Battery issues 2011 800gs

[Hoggyf]

Bike battery was flat a couple of months ago and as I hadn't had the bike long and didn't know how old the battery was I bought a new and fitted it, all was well and working fine. Bikes been parked up for about 6 weeks and go out today and nadda, not a thing, zilch! Not even a dull glimmer of a light, put the multi meter on it and zero voltage????? Never had this before, it's a motobatt sealed battery, even the old battery I removed still has 5v on it.
Battery charger won't touch it as s too far gone, so anyone think it's a duff battery or is something drawing the current down on it on the bike? There is an alarm on the bike but it wasn't armed, sat hav plugged into the aux socket but that switches off after 15 mins.

 

[Bem]

It would be unusual for a new battery to go down to zero volts without something drawing current over just 6 weeks..
Suggest you take the battery out and leave it on the charger for a couple of days, just in case.
If you are high miles eg over 30k then you need to look more closely at the well documented Rotor/stator for charging outputs.
If you are on low miles eg under 15k then my money is on the Sat nav being left on.
HTH
Brian

 

[AberdeenAngus]

If its zero volts then its sulphated. A high resistance coating on the plates.
You can recover it by briefly exposing it to approx. 24v. against the polarity of the battery i.e. +ve to +ve, -ve to -ve.
Otherwise its a new battery.

 

[Hoggyf]

Is it not positive to negative to make 24v ??
Don't think it's the stator as its only done a few short trips since the new battery and had no starting issues then ??
Need a battery charger now as mines stopped working now ��

 

[AberdeenAngus]

Nope +ve to +ve. You're trying to force some charge in, not drain out what's left.
So you'll need a 24v source (or thereabouts). I have a power supply I use, but you could do the same with 2 12v batteries ( that's 2 above the one you're trying to charge).
I've successfully resurrected a couple of batteries this way.
You can also get de-sulphating conditioning chargers which pulse higher voltages into the dead battery. But I find a few pulses of 20 odd volts does the trick.

 

[Hoggyf]

Having thought about I suspect I know what the culprit is, the heated Oxford grips stayed on last time I rode it and I thought it was fed from the aux outlet which states on for 15 mins after you switch off but I wonder if the relay in the heated grips has stayed n and drained the battery, I normally switch them off but maybe didn't.
Hope I can recover the battery!
Might be able to use the car battery and the old battery to create 24v
How long do I connect the 3 batteries together for to recover it? Couple of seconds at a time? How many times etc?

 

[AberdeenAngus]

Just a few goes, a few seconds at a time.
Then try your charger.
Take all necessary safety precautions, won't you.

 

[AberdeenAngus]

You might get away with it. Worth a go.
You will always have some reduced capacity, though how much depends on how long your battery was sat flat.

 

[AberdeenAngus]

So, how did you get on?

 

[Hoggyf]

Managed to recharge the battery by tandem charging it with another battery and got it back. Done a parasitic draw test and got the following result with everything switched off

Is that normal? It's the same on the main earth to batter and from my spotlight wiring to earth but not on the auxiliary harness.

 

[ahutcheon]

That's 83.7ma? Doesn't look normal, if it's continuous that'll hurt a bike battery pretty badly in 4 days, run it dead flat inside 10.

If you're able to track down which bit of the harness the current is flowing in you should be able to home in on what's drawing the current.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk

 

[Hoggyf]

that was on the main earth, not some additional wiring, but I had the same figure on the earth for the wiring on my spotlights, any advice how to try and trace it?

 

[thomo57]

Unplug all connectors 1 by 1, check meter current draw after each disconnection.
If you lucky, it will be one device, causing the issue, but it may be a combination..
Good luck

 

[AberdeenAngus]

83mA is very high. Even if not armed, I would suspect the alarm. Can you arm the alarm remotely with the ignition off? With a remote, say?

 

[sparkieboy29]

If you have another battery connect in parallel and the charger will kick in as its picking up some voltage and will then charge the dead battery I've brought a few back this way, also what type of sat nav do you have as once upon a time I had a tomtom first generation bike sat nav even after removing the satnav from the charging base the base continued to draw current rather like a phone charger in a car, even thought the socket on your bike is supposed to shut off if the cambus picks up a draw of power it does not shut off after 15 mins it continues to power what ever is plugged in hence your dead battery it appended to me with the old tomtom on first night of camping in France I was in luck a guy there had jump leads to get the bike going


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[Hoggyf]

Definitely not the satnav as its not plugged in at all (plugs into the fag lighter socket) when the draw is at 82A - suspect its something to do with the spotlights as the draw is on that and the main earth and the feed to the spotlight relay was taken from the headlight so start there and work backwards when I get a chance to look at it.
I'm hoping it is the spotlights as its easy enough to trace and hopefully rectify, if its something else god knows where I start.

 

[thomo57]

Hoggyf, is the total load of your spot lights and the relay current rating rating compatible?


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[Hoggyf]

Id need to go back and check it but I'm reasonably sure it is as they're led spotlights so not a large draw.

 

[Hoggyf]

2 days later battery voltage is still the same

 

[AberdeenAngus]

2 days later battery voltage is still the same

Your battery can handle an 80mA load for a few days.
80mA x 24hrs = approx 2 Amphours per day.
Battery flat in less than a week.