Installed a shorai battery and since the install the bike looks like it resets its self whenever I try to start it. Does it about one or two times and then will finally start. I turn the key to the on position and everything is fine, but once I try and start the bike thats when it resets and then will finally start the second or third time. Open to ideas
Thanks
Gitter
try turning on the ign key and then not doing anything or use put your helmet on . . and then try to start the bike, why I say this, it happened to me too . . . now, I hit the ign put my helmet on pull fast idle lever, hit start then finish with with the helmet
my 0.02
which shorai? and how cold is it? this is the main reason why i went back to AGM.
Can't remember the part number but its the stock replacement for the 796. Temps have been between 32 and 60. Terminals are tight and bike registers 12.7 with the key in the on position and the motor off.
Quote from: gitter on February 18, 2013, 07:50:40 PM
Can't remember the part number but its the stock replacement for the 796. Temps have been between 32 and 60. Terminals are tight and bike registers 12.7 with the key in the on position and the motor off.
12.7 is not good for a Shorai http://www.shoraipower.com/s.nl/it.I/id.5/.f (http://www.shoraipower.com/s.nl/it.I/id.5/.f) scroll down to chart.
I checked it this morning and it was down to 12.5 ( granted this was checked by using the display on the bike not actually using a volt meter) Is there anything on the 796 that would be draining the battery while the bike is off? Also, what are my options as far as a remedy for this as I'd like to keep using the lighter battery.
all I can say, weird . . . do to me working at home, I don't get to ride much and my shorai hasn't shown me never less than 13.5V and that was when I left for 3 weeks in a row and forgot to disconnect it . . .
call them and check your invoice for wty period . . . and have your bike checked . .. it would seem that is using too much parasitic voltage
"Is there anything on the 796 that would be draining the battery while the bike is off?"
Your bike probably has an immobilizer and a clock. Small drain, but it adds up. Your battery could be toast at 12.5v. Contact Shorai.
So, should I look at getting a larger capacity battery? Or is this one fine and I just got a defective one?
Hard to say, Gitter. Two guys at Advrider are pretty hard on Shorai's capacity rating. They believe Shorai overrates them and, for their bikes, and in cold weather, they recommend going to a bigger size. The lithium batteries are better though of as 13V batteries, not 12. I think they are empty and probably dying when they get to 12V.
Just talked to shorai. They told me to throw it on a charger for about two hours and see if that fixes my issue. Reason being is that it might be an older battery that had been sitting with Motomummy for a while.
As far as a history of the battery. I got it on Wednesday. Installed it. Went for a short half hour ride Thursday and other than that it's been sitting aside from the time I tried to start it yesterday.
Let it charge for an hour. Light on the Battery Tender was a solid green (fully charged)
Took it off the charger, turned the key to the on position, bike read 12.5 then jumped up to 13.0. Turned the key off and back on, read 12.5 again. Pushed the starter, bike started and it jumped up to 13.9.
Thoughts?
Maybe you should buy the Shorai charger?
Here's where I'm going with this. The green light on the battery tender means it has stopped charging and has switched into "float" or maintenance mode. I have a Yuasa and at 60F in the garage the float mode is 13.2V, good for the FLA battery in the Vespa. I have a Battery Doc with a float mode of 13.5V, good for the AGM battery in the Monster. The float on my Battery Tender Plus is 13.4V, so it is good for an old battery I retired from service, now spare battery I don't want to see die (but probably will).
Fully charged Lithiums float at 14.3V or so.
This means that your tender is not letting the battery reach its potential. The Shorai charger also does some load balancing between cells using a special cable. It may be a pain to connect it under the tank, so you may want to look into a pigtail for it.
like this,
(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8370/8491098592_e3b8dce63b_z.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkmonster620/8491098592/)
Connection to battery (http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkmonster620/8491098592/#) by DarkMonster620 (http://www.flickr.com/people/darkmonster620/), on Flickr
the clips are from my Centurion S diagnostic tool . . .
That's the one. Definitely not an SAE cable. Do you know the float voltage with the Shorai charger Darkmonster620?
14.4V reading off instructions for it . . I have the charger
BSM01 Specs
Charger current/Wattage 2S/30Wmax
Charge type & voltage CC/CV, 14.4V terminal
Thanks, Carlos. The BTs hit 14V+ pulses to start a charge but they drop below Lithium float voltage levels. I do not think the BT is helping gitter much.
dunno where he is, but, best be is to:
1. get a shorai charger if he gonna stay with shorai
2. go for a long ride at "charging" rpm
3. go back to agm/mf
bt is good "temporarily" . . .but, here it's cold when the mercury hits 78°F
I'm in Northern California (north bay) actually about 70miles from shorai. I have yet to go for a decent ride since I installed the battery, would that sufficiently charge it?
