This is an important concern that any fleet should worry about, especially in cases that requires trucks to be parked for an extended period of time. The parasitic loads happen when the power usage of vehicle’s battery is consumed by the components connected to the truck’ circuit when the truck’s engine is off.

On one side, trucks are constantly evolving and becoming more modern and the addition of more electronic controls to heavy vehicles is always increasing. On the other side, truck drivers who spend hours and hours on the road need to equip their sleepers’ cabs with different technology items such as entertainment devices or a refrigerator.

This problem can result in over-discharging truck’s battery, which might cause irreparable damage and reduce the lifetime of the equipment. Here are some tips that can be followed to avoid this problem:

- Verify your truck batteries frequently
The battery should be checked every week, instead of two, especially in the cases of the newer vehicles, since they might have a higher consumption of the electrical system.

- Ensure truck’s batteries receive the power they require
By checking that the batteries achieve their 100% of charge every time is necessary to charge them. For added safety, when the vehicle is parked, it is recommended to disconnect both the negative and positive battery cables.

- Set Low Voltage Differential Signaling (LVDS)
This form of communicating data, via a differential signal with a slight voltage swing, is a good option to protect and avoid the reduction of the lifespan of the battery. As long as LVDS are properly configurated because it provides gigabit speeds by using a very slight voltage.

- Use a digital multimeter
A digital multimeter is used to test if there is a parasitic battery draw. If excessive consumption is detected, then a good option will be to start eliminating possible options that can be responsible and locate circuit problems.