That was really interesting. Thanks for taking so much trouble. I have found that any vehicle that has been ‘converted’ usually has electrical problems. OR, a previous owner tries to add some gadget. Well done that man.
Well found. 👍🏻I have a 2012 crafter version of the same van which I converted into a camper and the Interior light unit at the front is also part of the factory alarm unit. Very common for the windscreen to leak at the top (or get condensation in from sleeping in them)into this unit and cause havoc. They are hundreds of pounds from the dealer if you can’t fix them or get a second hand one. Luckily saved mine in time but many fellow campers not so lucky.
Really enjoyed this. For me this was using your brain and doing some real ''diagnosis". Not just swap and swap til fault disappears which unfortunately is often the norm.
A good find !. I imagine that the slow switching off of the incandescent bulb at the back, was because it shared the same feed with the LED strip lights. The power supply would have a capacitor to smooth the voltage regular for the stepped down voltage needed for the LEDs. There would be a return path via the door switch I think, hence the bulb ‘faded’ when you set the switch for it at the ‘door open/closed’ setting.
Really enjoy these case studys ,Great find that and very well executed , you could easily end up falling down a rabbit hole with these kind of jobs but you stick to your logic.. good work guys.. He a genius🤓
I’ve got 2 for the scope and we have one on route from one of our supporters,they are not very accurate on kilovolts as they can drift but it does help to trace what cable it’s drawing down
So the customer complaint is that the battery dies overnight due to a parasitic draw. Your plan is to leave it overnight & then approach it with the thermal camera in the morning when the battery has been depleated? What did you expect? Amazing.
it was an unexpected job right at the end of the our working year,didn’t have time to fully charge the battery for the test,if the battery had been fully charged that size of drain the battery would have lasted.
not allowed unsupervised battery charging due to insurance,it’s a clause a lot of insurance companies don’t tell you but obviously with the type of work we do it’s a known. thing. if we get drains we think will show up on thermal we get the battery fully charged and then set up just before we go home and sometimes put a jump pack of another battery with some jump leads.
a friend of mine has a mobility shop and they have to slow charge the batteries for a full test and I asked them if they had checked if they are allowed over night charging,he asked the question and was told not only was it not allowed over night but any unsupervised charging like going out for lunch. they don’t tell you the little things until it’s too late
I have a Mercedes Vito 2009 model that would completely discharge its battery over three days. Mercedes dealership could not find the cause of the battery issue. It took me a number of years to discover the reason behind the issue with the battery. The discharge issue was caused by the original factory fitted radio constantly was drawing power whilst not in operation. This explains the ongoing strange behaviour of the radio from day one, it would not turn on for days on end and then turn on by its self or the opposite would occur and the radio would not turn off the radio at all even with all the fuses removed. I ended up removing the radio and switched to an aftermarket radio. Problem solved.
Mercedes sprinters are strange, i had some led lights fitted in back of mine and after a few months i noticed the led lights were on all the time and i thought they been wired wrong so i checked them and they were wired to go on/off with the interior lights, when i checked them by standing in back and shutting the door they was going off, in the end i had to put a switch in it, strange enough i have a 2024 crafter now with led lights and they go off when you shut the doors but you look half hour later and the led lights are on but the interior lights are still off, did you work out why they was staying on
I'd start by putting current meter inline with battery and measure current draw. Then start pulling fuses until it stops. Then investigate what that fuse is feeding.
I'm intrigued with this fault, presumably as part of your diagnosis you tested the hot resistance of the indicator bulbs? And after finding the fault, did you then test the hot resistance of the LED strip lights? And what was the reading?
Loving theses case studies nice to see how you track things down , i bet your brilliant at cluedo 😂 have a great few days off , go easy on the eggnog 😂 👍🎅🥕🥕
Did you put a request into alldata to see if they could find the info on that X connector? As sometimes i put one in whilst i am doing something else just to see if the can find it quicker than i can.
if I would not have found it by flicking the switch i would have put a request in and see where it took me,this was filmed on one of our last days before we closed so we thought we was going to have to rebook in the new year
Could you have left a 12v battery support on overnight to stop the battery from going flat? Because the battery would go flat at around 2am, and when you got to work at 8am it had time to cool down - so couldn't see anything on the thermal imaging camera
you are not allowed to have unsupervised battery charging due to insurance restrictions,not many garages know about this but most have it in their policy. especially if you have a car with a known fault that could potentially get worse with extended charging,we had one shot at this one as it was end of the year but if we know it’s somthing that should show something we can charge the battery fully during the day and just turn off before we go home.