Also right now I'm using a battery tender plus, will that suffice for when the battery gets low? Is there any way to get the battery charger plus to charge up to 14v? I know the shorai charger is the best way to go, but I'm trying to figure out if the battery is the issue or not.
I don't think I would invest in a Shorai charger at this point since that battery might be toast. Back to the Battery Tender. It will not charge that battery fully since it will hit float at 13 and a little or maybe less which is only about 80-90%, less actually since there is no way to balance the charge. Depending on the exact voltage when the charger goes to float you may do much worse. But that will be more than enough to get the bike going. 2 hours is no where enough time.
These numbers are a general example, not for your particular battery.
A 10 Ah battery indicates how long it will take to fully discharge the battery, for example, discharging the battery at a rate of .5 amps for 20 hour since
.5 X 20 = 10. If your battery is only 20% charge and your charger charges at a rate of .5 amps you will need to put 8 amps back into the battery That would take 16 hours. If your charger charges at 2 amps the time will be reduced to 4 hours, 8 amps 1 hour.
Back to the tender. An unknown (by me anyway) is if the internal resistance of the Shorai has any effect on when a smart charger goes into float. Better idea is find or borrow a manual battery charger and charge for the appropriate amount of time. Oh, a freshly charged battery will may have a surface charge, giving a wrong reading (too high). Turning the headlight on briefly will remove the surface charge.
Once the bike is started, check the charging system. You want to see 13.5-14.5 volts at the battery at around 3K RPM. To test for battery drain (parasitic draw) hook a multimeter with a milliamp scale in series on the negative side of the battery. You should read less than 50 milliamps, much less really since that is an anycar spec. Again, 10 Ah battery, would take 200 hours to fully discharge with a 50 milliamp drain. It would be good if someone could measure drain on their FI Monster with immobilizer so we have a real world spec. I doubt it anywhere close to 50 milliamps, I suspect less than 10.
Oh, a good ride will be good assuming the charging system is good.
Checked yesterday when the bike was idling charging sits at around 13.9
So, at this point I'm really at a cross roads...button the bike back up and go ride the damn thing to see if it charges
( and hope it doesn't die on me) ?
Or put the stock battery back in and send the shorai back to have it tested?
I would have them test it so you know what you are dealing with.
well....couldnt help myself. Went for about a half hour ride at a...spirited pace. Voltage has been holding at 13.0 (with the bike not running) since i got home. I checked it hourly, mostly out of curiosity.
13V is too low for a Shorai. After a ride of 30 mins, my Shorai sits above 14V.
Put the other battery in and send the Shorai back to be tested and balance charged to 14.3V or replaced under warranty.
you guys are right...I should send it back to have it tested / charged. I do have to say I was excited to see it sticking at 13....compaired to 12.5....
Even if it hit 14.3 (which requires your charging system to put out 14.3 or more) that reflects state of charge, not how good the battery is. The battery must be tested.
put the stock battery back in. Going to send the shorai back to them to have it tested as soon as they open on monday. On a side note...is it alright if the stock battery is sitting at 12.5v? ( a slight paranoia is starting to set in)
thats normal operating voltage for a lead acid, doesnt mean the batt is good.
did you start the bike up? any issues?
Bike never had any issues starting with the stock battery, only with the shorai. Just wanted to make sure that the lower voltage was ok for the stock battery
Just got off the phone with shorai. Absolutely top notch customer service. Turns out Motomummy sold me a smaller battery than I need ( bike calls for the 18, they sold me the 14). Shorai is sending me the correct battery and only charged me the difference even though I didn't buy it from them. I'll report back once I get the 18 installed
Weird . . I've got a 14 in my bike ???
I thought it was odd too. But the shorai website calls for the 18. That and the 18 is what the rep suggested due to the newer ducs having the imobilizer
Lame. >:( I have the 14, which was the recommended size with the 18 as an option. I've also had problems with mine before I bought the Shorai charger and keeping the battery charger connected.
*edit* just checked the Shorai web site and all years of monsters now require the LFX-18A1.
I'm gonna call Shorai in the morning to try and up size my battery
depends on whos asking, and where you ride.
the 18 has more duration. this helps by giving a higher initial kick. and it helps when its cold, and the oil is thick.
you can crank over a 1098 with the 14, or smaller, but it would need to be a thin oil and on a hot day with no other subsystems drawing down.
still, honestly, i dont trust lithium enough to go on a trip with it. AGM is just too work proven to work without any issues.
Quote from: He Man on February 26, 2013, 09:39:20 PM
depends on whos asking, and where you ride.
the 18 has more duration. this helps by giving a higher initial kick. and it helps when its cold, and the oil is thick.
you can crank over a 1098 with the 14, or smaller, but it would need to be a thin oil and on a hot day with no other subsystems drawing down.
still, honestly, i dont trust lithium enough to go on a trip with it. AGM is just too work proven to work without any issues.
