Dead OEM battery and now dead Odyssey

[tommygun]

Hello chaps and Happy New Year...!

Seems I'm starting 2010 off with some biking woes. After 6 weeks of standing during the months of Sept/Oct, my original battery was beyond dead. No sign of life on the dashboard whatsoever. After 48 hours on the Optimate it seemed to function fine for about 3 days.

I bought an Odyssey replacement just before Christmas and fitted fully charged, went to do some Xmas shopping in town and then covered it up over Xmas until today. I now have a dead Odyssey battery with the same symptoms as the OEM.

The chaps at Motorworks have advised that I charge up the battery and leave it for a few days not fitted to the bike to see if the charge holds. Thereafter fit the battery and see if a discharge (not that kind..;-) ) occurs again. Two weeks, even in the cold, should not discharge a brand new battery to that point - esp an Odyssey, so I'm thinking there may be something wrong with the bike.

I've read through other posts but every one ends with the battery getting replaced with a new one. So I'm just looking for some pointers as to what (if at all) might be causing a complete drain. Bike is an 06 GSA with aux lights and heated grips, no alarm and no other accessories connected to the battery. The Odyssey came with fitting instruction and was modified by Motorworks to fit the GSA.

For the moment its sitting on the charger and I will monitor the charge over the next few days.

Thanking in advance

 

[cookie]

the guy at motorworks is right.

if the battery goes flat when disconnected, it's the battery.

if it only goes flat on the bike, it's the bike.

however, you've done a pretty good test by fitting a new battery, so it looks like it's the bike

 

[Fanum]

so it looks like it's the bike

Or the Optimate

 

[cookie]

Or the Optimate

i'm afraid that if i mention the "O word" ever again, wapping will pounce

 

[Wapping]

Relaxed about Optimates... They seem to work fine for me and always have... but so does the oil, the tyres, the panniers, the exhaust, the headers, the Autocom, the seat and, not least, the tax disk holder.... Maybe I am just lucky?

I do though have a leak in my bathroom and my garage door has been done in

 

[Fanum]

Relaxed about Optimates... They seem to work fine for me and always have... but so does the oil, the tyres, the panniers, the exhaust, the headers, the Autocom, the seat and, not least, the tax disk holder.... Maybe I am just lucky?

I do though have a leak in my bathroom and my garage door has been done in

It's not a question of whether the optimate works (usually...this one may be different) but whether the use of one is a good idea in the first place, given that they may hide battery problems, leaving people with vulnerable/underspecced batteries (ie 1200 owners) stranded when the battery that the optimate was falsely telling them was ok suddenly lets them down somewhere.

The battery may well have been 'ok' in that it was as charged as the optimate could make it, but that doesn't mean the battery is healthy or not prone to failing without notice once the optimate is disconnected.

Optimates aren't intelligent, fully reasoning things and often take the symptoms being recieved as gospel, much like a large number of 1200 owners

 

[Slowdown]

Moving on from the 'petit tête à tête', I don't know how you'd figure out which circuit is taking the power.

In the good old days, I'd have taken all the fuses out and reconnected them one at a time, until current started to be drawn. But you can't do that on a 1200. Or can you, via some devious means? I've not opened the electrics panel on mine or looked at the wiring diagram. I guess you can you isolate circuits by physically pulling the connectors

 

[Snoopy]

You may also wish to read the thread "Oddessys ... they dont like cold weather" .

 

[Wapping]

It's not a question of whether the optimate works (....symptoms being recieved as gospel, much like a large number of 1200 owners

As I said, I'm relaxed about 'em.

For everything else, I have jump leads....

It will probably transpire that matey never uses his bike - other than for short jaunts to collect root vegetables* - which has now been sitting for days at minus God knows what, so the bloody batteries have died of cold and neglect.... My Froggy next door neighbour has the same problem with his FireBlade, battery is fecked (and it ain't been anywhere near an Optimate).... but

got it at least started.

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/jump-start-4000/brand/clarke

I'm surprised the bike didn't melt


*freely plagiarised from St Eptoe.

 

[Nobby]

charge it on a good charger.. and see sometimes batterys need a bit of amps behind them to get them going good..brings them to life

 

[tommygun]

Moving on from the 'petit tête à tête', I don't know how you'd figure out which circuit is taking the power.

In the good old days, I'd have taken all the fuses out and reconnected them one at a time, until current started to be drawn. But you can't do that on a 1200. Or can you, via some devious means? I've not opened the electrics panel on mine or looked at the wiring diagram. I guess you can you isolate circuits by physically pulling the connectors

Cheers anyway. Will see what happens after this charge. I'll leave the battery on its own outside and see if it loses charge after a few days.

