So, I was all excited last night to take my 1100 out for a spin after work, pulled it out of it's corner in the garage, went to fire it up and......it wouldn't start (I guess I should have purchased that battery tender [roll]). I went out and purchased a battery charger and hopefully she'll be ready this evening.
But it did get me thinking, how does one jump start a battery in a Monster? I've read on this board that it is not a good idea to jump the battery using the battery tender cable, so is it necessary to lift the tank if you want to jump the bike?
I suppose you could always perform a rolling start (I've never had to do it), but how long would you need to run the bike to get the battery fully charged.
I know, kind of a basic question, but I'm curious how others handle a "stranded with a dead battery" situation.
You need a shot of about 75-76 Amps to start the bike. About 58 of those Amps are for the starter, the rest are for the ignition, fuel pump, computer and lights. For that rating, you want a 4 gauge cable, which is substantially thicker than the 18 gauge cable commonly used in tenders. These are rated at for a little over 2 Amps current. I wouldn't try it.
You could still use the tender cable to charge the battery from a donor vehicle for a few minutes, turn everything off, disconnect, then give it a try. Worked for me once. I wouldn't have lifted the tank in the rain that time. Too easy to hurt the bike. (slip, spark, tank hinge leak, ...)
But it depends where you are stranded.
If you have a powercommander, I believe you need at least 9v for it to turn on. Probably more for it to conduct the injection current, so in my case a rolling start is out.
I carry a Yuasa motorcycle jumper cables on my Vespa. It's battery is really old, and it is a lot safer to lift the seat and jumpstart.
I'm not sure why people get dead batteries. My bike's an '06 w/ 9k miles on the original battery. Spins the engine up and fires off quickly. Not even a hint of weakness. I store the bike in an unheated garage. I used to take the battery out of the bike when in cold storage but then I bought one of the Desmotimes battery tenders and now I just hook it up and leave it. I mean really? Why the dead batteries? Are people just unlucky, getting bad batteries or something? Or does the problem lie elsewhere?
I used to work for a large aerospace company designing satellite systems. We needed batteries to last in excess of 10 years under some pretty demanding conditions and predictable depth of discharge events. We really understood the devices very well, so well that I believe companies design lead-acid batteries so they live out their warranty and die soon after. The days of the rock solid Sears DieHard are gone.
I take good care of my batteries. My Vespa still has the original 2002 battery and still fires right up, but I believe that is an oddity and I carry jumper cables everywhere. There are only a limited number of discharge cycles you can get out of the plates before they are toast. Vibration will also kill them early, as it flakes material off the plates and builds up internal current leaks. They also do not like heat.
Putting a battery on its side on top of a hot high-revving engine works for our bikes, but it not a good design.
You can go directly to the lug on the starter motor and a good ground. Do keep in mind, the starter will spin as soon as the circuit is completed so make sure the bike is in neutral.