bad capacitor draining battery??

[85crownHPP]

If a car stereo capacitor goes bad, can it drain the battery?

The 85 was dead as a doornail last night - I just drove it a couple days ago...
While poking around i discovered my trunk muncher and 3rd brake light were dead too... then i remembered i had powered them off the stereo wiring in the trunk.
Sure enough, the fuse for the subs' amp was bad... not blown, but nasty looking in the ends and not flowing juice. As i was re-charging the cap with a light bulb, I noticed it would start to drain as soon as i took off the light bulb (this cap has a drain alarm that sounds when the volts drop below 12) and sure enough the volt meter on it shows its draining out.

Aren't caps supposed to remain charged once they fill up? This was with the key off so none of the amps were on.
The 194 bulb I was charging them with all but went out... I wouldn't think that little draw would kill a battery so soon, but I may be wrong about how long ago i last drove it. hhhmmmm....

[gadget73]

usually not, but if it developed some internal leakage it may. Sounds like yours might be leaking internally, they do that when they begin to fail. You may also notice it gets warm from the leakage.

[85crownHPP]

Scratch that, it turns out I'm just a dumb-ass x2...

First, i did some research and found that my theory about the cap is a common mistake... since I had just charged it up, the volt display was lit up and doing its thing, so of course with its power supply removed it was draining the cap (it turns itself off after a few minutes, if it stops charging/discharging). I should have realized this...
I double checked it for draw after the display went out, sure enough it was clean

Also, my trunk light AND one of the dome lights was left on...
I didn't notice the trunk light right away because its LED and during the day you don't know its on unless you look right at it.
i guess I missed the dome light at first too because of the junk in the trunk not working... I still don't know why the amp fuse went bad...

At least i got some good out of it, while I had my electro-mojo kit out, I installed a cigarette power outlet finally, since it got removed when I removed the ashtray assembly to fit the center console 6 years ago...

[87gtVIC]

Lets see it!

[85crownHPP]

Its not much to look at, lol.
Just picture a cig outlet mounted flush at TDC in the console face with the gauges, where the switch used to be.

[87gtVIC]

Ahh okay. What was the switch used for?

[85crownHPP]

Nothing
It just looked like such a good spot for one while I was making the console, so I put one there figuring I'd need it sooner or later. I wound up stealing the switch for the 91 a while back, so it was already a nice hole with power/ground running to it!

[87gtVIC]

Can't complain about that. I love it when one can use existing things on new projects...just makes everything a hell of a lot easier.