Would it not have been faster doing a volt drop across the battery live fuses? The interior light fuse would have shown thrown up circuit was drawing straightaway. Good find though, well sniffed out. But you have to ask yourself about the mentality of the roof trim installer who covered up those LED's. They ought to have been removed or at least disconnected.
from what I see the constant live was fused but the controlled live was not fused so must have been through a transistor to turn on when the door is open the light comes on.the customer needed it back before we finished up for crimbo so could get get the full info.
Has a similar issue, turned out to be the aftermarket stereo, Fully unplugged the stereo, fault disappeared , reconnect the stereo, fault gone, hasnt come back, cant explain it, but fault gone for over six months now???
Rogue 40mm negative cable connected directly to battery terminal before the MB OEM shunt, this is a big no no and will fail to let the BMS work properly. It should be terminated after the shunt as MB bodybuilder instructions.
I don’t do any aftermarket fitment for testing on add on wiring for exactly this reason,if connected wrong can thrown everything out,I found a bad earth on a Renault before and run a jumper testing cable to that side of the BMS It cured the fault but threw up a fault for the BMS. the little things you can miss
@rmsdiagnostics so say I've got a 2015 car with a parasitic draw. I put a multimeter on the battery and it shows 0.5amp. I start by pulling out the interior light fuse nothing. I pull out the boot light fuse the draw stops!!! How does the cars ECU effect this process???
only if you know it’s down to the boot light,if it’s settled to 0.5amp and you pull the wrong fuse and wake the system up you have to wait each time to let the system go to sleep,this internal light was not fused as it was run through a transistor so didn’t show up,the best way to do it a volt drop test across the fuse and calculate the draw without removing the fuse
If you put a multimeter (mV range) across the two exposed prongs on the top of the fuse in place you can measure the current draw without removing the fuse, however if you have to unlock and open the door to get to the internal fuse box random stuff probably powers up and masks the actual fault....
@@rmsdiagnostics true on an intermittent draw but if its constant pulling fuses is the way to go. Boot/rear lights staying on is a very common fault should have been on to it within 5min.
Good one a right sod to find if not for the thermal camera. Sloppy work of whoever did the work in the back. Shouldn't have left live lighting still connected but buried under new roof lining.
to be honest we don’t always record each job and sometimes when we are half way through we decide to hit record finish the job and go back to record the beginning parts and obviously it’s not as precise as the way we do the work,this one we actually started recording after we found the plug in the Sam unit that pointed us in the right direction 😂😂
If I said, that it was a "Daft Pillock" who had stuffed ceiling insulation overtop, and then installed wooden panelled overtop of existing lights, then I would be bad-mouthing Daft Pillocks. The outright stupidity is mind boggling. Helpful hint, although I don't know the name of the guy who did that, I can tell you what he's wearing (on his feet at least). He must be wearing slip-on shoes, because he sure ain't got the brains to tie shoe-laces !
Dunno how to deal with the dual shock of the culprit being the DIY wiring in the back 🤯🤯🤯....and.....Mercedes not being a great company for maintenance and easy access to wiring diagrams 🤯🤣
we have access to parts of the dealer info,I could have applied for the correct info but would have taken hours to get the info. we needed this van gone before the Christmas break
now that’s was interesting. to be fair i have not had a lot of luck with thermal camara and drains but i guess it really does depend on how much drain . what did surprise me was the drain on those led’s pretty high for that type of light but one lives and learns . parasitic draws can be a right nightmare at the best of times but a camper van my good lord must be a royal pain especially with no service info 🤪🤪🤪
I suppose it depends on how well it’s been charged. if its flat for days and run a it up for 20 mins and the next day it’s flat again that would make sence
That was really interesting. Thanks for taking so much trouble. I have found that any vehicle that has been ‘converted’ usually has electrical problems.
OR, a previous owner tries to add some gadget.