He Man got it, Panama winter is pretty mild.
Something to ponder, folk; if your charging system puts out towards the lower end of 13.5-14.5 volts, oh, lets say 13.7, that really cool It will actually never reach full charge. Then again, that 13.7 will get you better than 90%. Extended idle and low speed operation, particularly while using electric clothing will tend to drain the battery.
Quote from: howie on February 26, 2013, 10:10:42 PM
He Man got it, Panama winter is pretty mild.
Something to ponder, folk; if your charging system puts out towards the lower end of 13.5-14.5 volts, oh, lets say 13.7, that really cool It will actually never reach full charge. Then again, that 13.7 will get you better than 90%. Extended idle and low speed operation, particularly while using electric clothing will tend to drain the battery.
howie, winter here is when it rains temps are the same through out the year, being evenings the "cooler" with as low as 70°F but seldomly. the site did state before the the 14 was standard and 18 was upgrade, they might have figured out that the IT had to be the 18 because now, is THE only option
Battery showed up the day after I talked to shorai. Haven't had a chance to out it in, but I'll report back once i do and see if it solves my problem. A side note, my stock battery is still good, just leave it hooked to the battery tender to keep it charged as a spare?
Quote from: gitter on February 28, 2013, 08:47:17 AM
Battery showed up the day after I talked to shorai. Haven't had a chance to out it in, but I'll report back once i do and see if it solves my problem. A side note, my stock battery is still good, just leave it hooked to the battery tender to keep it charged as a spare?
Definitely keep the battery plugged in somewhere as a back up, my shorai was giving me trouble so I pulled it out and replaced it with the stock battery before a weekend bike trip.
Quote from: gitter on February 28, 2013, 08:47:17 AM
Battery showed up the day after I talked to shorai. Haven't had a chance to out it in, but I'll report back once i do and see if it solves my problem. A side note, my stock battery is still good, just leave it hooked to the battery tender to keep it charged as a spare?
Did you go with Shorai solely for the weight savings? If so...what was the weight of the OEM 796 battery compared to the Shorai?
Yeah I did it purely for weight, going off of the two websites ( shorai and yuasa) it looks to be about 5.2 lbs lighter, which feels about right when you compare the two
That's a decent weight savings for the price. Too bad its caused you so much trouble. The 18 will be heavier than the 14 I assume?
Yeah but not by a lot. The weight difference I quoted was for the 18. It's a good amount of weight cut for the price.
comparatively speaking, running twice a week would arguably cut that same five pounds....but let's face it...buying shiny bits for my bike is more fun than cardio....
you dont need to keep your AGM on a charger. its pretty low discharge rate.
if you want, depending on how old it is, i am willing to buy it off you. i need a new batt and the 796 batts are pretty new.
I think I would have just gone with Ballistic battery. They only weigh 2.5 lbs, are said to live a long time, and only cost a few bucks more than shorai, from what I saw on their websites.
How much was the bigger shorai?
how much bigger was the shorai compared to what? Also, the 18 is now back to reading sub 13s on the bikes display.....am I missing something here? Or should I just go back to the stock one and call it a day?
i meant price wise, how much was the bigger battery you bought, the 18?
a tech at my local dealer told me that the Duc 999 regulator/rectifier did a better job of charging the Monster battery. I wonder if that's your issue. If it were me, I'd remove the new battery, charge it to its max, read the voltage with a meter, let the battery sit 24 hours, recheck the voltage to see if it dropped. If it dropped then it would be the battery not being able to hold a high charge. if it didn't drop then i'd reconnect it to the bike and let it sit overnight and see if it drained. if it drained, then something on the bike is draining it. if not, then i'd ride the bike for a week or so and check the voltage again. if it dropped then it's not charging to a high enough voltage.
Have you given the charging system a thorough check? In an earlier post, it sounded to me like your charging voltage was on the anemic side - as Howie suggested, you might not be hitting full voltage, which would explain why the new battery is behaving the same as the previous one.
I've got a Shorai in the ST2. According to the voltmeter I installed on the dash, it stores at 13.2, pretty much indefinitely (I know that's lower than it should be). Cranking at temps around freezing isn't as enthusiastic as I'd like, but it hasn't ever failed to start - more than I could say with the Odyssey AGM* battery I fought with for over a year.
(*As part of teaching my class some very basic statistics, I've tried to drum into them the vagaries of small sample sizes, so my lousy experience with an AGM battery and generally good experience with a Shorai are exactly that: two anecdotes that may or may not be helpful to your issue.)