For the record: This is a brand new Odyssey battery which was charged on delivery. I checked the charge before fitting and it was fully charged. No Optimate was involved. Cold temperatures will not kill a brand new battery to that extent surely?

 

[Pukmeister]

Optimates can lie.

My original BMW wet cell battery lives in the garage as a spare, and given the occasional top up charge.

I put it on the Optimate and it said it was fully charged. How odd says I.

I measured the terminal voltage - it was only 10.5 Volts so definitely NOT fully charged.

It's now probably sulphated beyond usefulness and fit for the scrapyard.

 

[cookie]

Moving on from the 'petit tête à tête', I don't know how you'd figure out which circuit is taking the power.

unless it's not got the software update that bmw released ages ago to stop the ECU being on when it shouldn't, i'd be looking at anything electrical on the bike that wasn't there when it left the factory.

in particular, badly fitted (aren't they all?), aftermarket alarms.

 

[tommygun]

Yeah....standard spec, no alarms fitted. Bike was running sweetly until winter.

I find it hard to fathom that I should have to keep a battery on constant charge even through winter . I owned a bl**dy Caponord before this which was riddled with electrical problems but funnily enough the battery never gave.

 

[tommygun]

The saga continues...

Chargerd the Oddysey and left it standing outside for a week and it kept its charge. I fitted it to the GSA and she started on the button and then I left the bike for a few days connected. Started last week with no issues - the battery maintaining a steady charge of 12.8 volts. I checked the current with the multimeter in series and it doesn't appear to be drawing any power at the battery terminals.

This morning I tried to start it and all I got was a loud clicking sound. While the ignition was on I checked the voltage across the terminals and it was around 11V and decreasing till 9 volts. Upon turning the ignition off, the voltage popped back up to 11V. Tried cranking again and get the same clicking sound...and now I am getting the EWS! warning. Now...is it possible that I have a faulty Antenna Ring which could be shorting and is on its way out, and be the cause of draining two batteries now? Battery is out again and on charge.

 

[Slowdown]

So something's discharging the battery. It's a matter of finding out what. Electrical gremlins like this are a PITA.

 

[Funners]

The saga continues...

Chargerd the Oddysey and left it standing outside for a week and it kept its charge. I fitted it to the GSA and she started on the button and then I left the bike for a few days connected. Started last week with no issues - the battery maintaining a steady charge of 12.8 volts. I checked the current with the multimeter in series and it doesn't appear to be drawing any power at the battery terminals.

This morning I tried to start it and all I got was a loud clicking sound. While the ignition was on I checked the voltage across the terminals and it was around 11V and decreasing till 9 volts. Upon turning the ignition off, the voltage popped back up to 11V. Tried cranking again and get the same clicking sound...and now I am getting the EWS! warning. Now...is it possible that I have a faulty Antenna Ring which could be shorting and is on its way out, and be the cause of draining two batteries now? Battery is out again and on charge.

Nope, the EWS ( and any other warning symbols you may get) are symptoms of the low voltage in the battery, this is what mine did when my OE battery died out of the blue.

as for the power drain ( and you must have one of some description) my money is on the ZF unit(control unit) being live all the time...

 

[Pukmeister]

Or you could have corrosion on the wiring to the starter relay under the seat (or the starter motor terminals) thereby using more amps than usual to crank the bike until the battery runs out of stored charge ?

Worth a check ??

 

[Demongroover]

...as for the power drain ( and you must have one of some description) my money is on the ZF unit(control unit) being live all the time...

Isn't there a firmware upgrade / fix for that at the dealers?

My '04 GS12 is doing the same, I have had OE & Oddyssey go flat and also use Optimate chargers (Mk II & MK III).
Currently have batteries charged and standing in garage, which I am periodical checking with the volt meter.

 

[DrFarkoff]

There was a wee problem that was a service check (rather than a recall) on 04 and 05 1200's that was to see if the hazard button "light" was still on after 5 mins then it needed a wee software upgrade

These bikes would flatten thier battery after about 2 weeks

If you get a multimeter with a 10 amp max current setting you should be able to bridge the negative to the battery connection and see what draw is happening after a) 5 secs, b) 15secs, c) 30secs d) 1 minute and after 30 mins and if it's constantly over 0.5 amp you have a problem

NB do not try to start the bike with this bridge in !!! You may turn on the ignition but DON'T press the starter button! You will probably fry your multimeter if you do and upset the "canbus fluid viscosity levels"!