Well done that man.
it’s the first thing to check normally
Well found. 👍🏻I have a 2012 crafter version of the same van which I converted into a camper and the Interior light unit at the front is also part of the factory alarm unit. Very common for the windscreen to leak at the top (or get condensation in from sleeping in them)into this unit and cause havoc. They are hundreds of pounds from the dealer if you can’t fix them or get a second hand one. Luckily saved mine in time but many fellow campers not so lucky.
I will let the customer know,thanks
Good fault finding
thanks
Really enjoyed this. For me this was using your brain and doing some real ''diagnosis". Not just swap and swap til fault disappears which unfortunately is often the norm.
test don’t guess is what we stand by
A good find !. I imagine that the slow switching off of the incandescent bulb at the back, was because it shared the same feed with the LED strip lights. The power supply would have a capacitor to smooth the voltage regular for the stepped down voltage needed for the LEDs. There would be a return path via the door switch I think, hence the bulb ‘faded’ when you set the switch for it at the ‘door open/closed’ setting.
exactly that is why I picked up on it,it was a slow discharge from another source
Really enjoy these case studys ,Great find that and very well executed , you could easily end up falling down a rabbit hole with these kind of jobs but you stick to your logic.. good work guys..
He a genius🤓
I am a genius 🤭🤭🤭 thanks for watching
Top work, well done.
Glad you enjoyed it
never fails to amaze me with you fault finding skills.. brilliant.. Merry Christmas too..
thanks mate,hope your having a good time
That was a very interesting one, took some real thinking outside the box to pin point it but pin point it you did and fixed the problem
got there in the end
Brilliant deduction Holmes ❤
thank you
Sherlock Ohms ⚡️
Nice.
Very nice
Wow! That was interesting, well done 👍
Glad you enjoyed it buddy
Thought and perseverance equals genius.great result.
thanks buddy
Brilliant
thank you
That was an interesting one 👍
Glad you think so!
Brilliant job ☘️☘️
🥕🥕
Great find 👍
thank you
always learning something from your channel..
perfect,I don’t do training videos but if you can take a little from here and there it’s great
There is always an answer, but sometimes it takes some tracking down. Well done.
and it’s always so obvious seconds after you have found it,😂😂
You are brilliant Sir 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮
😀😀😀
Nice find that 👏🏿 👌
cheers mate
Brilliant video mate very informative 👍🏼
Glad you enjoyed it
Perhaps invest in a clip on ammeter, save disconnecting cables to check if any currents flowing.
I’ve got 2 for the scope and we have one on route from one of our supporters,they are not very accurate on kilovolts as they can drift but it does help to trace what cable it’s drawing down
I'm a retired electrician and recently had to purchase a dc clipping to test for a drain on a recent camper conversion and it worked a treat
they do work but well but but not quite as stable as inline meter,but great for quick testing
So the customer complaint is that the battery dies overnight due to a parasitic draw. Your plan is to leave it overnight & then approach it with the thermal camera in the morning when the battery has been depleated? What did you expect? Amazing.
it was an unexpected job right at the end of the our working year,didn’t have time to fully charge the battery for the test,if the battery had been fully charged that size of drain the battery would have lasted.
@@rmsdiagnostics Fair enough. You should have left it on a maintainer overnight.
not allowed unsupervised battery charging due to insurance,it’s a clause a lot of insurance companies don’t tell you but obviously with the type of work we do it’s a known. thing. if we get drains we think will show up on thermal we get the battery fully charged and then set up just before we go home and sometimes put a jump pack of another battery with some jump leads.
@@rmsdiagnostics Oh really? That's interesting - I wasn't aware of that. I suppose it makes sense from an insurance point of view.
a friend of mine has a mobility shop and they have to slow charge the batteries for a full test and I asked them if they had checked if they are allowed over night charging,he asked the question and was told not only was it not allowed over night but any unsupervised charging like going out for lunch. they don’t tell you the little things until it’s too late
Top man battery drain is a nightmare
they are not my favourite
I have a Mercedes Vito 2009 model that would completely discharge its battery over three days.
Mercedes dealership could not find the cause of the battery issue.
It took me a number of years to discover the reason behind the issue with the battery.
