Update as promised, SEE PREVIOUS POSTS , so been informed by BMW techs that the problem was probably the Battery been told to monitor the situation also been informed if it happens again there going to ask me to remove the cansmart and the Denali lights and horn as these can be causing battery issues, thoughts please .
Battery critical update !
- Thread starter Gs12bos
- Start date
When people ask me about electrical faults, having a previous career in electronics manufacturing, one of my first questions is, "have you made any modifications," followed by, "perhaps you should remove the mods?" The other question is, "have you done any work on the bike since it was working well?" Trapped wires were high up in my top 10 list of assembly related things I got to fix when replacing magic smoke, after a misassembled machine went bang in the test area.
fredaroony
Registered user
Why didn't you just update your previous post??
I’ve had a cansmart, lights front and rear for 3 years on my 1250 and 3 years before that on my 1200. No battery issues.
Yes, but that’s not to say his aren’t faulty….only that yours weren’t
Bottom line, Batteries do fail like anything else. Moreover our bikes often go unused for longish periods, especially during the winter. And then just to add to that many of us fit things such as Trackers, CanSmarts etc. All of which do drain batteries over time. We therefore have two choices when our bikes are idle, disconnect the battery, or put a battery guard/charger on them to keep the battery in good condition.
For what it's worth I have an Optimate charger thats plugged into a fitted SAE plug whenever the bike sits in the garage, hey presto, no battery issues. The SAE plug also doubles up as a convenient power point for heated gear, air pumps etc. As a backup I also carry a Noco Genius Booster battery with a quick plug in tail wired onto the bike battery. When away on trips it doubles up as a USB charger if needed. My previous bike, a K1600 GTL was left in an underground car park for three months, on return the battery had charge, but was insufficient to turn the bike over. The Noco and its plug quickly solved that problem starting her up first time, a two minute job.
Stay safe and well guys ;-)
Tony
For what it's worth I have an Optimate charger thats plugged into a fitted SAE plug whenever the bike sits in the garage, hey presto, no battery issues. The SAE plug also doubles up as a convenient power point for heated gear, air pumps etc. As a backup I also carry a Noco Genius Booster battery with a quick plug in tail wired onto the bike battery. When away on trips it doubles up as a USB charger if needed. My previous bike, a K1600 GTL was left in an underground car park for three months, on return the battery had charge, but was insufficient to turn the bike over. The Noco and its plug quickly solved that problem starting her up first time, a two minute job.
Stay safe and well guys ;-)
Tony
Yes, but that’s not to say his aren’t faulty….only that yours weren’t
Two different units and there are 100s fitted to BMWs so unless there are 100s of others having the same battery issues, then on probability its a BMW electrics fault and not the Cansmart. My cansmart only comes on when the ignition is on, so its not powered up when the bike isn't on. But thanks for your useful contribution.
The cansmart is on a switched live, so doesn't power up until the ignition is on, so no battery drain when the bike is not on. There is a known software fault that drains the battery if you are maintaining the battery through the aux socket. BMW know about this and are going to issue a software update. But it doesn't seem to be all bikes and not all optimisers.
Again, it doesn’t prove that it isn’t the problem…..disconnecting it for a period does, 100%
I very much doubt it is the problem myself, but there could be a million units out there that work perfectly, it still doesn’t prove that this one isn’t faulty.
Law of manufacturing alone suggests that there has to be a percentage of them that are faulty/fail at some point.
Hi Casbar, thanks for the info and 'heads up'. I assumed the CanSmart used some power due to the flashing green light on it that continues 24/7 as far as I know? And for charging/battery maintenance I use a fitted SAE plug from Optimate direct to the battery avoiding the Canbus. I also use that same SAE plug for heated gear and for pumping up tyres and air beds, its proven to be very useful. Thanks once again, stay safe and well. Regards, Tony
You can measure the drain, think something like 35mili amps is acceptable. So if the drain is less than that, then nothing is draining the battery.
AberdeenAngus
Registered user
35mA will flatten a bike battery in a fortnight. That level of drain is only acceptable if it’s doing something useful, like an alarm.
If no alarm fitted, then anything above a couple of mA is a problem.
Of course, if you have access to a trickle charger then the problem is mitigated.
According to BMW, upto 35mA is an acceptable parasitic drain. Of course lower is better, but on our 1250s without cansmarts, but with trackers the parasitic drain was 30mA. So if 35mA will flatten a battery in two weeks, BMW should provide an optimiser with each bike. So unless my maths is wrong, a 16A batter is 16,000 mA. So divide 35 into that and its around 457. So how will 35mA flatten a battery in 14 days? But I could be missing something. Guess it depends on how much juice is needed to crank the engine,
On my 1250 GSA the battery is only 12Ah.
The tracker is not an BMW item, so don't expect BMW to accept responsebility for tracker issues. And if the customer wants a tool for keeping up the battery level, BMW will sell an excellent battery charger fit for the purpose
Interesting, I must look and confirm if mine is 12ah then research a larger replacement.......if necessary. Thanks for the heads up.
From memory it's not even 12ah.
Due to slow cranking I replaced mine with a 16ah Yuasa.
More money than some others though but I've been happy with Yuasa's quality down the years
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