What's this red thing!

[We Make Life A Ride]

Anyone offer any insights?

(Kind of hoping your going to say it's a positive terminal extension thingy so you don't have to pull battery out when you want to connect auxiliary kit!)

 

[Guru Gora]

Just a cover to prevent shorting Id say, as in the Disc bit.

Beneath is the Pos

 

[Bem]

Anyone offer any insights?

(Kind of hoping your going to say it's a positive terminal extension thingy so you don't have to pull battery out when you want to connect auxiliary kit!)
[/

Yes, it is.

 

[We Make Life A Ride]

Yes, it is.

Well I wish I knew that before I pulled the battery out to connect the wires for a heated jacket and a Noco charger

 

[We Make Life A Ride]

Anyone know of its permanent or ignition live?

 

[Guru Gora]

Hah, ask me how I knew................

 

[We Make Life A Ride]

Aha go on then!

 

[Guru Gora]

been there............. still, Ive never professed to be much of a spanner man.

 

[Smartbazza]

It’s to make the positive accessible if you need to jump start it. Pull plug off and put clip on.

Barry

 

[We Make Life A Ride]

It’s to make the positive accessible if you need to jump start it. Pull plug off and put clip on.

Barry

Permanent live then. Perfect.

Thanks all.

 

[stever1]

Is that not in the riders manual ?

 

[We Make Life A Ride]

No idea. Didn't think to look there. I will though now you've mentioned it. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Mr Bean]

BMW cars also have a jump post under the bonnet.

 

[SBD]

Not surprised. Mine is only 30 months old and has needed jumpstarts on at least a dozen occasions. It seems ok in the summer but if you do short rides (commute to work) in the winter with the heated bars on, sooner or later it won’t start. Put it on the charger overnight and it’ll work for another two or three weeks.

Lots of folks blame the tracker, I think it’s just a crap battery with too little capacity for a big twin engine and lots of electronica.

 

[Engineer]

Read the manual and all will be revealed.

 

[Engineer]

Not surprised. Mine is only 30 months old and has needed jumpstarts on at least a dozen occasions. It seems ok in the summer but if you do short rides (commute to work) in the winter with the heated bars on, sooner or later it won’t start. Put it on the charger overnight and it’ll work for another two or three weeks.

Lots of folks blame the tracker, I think it’s just a crap battery with too little capacity for a big twin engine and lots of electronica.

The parasitic current drain (when the bike is off) can get itself into an odd state and draw far too much. Remove battery completely - short the +ve and -ve wires to discharge any capacitors - reconnect the battery this should force a total reset - hopefully the parasitic current drain will now be much lower. Same idea as unplugging and re-starting your computer when it goes do-lally

 

[SBD]

Read the manual and all will be revealed.

I have read the manual, not cover to cover, but in bits, and the secrets of life, the universe and everything are not therein, as far as I can tell. It says “if you don’t ride it for four weeks, charge it”, or something like that, I don’t think I’ve left it more than a couple of weeks, except when we went on holiday, and it was warm then, I don’t recall it being a problem on that occasion. It’s always at 7:20 on a cold damp Monday morning…. First hint of a problem is the sos call system shows a warning. Then, maybe two or three days later, it won’t start. Then I charge it overnight, it works, and about two days later the sos fixes itself. I blame the designer/programmer/development engineer/whoever signed it off.

I’ll try the forced reset next time it starts playing up. Thx

 

[Engineer]

I have read the manual, not cover to cover, but in bits, and the secrets of life, the universe and everything are not therein, as far as I can tell. It says “if you don’t ride it for four weeks, charge it”, or something like that, I don’t think I’ve left it more than a couple of weeks, except when we went on holiday, and it was warm then, I don’t recall it being a problem on that occasion. It’s always at 7:20 on a cold damp Monday morning…. First hint of a problem is the sos call system shows a warning. Then, maybe two or three days later, it won’t start. Then I charge it overnight, it works, and about two days later the sos fixes itself. I blame the designer/programmer/development engineer/whoever signed it off.

I’ll try the forced reset next time it starts playing up. Thx

I had exactly the same problem - my dealer did the reset thing, the parasitic current drain dropped dramatically but was still higher than it should have been - a faulty tracker may also be contributing but this is still to be proven.

 

[Engineer]

I decided the check the quiescent current drain from the battery. The bike had been ridden about 20 miles yesterday and left in the garage over night without the charger connected.

The bike was left turned off.

I first measured the battery voltage between the -ve terminal and the RED post, it was 12.7V

I then disconnected the -ve lead from the battery and then connected my multimeter in series with the negative lead and the battery terminal.

The current flow' jumped' up and down between 100mA and 20mA for a few seconds and finally settled to 50/52mA. This is the specification for quiescent current drain or so I was told by the dealer.

Based on this number the battery should fully discharge in approx 12AH/0.05A = 240 Hrs = 10 days.

 

[Engineer]

I decided the check the quiescent current drain from the battery. The bike had been ridden about 20 miles yesterday and left in the garage over night without the charger connected.

The bike was left turned off.

The bike has a tracker.

I first measured the battery voltage between the -ve terminal and the RED post, it was 12.7V

I then disconnected the -ve lead from the battery and then connected my multimeter in series with the negative lead and the battery terminal.

The current flow' jumped' up and down between 100mA and 20mA for a few seconds and finally settled to 50/52mA. This is the specification for quiescent current drain or so I was told by the dealer.

Based on this number the battery should fully discharge in approx 12AH/0.05A = 240 Hrs = 10 days.

This is why the bike struggles to start after 5 days left unused in cold weather as the battery will be down to 50% capacity.

In my opinion the bike could do with a larger capacity battery or BMW find a way of reducing the quiescent current drain.

I do not know how much of this current drain, if any, is going to the tracker - not sure how I can easily measure this.