I just bought a new battery from the dealer. They added the acid, and said they charged it and it was good to go. I got home replaced the old battery with it, and hooked up to my yuasa battery maintainer (equivalent of the battery tender jr) and the charge light came on (not the trickle light). I was a little puzzled. So I took it off the charger. Started it up (it started ok) and went for a 25 minute ride. Got home, and hooked it up to the battery tende,r and it is still charging 1 hour later (hasn't switched to trickle).
What do think is up?
I recently experienced the same thing with two new batteries.
One needed six hours, the other two hours, before the charger switched to maintainance mode.
Very little improvement on the voltmeter though, so I think what you're experiencing is normal.
[thumbsup]
All of my new batteries have needed charging as well to be "topped up" if you will
Yep, sounds normal. Lots of folks would just add acid and then do a good long ride to charge it fully. The "better" way is to charge it slowly after adding acid, and that can take most of a day. I also have the Yuasa charger and I remember it took at least 4+ hrs to change to float mode. Your dealer probably just juiced it up for a bit instead of completing the charge, or maybe followed the basic time/amps instruction on the front of the battery to get it most of the way there. No big deal. Put your Yuasa charger on it until it goes to float mode and you're good.
BK
*edit* not sure what prompted the battery replacement to begin with, but hopefully your bike is charging OK?
Thanks, for your response(s)! My bike is an '06S2R1000 with about 26,000 miles on it. I changed the battery because I was occasionally having some trouble starting it. I tried to diagnose the problem properly, but was having trouble. I have a problem with cold starts (it has the automatic choke/stepper motor) which isn't working so well. This a separate problem, probably.
But, sometimes, when I press the starter button, it i lugs a little, and then the tach and speedo sweep the dial, and it lugs harder, and I turn off the ignition (because everything seems to be working to hard). Then when I start it again, I give it a little manual throttle and it starts (I wish it didn't have a stepper motor). So, I think the weirdness with lugging and the dial sweep might be my be my starter circuit.
So, I tried to follow Howies' advice in earlier posts to check it out.
I think, my charging system is ok as the voltage across my old battery is 13.6.
When I start it the voltage is about 14.5.
When I try and load test by looking at the digital volt meter drop durning starting my eyes are not quick enough to tell how low it really goes... but it is somewhere between 8.9-9.5...so I don't know.
I have also tried to measure voltage drop across the starter circuit by hooking the positive lead to the battery and the negative lead to the starter terminal but I must be doing something wrong because I don't see any drop.
So, cause the bike is 5 yo with 25k miles i threw $100 at the problem, and bought a battery. ??? :-\ I actually flipped a coin. Heads was a new battery/tails keep the old one. We'll see....