The P38 and home gadgets...

[rover-56]

I found the battery on the P38 almost discharged a week or so ago.
Being new to the vehicle and after reading a few posts on here about mysterious battery discharging I have been checking the battery regularly. Happy to see that the normal discharge has been about 20mA. Happy with that. The EAS relay has an isolating switch.
So... suddenly the discharge is 550mA [bigsad]
Drops to 20mA after about 3 minutes and then back to 550mA immediately.
Looks like BCU waking up - what on earth can be doing that? Car locked, same. Car unlocked - same. Key fob batteries out- no difference.
???
My nearest neighbor is 5km away so no stray radio signals around, or so I thought.
Then after a few days of this I remembered it seemed to start about the time I installed one of those meter box power monitors, unit attached to the meter sends a signal to the indoor display every 30 seconds. AND on 433mHz.
Out with its batteries - problem gone.
Looks like the monitor has to go.
Geez I really like this P38 but I never had these problems with series Landrovers[bighmmm]

Terry

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Bloody modern tech!! [bigrolf]

[p38arover]

When I used to drive mine to work (signal box on NSW railways) at some sites. e.g., St Marys (NSW), the key fob would not lock/unlock the car. I guess the local RF from the on-site transmitters would affect the Rangie.

[TheTree]

Hi

Martin Cox has a solution (apart from replacing the receiver)

P38 RF Receiver Filter (http://p38webshop.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=84)

Steve

[prelude]

well dang, I always though the battery drained on these quickly but this explains a thing or two. I usually leave the key in the ignition though (yes I can do that down here) so I wonder if it still activates then...

Cheers
-P

[rover-56]

well dang, I always though the battery drained on these quickly but this explains a thing or two. I usually leave the key in the ignition though (yes I can do that down here) so I wonder if it still activates then...

Cheers
-P

Seems any RF at around 433mHz will wake it up to check if its being requested to do something. Stays awake for about 3 minutes then goes back to sleep. If the RF is still there it wakes up again and......then flat battery[bawl]
Terry

[rover-56]

Hi

Martin Cox has a solution (apart from replacing the receiver)

P38 RF Receiver Filter (http://p38webshop.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=84)

Steve

That filter probably wouldn't work because the RF signal from my gadget is already in the frequency range that the BCU is expecting from the key fob.
Terry

[TheTree]

That filter probably wouldn't work because the RF signal from my gadget is already in the frequency range that the BCU is expecting from the key fob.
Terry

Martin is very approachable, so if you are interested I would send him a message and ask him if it would help your issue

Steve

[rover-56]

Martin is very approachable, so if you are interested I would send him a message and ask him if it would help your issue

Steve

Thanks Steve, but I have solved the problem by giving the monitor to a friend. No she doesn't have a P38 [bigsmile]
Terry

[TheTree]

Much cheaper option [bigsmile1]