Here we go again - flat battery

[karnevil]

had my GS 3 1/2 weeks(650 miles so far), had to have BMW breakdown out as my bike wouldnt start,It was a flat battery, I took it off the bike ( my garage has no electricty) and I charged it, it started the bike but went flat overnight, it was showing a shelf life of 05/08. Mechanic fitted a new battery and checked the alternator output ,which he said was fine and the bike has been okay for past 3 days.
I ride my bike to work 7 miles mixed open road and city center riding, usually with the heated grips on and I like to blat about when Im off.

I have had every other bike I ve owned on a trickle charger and never had any problems, however the GS wont fit down the side of my house into my nice shed and so is living in a rented council garage( with lots of locks).

The BMW mechanic said I should get a solar powered trickle charger which would be enough to keep the battery topped up, has anyone used one or got one, I see Maplins were doing a 12volt one for £12, does anyone know if this will work, I'd hate to be left with another flat battery, thanks ,also he said it was best to leave the bike with the steering lock on, something to do with the alarm, could someone explain

Thing is when would you use the trickle charger?I dunno but i doubt it would work at night while the bike was in the garrage.Is the garrage near a house whose owners would let you buy electric off them?
failing that takea longer route home and get one of those battery boost things i mentioned earlier.Bit of a bugger tho innit.
There was something about a discharge occuring if the ignition was switched on,say to move the bike,but not started,maybe that was wot the mechanic meant about the alarm and lock?? dunno

 

[Wapping]

had my GS 3 1/2 weeks(650 miles so far), had to have BMW breakdown out as my bike wouldnt start,It was a flat battery, I took it off the bike ( my garage has no electricty) and I charged it, it started the bike but went flat overnight, it was showing a shelf life of 05/08. Mechanic fitted a new battery and checked the alternator output ,which he said was fine and the bike has been okay for past 3 days.
I ride my bike to work 7 miles mixed open road and city center riding, usually with the heated grips on and I like to blat about when Im off.

I have had every other bike I ve owned on a trickle charger and never had any problems, however the GS wont fit down the side of my house into my nice shed and so is living in a rented council garage( with lots of locks).

The BMW mechanic said I should get a solar powered trickle charger which would be enough to keep the battery topped up, has anyone used one or got one, I see Maplins were doing a 12volt one for £12, does anyone know if this will work, I'd hate to be left with another flat battery, thanks ,also he said it was best to leave the bike with the steering lock on, something to do with the alarm, could someone explain

Unless I am being very dim (quite possible) I can't see how a solar charger is going to help.

Your bike's battery is apparently losing it's charge whilst it is sitting forlorn and lonely in a locked garage. The slowly flattening battery makes it difficult / impossible to start when you go to the garage and get the bike out.

Unless the garage has no roof.....how is the sunlight going to get in?

Or do you intend to wheel the bike out, attach the solar charger and let it do its stuff...If so, it might well work.... Don't forget to lock / chain the bike up (and secure the shiny charger some how) when you leave it for several hours basking in the sunshine, or a flat battery may well be the least of your worries.

 

[Slowdown]

Unless I am being very dim (quite possible) I can't see how a solar charger is going to help.

The solar panel sits outside on the roof, preferabaly facing south. Then 2 long wires wind their way down and in to the bike. Or car, in my fathers case.

 

[karnevil]

The solar panel sits outside on the roof, preferabaly facing south. Then 2 long wires wind their way down and in to the bike. Or car, in my fathers case.

err at night tho i think is the point.The bike I pressume will be out at work all day

 

[Wapping]

I ride my bike to work 7 miles mixed open road and city center riding, usually with the heated grips on and I like to blat about when Im off.

err at night tho i think is the point.The bike I pressume will be out at work all day

...My thoughts exactly....Though he may work nights, in which case he may well be fine with the long wires......providing it's not an integral garage, or he may need incredibly long wires.....

 

[Deleted account 211025001]

FWIW I find it hard to believe, based on my experiance, that an Odessey battery has come to the end of it's useful life after two years.

The last bike (apart from my current GS) to have an Odessey was a Guzzi with high comp pistons and an iffy (standard on all old Guzzis ) charging system. The bike lived outside and in the 4 years I owned it the battery never once let me down.

