T5 not T2 I have a standard radio in me T5, I want to use it when camping without draining the veh battery Is it simply a job of running a live feed from my leisure batt to the live feed on the radio and leaving the switched live on the vehicle battery or is a Carlos Fandango modern radio more complicated than that. Cheers Dave
I reckon you need to run both switched and permanent live to you leisure battery and not hook up to the vehicle battery at all.
some stereos use quite a lot of power on standby with both switched and permanent live connected all the time. I'd leave the switched live on the ignition and move the permanent live to the leisure battery. At least that way the stereo will come on when you turn on the ignition and go off when you turn it off.
Problem with that is he will need to pop the ignition on when he wants the radio on whilst camping, I'd buy a nice portable radio for when your camping other to that I'm afraid I can't help
I've fitted a toggle switch on my dashboard that allows me to toggle where the radio is powered from. I toggle both the permanent and the switch live (so it's a DPDT switch - double pole, double throw) and have found that the switch over is quick enough for the radio not to notice the fraction of a second that it doesn't have the permanent live. When camping or parked up I just toggle the switch to the leisure battery, and when driving toggle it back to the van battery. In retrospect I think I wouldn't bother with the switch and just have it powered from the leisure battery all the time. I've a split charge system for the leisure battery and so it would effectively be being powered by the van when the engine is running anyway. Nick...
Meant to say - I'd avoid having permanent live on one and the switched on the other as you never know quite what the radio will do with the two and it might end up shorting them out or something when it's powered on - and you want to completely avoid any possibility of a direct connection between leisure and van batteries.
Has the radio got a code? just wondered if the split second change over would mean re entering it every time?
leave it alone...a standard head unit doesn't use that much juice....if you must change anything, have a fused permanent (still on when ig. key is out) live from your starter batt (for code and memory settings) and run a +ve from your leisure batt fuse box (or Zig w.h.y) the head unit on/off operates as the switch
