Good Battery

[Big Jets]

The Battery in my 87 r100gs has went tits up a year and a half old Motobatt .Any recomendations as there is room for a major battery in the gs which the motobatt filled nicely .I know Odyssey are good but do they come in gs battery box size .Cheers

 

[DrFarkoff]

Should not be!
Is it definitely charging correctly!

Is the Charge lamp lighting When the ignition is turned on? If not Brushes or Rotor are suspect

aLSO You don;t need a big Odyseey! PC680 is all that is required

What starter do you have??

 

[Big Jets]

Hi Doc ,the battery battery does not seem to be taking a charge it has been slowly deteriorating over the last couple of months ,charge light is coming on and going out above approx 1500rpm as it usually does ,I think its a bosch starter .Ive got the battery on charge at the moment and Im going to give it another go .If it does not start I will try and jump it off my van battery so I can possibly rule out the starter.Getting warning lights when I switch on ignition so rotor should be ok .Ill let you know how I get on .Another thing does the time clock (pod) pull a battery down very much should I disconnect the battery when its laying up a couple of weeks.

 

[DrFarkoff]

No Takes 6 or more weeks to discharge with just a clock running

Put a bulb across the battery and completely flatten it

You will need an old fashioned just puts charge in type charger to revitalise it an optimate might "desulphate" to bring it back to life

But most trickle things see too high a resistance and just shut down

N.B.

Battery positives to positive and Frame or chassis earth to to chassis earth and Engine NOT running in Van!

and of course half decent jump leads!

 

[Big Jets]

Right Doc ,gave the battery a good hour plus on my Snap on charger on low 1 hour plus .This is usually sufficient to charge the battery in the past .Clicked and barely turned the bike over for a second then just solenoid clicking .Took the battery out the van and connected it up bike started instantly starter working no problem .I jumped the bike the other day and took it a 20 mile run and the battery did not charge up and would not start the bike .

 

[DrFarkoff]

Looks like you may have killed it with Kindness

I think that Motobatt suffer from "memory effect"

Where it needs to fully charge to keep it fresh

an hour will only partially charge it .....

Maybe someone will be along who knows for certain

 

[Beemerboff]

Boost it

If you let a Motobatt get too low a 0.6 amp trickle charger wont bring it up - it needs about a 12 amp jolt to get it going again.

I dont know if you can do this by connecting to another good battery, or if you need an industrial type heavy duty charger, but the information will be out there somewhere on the net.

 

[andy198712]

when a battery goes proper flat, i connect it to another battery so the "smart" chargers of today read that its connected to a battery and thus starts charging, its part of there new safety features i guess....

 

[AberdeenAngus]

when a battery goes proper flat, i connect it to another battery so the "smart" chargers of today read that its connected to a battery and thus starts charging, its part of there new safety features i guess....

Are you connecting them in parallel or series?
In series, I can't see them charging. Even a flat battery will give 9v. Add this to the 12v from the good battery and the charger is going to turn itself off.
In parallel, even with only a few volts difference, you are liable to get mahoosive current due to the low internal resistance.

Do you wear full body armour when attempting this?

 

[Kenny]

I somehow think he will have bought a new battery by now as this was a month ago...then again, knowing the tight git

 

[Steptoe]

when a battery goes proper flat, i connect it to another battery so the "smart" chargers of today read that its connected to a battery and thus starts charging, its part of there new safety features i guess....

Good job i'm still using all my 20+ year old chargers....... How often do people buy battery chargers nowdays ?

 

[AberdeenAngus]

Good job i'm still using all my 20+ year old chargers....... How often do people buy battery chargers nowdays ?

Indeed. Very handy having an old constant current charger kicking about.
...and you just don't see Bakelite any more

 

[Kenny]

Indeed. Very handy having an old constant current charger kicking about.
...and you just don't see Bakelite any more

Yes but they can be quite a bit more bulky than an Optimate. Took this pic when I visited St.Eptoes modern workshop recently....

 

[AberdeenAngus]

That's where he lays the bodies out and waits for a storm....

 

[andy198712]

Are you connecting them in parallel or series?
In series, I can't see them charging. Even a flat battery will give 9v. Add this to the 12v from the good battery and the charger is going to turn itself off.
In parallel, even with only a few volts difference, you are liable to get mahoosive current due to the low internal resistance.

Do you wear full body armour when attempting this?

my flat ktm battery read about 3v if i remember correctly, it wasn't enough to turn on the charger (or it to detect a battery) so i connected it to another battery (pos to pos, neg to neg)

taken from here among other sources

Battery charger troubleshooting can be a pain in the world of smart chargers. Many of the new intelligent chargers need to see a voltage on the battery before they will start. This is a safety issue, to prevent the charger from arcing if the electrodes are shorted. Thus, my favorite trick of bashing the cables together to see if there is a spark won't work on these chargers. Also, if the battery is so low in voltage that the charger can't detect it, the charger won't turn on. In this case you need to bootstrap the battery by jumping it to another battery or finding a charger that doesn't have this safety feature, sorry. This also means that you can't use these new chargers as power supplies unless you have a battery in parallel with them.

REF : http://www.powerstream.com/how-to-use-a-battery-charger.htm

just like jumping a battery.

each to there own and all, but worked for me....?

 

[andy198712]

is the motobatt cover for 12 months or 24?