Andres

 

[karnevil]

...My thoughts exactly....Though he may work nights, in which case he may well be fine with the long wires......providing it's not an integral garage, or he may need incredibly long wires.....

Wapping

You're such a smart Ass

 

[Pukmeister]

IIRC the Odyssey battery comes with a few years warranty on it. Maybe it has failed prematurely? Could be worth checking with hawker to see if your battery is under warranty and could be replaced?

 

[ts2]

Have you checked that the contacts are all tight? I had an old bike that regularly shook the battery connections loose. It all looked fine at first glance, but the contacts only had to be a little loose to lose contact entirely.

Otherwise I'd take it to MuckyHelmet (Find out their real name first) and get them to check if the battery is getting enough juice. Check the simple things before buying new batteries and wiring up your garage.

Oh and I'm surprised no one mentioned that twins need more amps to crank than a four (of the same capacity).

TS

 

[chickenlegs]

Have done a bit of poking about

Just managed to have a tinker and test. The battery contacts are very tight and clean - no signs of corrosion etc. I have looked at the connections for the Garmin cables and they also look fine.

I have just put a multi-meter across the battery and got the following results:
1. bike not started - after charging the battery overnight - 12.83v
2. bike started and idling at 2000rpm - 13.85v
3. bike idling at 2000rpm with main beam headlight switched on - 13.75v
4. immediately after bike switched off - 12.98v

That indicates to me that the battery is ok and the alternator is charging the battery adequately.

The 'expertvillage' link from Wapping was very helpful - thank you. I will have a look at this site for other things in future.

My guess, is that it is my short journey to work that is the cause, but why it has only just started to be a problem again, is still a mystery to me. It could be, as some have suggested the drop in air temperature which makes turning the engine over, more difficult. I will keep an eye on how much the battery discharges over the next few days as I am unlikely to use it for a while.

Thanks for all your help.

Chris

 

[John Armstrong]

Triple whammy from cold nights, battery capacity reduces, engine becomes harder to turn over and you have the heated grips on more often

 

[karnevil]

Well thats reasonably good news then £90 in your pocket is better than £90 in a dealers.At least you can get £90 worth of petrol and enjoy a few good rides.
Great

 

[Mucky Helmet]

My guess, is that it is my short journey to work that is the cause

Good news the voltages are what they should be.

Your short journey is going to be a major factor in this. Couple that with the colder temperatures and the battery is going to struggle when barely getting a charge from your commute.

It might be worth doing the same test tomorrow morning after the bike's sat around overnight (without being on a charger) and maybe repeat over a few days?

One last thing - have you checked for drain on your battery whilst your bike's idle?

 

[cookie]

Just managed to have a tinker and test. The battery contacts are very tight and clean - no signs of corrosion etc. I have looked at the connections for the Garmin cables and they also look fine.

I have just put a multi-meter across the battery and got the following results:
1. bike not started - after charging the battery overnight - 12.83v
2. bike started and idling at 2000rpm - 13.85v
3. bike idling at 2000rpm with main beam headlight switched on - 13.75v
4. immediately after bike switched off - 12.98v

That indicates to me that the battery is ok and the alternator is charging the battery adequately.

The 'expertvillage' link from Wapping was very helpful - thank you. I will have a look at this site for other things in future.

My guess, is that it is my short journey to work that is the cause, but why it has only just started to be a problem again, is still a mystery to me. It could be, as some have suggested the drop in air temperature which makes turning the engine over, more difficult. I will keep an eye on how much the battery discharges over the next few days as I am unlikely to use it for a while.

Thanks for all your help.

Chris

to get an idea of the batteries ability to hold charge properly, i'd want to put a drop tester on it.
my 1200 sits for weeks sometimes and still starts. no optimate either.

 

[Womble]

The onset of colder weather and darker days might be a factor as you're likely to be using the headlights and heated grips more.

There may also be more traffic on the road, or there may have been changes to the traffic that you encounter along your commute. If you have servo brakes, using the brakes while at a standstill can also be a killer on the battery, as pointed out above.

