to be utterly useless. Trackstar had deliberately degraded the location accuracy to prevent me from trying to reclaim the vehicle if it was stolen. A 'woke' tracker that wouldn't let me track the vehicle. I was very pleased with the Biketrac on my GS so I got them to fit one to my car as well, and cancelled the Trackstar sub. When the Biketrac fitter installed it, he suggested leaving the Trackstar in place as a decoy. Big mistake.

It turned out the old Trackstar was still drawing a lot of current. I got a Biketrac fitter to locate it and remove it. Since then the car doesn't discharge at all.

Moral of the story: choose your tracker carefully. I strongly recommend Biketrac, the app works well, it is super-sensitive and the customer service is excellent.