The discharge issue was caused by the original factory fitted radio constantly was drawing power whilst not in operation.
This explains the ongoing strange behaviour of the radio from day one, it would not turn on for days on end and then turn on by its self or the opposite would occur and the radio would not turn off the radio at all even with all the fuses removed.
I ended up removing the radio and switched to an aftermarket radio.
Problem solved.
nice one mate,glad you got it sorted
Good work....those kind of issues are the devil... 👍
keeps me looking young mate😂😂
It can be surprising how much power these LED’s can draw especially if they have an inverter that drops the voltage down. Good find though 👍👍
I would have liked to strip it out to find exactly what’s happened
Merry Christmas and a happy new year Bob and Barney hope you have a good day. 🌲☃️❄️
Same to you!
Mercedes sprinters are strange, i had some led lights fitted in back of mine and after a few months i noticed the led lights were on all the time and i thought they been wired wrong so i checked them and they were wired to go on/off with the interior lights, when i checked them by standing in back and shutting the door they was going off, in the end i had to put a switch in it, strange enough i have a 2024 crafter now with led lights and they go off when you shut the doors but you look half hour later and the led lights are on but the interior lights are still off, did you work out why they was staying on
the problem with led with no real driver unit they can light up with little voltage
I'd start by putting current meter inline with battery and measure current draw. Then start pulling fuses until it stops. Then investigate what that fuse is feeding.
how long would you wait after you had put the meter inline before you started pulling fuses?
Great trouble shooting. the customer did not know that the roof had a de-iceing circuit.lol..
😂😂
I'm intrigued with this fault, presumably as part of your diagnosis you tested the hot resistance of the indicator bulbs? And after finding the fault, did you then test the hot resistance of the LED strip lights? And what was the reading?
do you remember that room with the car all hooked up and them telling us computers will be finding cars in the future 😂😂
We never had thermal image cameras back in my day. I would've connected the van battery to the leisure battery in series and waited for the flash.
it’s the only way😂😂
Loving theses case studies nice to see how you track things down , i bet your brilliant at cluedo 😂 have a great few days off , go easy on the eggnog 😂 👍🎅🥕🥕
we are off until the 6th plenty of eggnog 😂😂
Well sussed!
cheers
Man made problems are always the hardest to find!
exactly
Did you put a request into alldata to see if they could find the info on that X connector? As sometimes i put one in whilst i am doing something else just to see if the can find it quicker than i can.
if I would not have found it by flicking the switch i would have put a request in and see where it took me,this was filmed on one of our last days before we closed so we thought we was going to have to rebook in the new year
I should of waited a minute longer in the video lol@rmsdiagnostics
lol
Could you have left a 12v battery support on overnight to stop the battery from going flat? Because the battery would go flat at around 2am, and when you got to work at 8am it had time to cool down - so couldn't see anything on the thermal imaging camera
you are not allowed to have unsupervised battery charging due to insurance restrictions,not many garages know about this but most have it in their policy. especially if you have a car with a known fault that could potentially get worse with extended charging,we had one shot at this one as it was end of the year but if we know it’s somthing that should show something we can charge the battery fully during the day and just turn off before we go home.
Would it not have been faster doing a volt drop across the battery live fuses?
The interior light fuse would have shown thrown up circuit was drawing straightaway.
Good find though, well sniffed out.
But you have to ask yourself about the mentality of the roof trim installer who covered up those LED's. They ought to have been removed or at least disconnected.
from what I see the constant live was fused but the controlled live was not fused so must have been through a transistor to turn on when the door is open the light comes on.the customer needed it back before we finished up for crimbo so could get get the full info.
Has a similar issue, turned out to be the aftermarket stereo, Fully unplugged the stereo, fault disappeared , reconnect the stereo, fault gone, hasnt come back, cant explain it, but fault gone for over six months now???
that’s strange
i had trouble like that but it was in a car . it was the radio draining the battery
radios can play havoc
Rogue 40mm negative cable connected directly to battery terminal before the MB OEM shunt, this is a big no no and will fail to let the BMS work properly. It should be terminated after the shunt as MB bodybuilder instructions.