One other thing to bear in mind is that batteries don't perform well when in a partially charged state, and regular starts without a full charge decreases their life. If you rarely take the bike for a long run or top up the charge, the battery will degrade and won't last as long. Odyssey and gel batteries are great as they lose very little charge when stored, but they still won't be that happy if stored with a partial charge. This is made worse if you have accessories such as alarms and satnav mounts that drain the battery further.

If you get an intelligent charger, it will keep the battery topped up, so it will last longer.

By the way - as you have a multimeter, it would be interesting to hear what the current drain is with the ignition off, both with and without the alarm - disconnect the battery earth cable and put the multimeter in between the connections, on the current setting (careful with which sockets you use on the meter). You might be developing a wiring fault, which is flattening the battery.

 

[chickenlegs]

A little more tinkering

I have just tried to take a 'parasitic drain' reading! (A little knowledge is a dangerous thing).
After leaving the bike switched off for an hour to make sure that all electrical load is supposedly off - I have connected a multi-meter in series with the -ve lead from the battery and attempted take a reading of the current drain with little success. I must be doing something wrong as the meter fails to settle on a single reading and flashes about between what I think must be 40mA and 67mA - it may be my ineptitude that is at fault here!
When I connect the meter to the terminal I hear a very faint click from the instrument cluster. The reading seems to start alternating after about two seconds but never seems to settle.

What am I doing wrong?

I have also taken the following readings at the same time each day which show a reduction in voltage over a short period of time with the bike standing in the garage, unused between readings:
day 1 12.72v
day 2 12.62v
day 3 12.58v

 

[karnevil]

I have just tried to take a 'parasitic drain' reading! (A little knowledge is a dangerous thing).
After leaving the bike switched off for an hour to make sure that all electrical load is supposedly off - I have connected a multi-meter in series with the -ve lead from the battery and attempted take a reading of the current drain with little success. I must be doing something wrong as the meter fails to settle on a single reading and flashes about between what I think must be 40mA and 67mA - it may be my ineptitude that is at fault here!
When I connect the meter to the terminal I hear a very faint click from the instrument cluster. The reading seems to start alternating after about two seconds but never seems to settle.

What am I doing wrong?

I have also taken the following readings at the same time each day which show a reduction in voltage over a short period of time with the bike standing in the garage, unused between readings:
day 1 12.72v
day 2 12.62v
day 3 12.58v

Have you got an alarm?Could be the LED Flashing

 

[Womble]

It's difficult to do a parasitic drain test for several days as you would need to have the meter connected all the time, to allow the alarm to go to sleep properly etc. If you disconnect the meter between tests, you're really only testing the electrics just after the battery has connected, multiple times.

If you do want to test over several hours or days, it should be OK to turn off a multimeter while on the current setting, due to the way they work, to save the battery in the meter. It's not something that I've ever checked on any of my own meters, so you're better off testing to see if the ignition still comes on when the meter is switched off, just to make sure.

Fluctuating readings are generally due to an LED for the alarm flashing.

While you're at it, you can track down the circuits that are causing the problems by pulling the fuses, one-by-one, and seeing if the current drain decreases.

The voltage decrease on the battery doesn't look too bad, but definitely worth investigating.

 

[chickenlegs]

Oh dear - numpty alert!

I think I may have misread the meter earlier on - not being an electrician doesn't help! I think that the meter dial was actually been reading 0.004 amps which I guess is 4mA and not 40mA!! Numpty. I think that would explain the variation in the reading as it was probably reading an extremely low level of current quite accurately. I had to resort to reading the instruction manual that came with the meter - much against my better nature! I made sure that the meter dial was set to '2' and not '2m' and then got the 0.004 reading.

If I can be confident of this a as a true representation of the current going through the battery when all electrics are off and idle, I would have thought that this is a negligible drain.

I will try and keep a record of the voltage drain over a longer period of time. At least I feel confident in my reading of dc voltage!

Chris

 

[Brian ROSEN]

Flat battery

I use my bike pretty well every day but often for quite short trips; On my last 1200GS the battery was still functioning perfectly after four years. No alarm fitted and when I used the GPS it was connected directly to the battery and removed afterwards; Bike was always garaged and if i didn't use it for more than a few days the Optimate would bring it up fully in a few minutes;