Okay... my battery saga continues. For those not bored already, do read on

After 3 attempts at reading the draw on the battery I finally realised I had it in 20amps, AC mode and not DC.

With the car all shut up (bar the bonnet obviously) and the alarm on, I get a reading that jumps between 0.11 and 0.12amps.

Should this kind of draw drain the battery to the point in 5 days time it won't even unlock the doors, or is my 1 month old battery a dud?

I'm not sure what draw I have to compare with your 0.1 amp...but to drain the battery to flat in a week there must be something wrong...take the car to a kwik fit type place and get them to drop test the battery - at least you'll know what the battery is capable of

May have to do that.

From what I've found out, 110ma is a bit high so I'm going to go out and take readings while pulling fuses in a minute. I've actually left the battery in the car but disconnected since about this time yesterday to see if it has lost its charge (was charged up out of the car the night before yesterday).

One thing that has occured to me is since quitting my job, I no longer make a 70-80mile round trip each week, so I'm only ever really pottering around Bournemouth. Now, I know the drain is high still and hopefully I can sort it mostly, but perhaps also a Ctek maintenance charger with an quick/easy connection to the car each night would be beneficial?

Pain in the a**e, but less of a pain in the a**e than jump starting each time, and letting the battery go that dead all the time won't do it any good.

Sorry - another essay! Thoughts on that idea would be appreciated though

Solar panel charger from Maplin might help...pretty cheap

That's true, although from what I've been told unless I can get the draw down quite a lot, it would take a fairly big solar panel to put enough charge into the battery to counter the losses overnight.

Just reconnected the battery and started it up. Turned over perfectly. So it seems the battery is okay. Now it's raining and I can't find my little pliers so it looks like finding the drain will have to wait until tomorrow

Aha - possible progress/success

I am sure I did readings yesterday with both the powerfold mirrors open and closed (controlled by a relay I put in, relay on = mirrors closed, off = open) and found a negligible difference in the draw.

Today though, I pulled my alarm fuse which powers the alarm and mirrors and it dropped from 0.12 to 0.01. Set the mirrors to open, put the fuse back in and it stayed hovering around 0.03-0.04. Much more like it. Closed the mirrors and it went back up.

I'll have to have a rethink on wiring the mirror folding. I did it like this so that I could control it with my alarm, which has a negative out when armed. Recently in a bit of a bid to save wear on the motor mechs I've been thinking of utilizing the original Type R control, looks like I'll have to work on this sooner than I had hoped.

Good to hear you've at least found the problem mate

as long as you stay parked, your relay uses power to keep the mirrors closed.
It would be best if you switch that around, when you are driving you have enough power left to keep charging your battery. you can do this by tie-ing your ignition with the relay to open the mirrors. when the relay doesn't have power your mirrors close.
since I don't have details on how the folding mechanism works i can't help much better than this.
[guess mode]
if your windows do need the power to maintain closed then i still suggest a simpel switch you flick over each time you get into the car. if too much volt then use a ressistor to supply correct volt. This should use less power than keeping a relay armed all that time.
Alternately you can use a transistor to do the same with less power used than the relay method.
[/guess mode]

That is probably the way I will do it when I rewire them, at least until I can change my interior to fit the preford controls.

Right now I've got it as it is, because my alarm has a negative output when the doors lock/alarm goes on, so that the alarm essentially powers on the relay (positive goes to an always live source) thus closing the mirrors when I lock the car up with the remote

I'm going to stop this happening though because I don't always need the mirrors to close, in my driveway for example. Excessive opening/closing will only put more wear on the mechs and finding replacements, unless someone writes off another type R will be difficult.

The SA30 has various outputs, I agree with phoenix - if you could swap it so it draws current with the mirrors open.

Just tried starting it now, after putting the battery on and disconnecting the mirrors on the 4th, so 2 days later.

Started up fine, nice and quick So looks like that draw was just too big, probably not helped by the fact the battery was a bit run down from the car just doing short trips.