I don’t do any aftermarket fitment for testing on add on wiring for exactly this reason,if connected wrong can thrown everything out,I found a bad earth on a Renault before and run a jumper testing cable to that side of the BMS It cured the fault but threw up a fault for the BMS. the little things you can miss
👍
👌👌🥕
I know you said light won't draw 1 +amp but if wire trapped to earth it can draw unlimited amps depending on the point of connection resistance
being shorted it could draw more but I was thinking of a single 5w bulb at 12v being around 0.4 amp draw
Bit of a fire hazard that!!
I would ike to see what’s been don’t about that panelling
Just start pulling fuses to see if the draw stops 👍
that used to work on the 1990s but modern cars the computers go to sleep and get woken up voltage interruption and spikes
@rmsdiagnostics so say I've got a 2015 car with a parasitic draw. I put a multimeter on the battery and it shows 0.5amp. I start by pulling out the interior light fuse nothing. I pull out the boot light fuse the draw stops!!! How does the cars ECU effect this process???
only if you know it’s down to the boot light,if it’s settled to 0.5amp and you pull the wrong fuse and wake the system up you have to wait each time to let the system go to sleep,this internal light was not fused as it was run through a transistor so didn’t show up,the best way to do it a volt drop test across the fuse and calculate the draw without removing the fuse
If you put a multimeter (mV range) across the two exposed prongs on the top of the fuse in place you can measure the current draw without removing the fuse, however if you have to unlock and open the door to get to the internal fuse box random stuff probably powers up and masks the actual fault....
@@rmsdiagnostics true on an intermittent draw but if its constant pulling fuses is the way to go. Boot/rear lights staying on is a very common fault should have been on to it within 5min.
Good one a right sod to find if not for the thermal camera. Sloppy work of whoever did the work in the back. Shouldn't have left live lighting still connected but buried under new roof lining.
yeah not right is it
Electrical problems after a camper conversion, all quiet normal 😂
😂😂
At 0.45 you say it's been sat there (asleep?) but you can clearly see the interior light is on.
to be honest we don’t always record each job and sometimes when we are half way through we decide to hit record finish the job and go back to record the beginning parts and obviously it’s not as precise as the way we do the work,this one we actually started recording after we found the plug in the Sam unit that pointed us in the right direction 😂😂
I seen the interior light on and thought it was connected to the drain
to be honest I recorded that bit at the as I had missed the intro so the light was not on to start with😂😂
Well done, you found the fault. You didnt gie up. Good on ya.
thank you
If I said, that it was a "Daft Pillock" who had stuffed ceiling insulation overtop, and then installed wooden panelled overtop of existing lights, then I would be bad-mouthing Daft Pillocks. The outright stupidity is mind boggling. Helpful hint, although I don't know the name of the guy who did that, I can tell you what he's wearing (on his feet at least). He must be wearing slip-on shoes, because he sure ain't got the brains to tie shoe-laces !
I’m going to be using that slip on shoes analogy from now on,brilliant 😂
fermal imagin camra should show 100%
it’s showed 3 areas and them three hot spots was actually cuts in the insulation allowing heat to the lower panel
Dunno how to deal with the dual shock of the culprit being the DIY wiring in the back 🤯🤯🤯....and.....Mercedes not being a great company for maintenance and easy access to wiring diagrams 🤯🤣
we have access to parts of the dealer info,I could have applied for the correct info but would have taken hours to get the info. we needed this van gone before the Christmas break
Is the parasite drawing, what has he drawn? I know what parasitic draw is but DRAWN? WHAT IS THAT?
😂😂😂ooops
First 3 minutes could be 10 seconds
the full video could have been done in 30 seconds, I’ve got a van with a fault,this is what I found,thanks for watching😂
now that’s was interesting. to be fair i have not had a lot of luck with thermal camara and drains but i guess it really does depend on how much drain . what did surprise me was the drain on those led’s pretty high for that type of light but one lives and learns . parasitic draws can be a right nightmare at the best of times but a camper van my good lord must be a royal pain especially with no service info 🤪🤪🤪
like all tools they work well or don’t work at all. yeah big drain for a few lights but it shut down fully after
A 1.3A drain shouldnt flatten a decent battery overnight.
I suppose it depends on how well it’s been charged. if its flat for days and run a it up for 20 mins and the next day it’s flat again that would make sence