Flat Battery

[djack]

Hi everyone,

djack on the keyboard again requesting advice The problem I have is this due to shifts,weather and many other factors I have not been out on the 1200gs for two months or more.As expected the battery is flat as a fluke
I have one of the BMW chargers for this eventuality and put it on at 10.00hrs this morning and went to check process at 17.00 hrs.
Checking the charging unit lights displayed are green all ok I thought So I disconnected the charger and made attempt to start bike but no joy Battery still flat this is after 7hrs charging!

Questions
1) Am I being ambitious thinking the bike would start after 7 hrs charging?
2)Has anyone charged thier battery with one of these BMW chargers if so how long was it before they could start the engine?
3)Could the battery be to far gone to hold a charge even though the bike and all parts is only 12mnths old?
any replies would be helpfull cheers for now djack.

 

[beermonster]

I would get the battery tested, sounds like it could be knackered. I understand that Optimates can recover totally flat batteries. Although I have not used either BMW or optimate.

 

[Tarka]

Was the charger in the auxiliary socket ??

I believe that it`s only 'live' for a short while,then is automatically disconnected....


As for the time of charge....if you consider that a normal charge is at about one tenth of the AmpHour rating,and if (say) you had an 18Ah battery,a totally flat battery would take eighteen hours to charge ...

A trickle charger would take considerably longer.

 

[longdog]

I would get the battery tested, sounds like it could be knackered. I understand that Optimates can recover totally flat batteries. Although I have not used either BMW or optimate.

My Optimate failed to recover my old battery 12 months ago.

 

[Frank Warner]

You need to RTFM. I'd think you have not done the right procedure for charging a R1200GS ...

Personally I'd be puting a fuesd connection to the battery and charge from there - that way you 'know' what is going on. KISS ... me being the last S.

 

[Ste@SSB]

Did you plug the charger in using the right sequence?...

Ignition on ... plug in bike ...turn on charger at the wall ... ignition off...

Your bike has to "see" the charger with the ignition on before it knows to leave the socket live...

 

[djack]

Lost instructions

Thanks all, STe@ssb I have to admit I did not follow the procedure you have stated.I can't put my hand on the instruction book for the bmw charger!
Any chance of scanning this in and e-mailing relevant bits if it's not being to cheeky

cheers again djack

 

[Ste@SSB]

If someone doesn't sort you out first I'll see what I can do tomorrow...

 

[djack]

Loose connection

Well in frustration I opted to take the battery OFF the bike.
Having a optimate charger which I bought a while back I thought I would try this out.But (there is allways a but) I noticed when I tried to undo the battery terminals the Positve one was only finger tight at most No effort needed at all to undo this bolt
This got me thinking if this could also be a contributery (spelling?) factor in the battery being totally flat?
Any way I connected the battery up to the optimate and the charger indicated that the battery was NOT totally flat but on the lights scale on the charger was about 1/4 power but I left it charging anyway. Insufficient maybe to turn the engine over?
Well I will let you know how I get on if anyone is still interested

 

[Captain Beaky]

A loose terminal will mean that the battery will charge OK, but won't start the bike - seen it before.

Mind you, on my 01 1150, the battery just went bad - I've had to change it.

Would seem OK on optimate, but wouldn't crank the bike.

I changed the battery - and all is now good.

Best advice I can give is to charge the battery off the bike, and if it's not a sealed type, check that the levels are correct in the battery.

Give it a good time to charge, and drop it back on the bike to see what happens.

I'm not sure if the charging socket is permanently connected - if you are unsure, then use the little lead that came with the optimate to permanently connect to the battery.

Good luck.