Battery Question

[INFIDEL]

If a battery gets completely drained will it recharge?  Does it take more than 24 hours?

If a battery is completely drained does that mess up the anti-theft thingy?  Do I need my red key to start her now?

Charged for 24 hours and turn the key and there is no lights, no FI whine, nothin ...

[krolik]

How old is the battery?

My battery crapped out this week. I was riding on saturday and on tuesday I went to ride to work and it was dead. The battery was 5 years old.

I tried charging it for a day, no joy.

I just bought a new battery at Cycle Gear and installed it. I turned on the key and all the correct lights lit up, so there shouldn't be a problem with the immobilizer. I have it on the battery tender right now and will fire it up tomorrow.

[INFIDEL]

Dunno for certain ... I'd guess 8 years old ...

[Bendy]

Eight years old is probably a good candidate for replacement. You'll need to have it load tested to see if it's still capable; could be an internal short, or it's plain tired. A battery can hold a 'full' 12.7 volt charge and still have crappy output. If it's still good, though, there's no reason it won't recharge (though may remain tired), and it very well could take more than 24 hours depending on your charge method--Battery Tenders don't rush anything, for instance. I'd suggest jumping with cables and a car battery, but I'm not sure how sensitive the newfangled fuel injected bikes are to voltage spikes and excess amperage. No lights or FI acknowledgement means it's probably dropped below 9 volts, where most worldly ECMs are designed to bottom out at, and generally means bad news for a 12v battery. For instance, 12.2 volts can mean a battery is only half charged, and most charge circuits today operate at 14.5 so that you can bank that 12.7.

Have you had charging problems before? Any idea why it drained? Did Motel 6 leave the lights on for you?

If you can stand to wait and need to replace it, I recently replaced mine with a sealed TruGel gel battery from www.usmotorcyclebatteries.com. It's really a hilariously podunk website that only barely looks legitimate, except they managed to have mine in stock for dirt cheap and somehow got it to PDX from Florida or wherever in like two days with UPS Ground. Musta been drop-shipped from somewhere around here. If you have the YT12B-BS Yuasa or equivalent, the TruGel comes in at $89.46, P/N MG12B-4. No drain tube or spilled electrolyte anymore, not vibration sensitive, you can mount it any way you like, and it's BLUE. Yay.

[krolik]

Dunno for certain ... I'd guess 8 years old ...

You might be able to resurrect it, but I would bet that you will have continuing troubles with it. Time to buy a new battery.

[INFIDEL]

Haven't had any problems with it at all.  Friday morning woke up to the garage door open, the shop lights on, and the ignition turned "on".  No juice ... nothing.

Wifezilla says I left Lili on.  In the almost 9 years of having her I've never left her on in the garage - the headlight shines on the wall.  I kinda think it was a pesky teen because I had absolutely no reason to turn the shop lights on when I got home.  Dunno though.  Been really rough days at work so I might have done all or none of the above.

Regardless though there be no juice in the battery.  I'll let the battery tender do her for another 24 hours and see what's up.

Can't afford a battery right now so cross your fingers it takes a charge and life goes back to normal.

[ryandalling]

Battery tender is to float charge an already charged battery. It will not charge a truly dead battery. You need an actual charger for that.

[INFIDEL]

Ahhhh ... good to know!!! 

[scott_araujo]

Some moto batteries can't handle the juice a real car charger puts out.  Either way, 8 years is more than I've ever heard for a moto battery.  5 is the most I've ever heard and that's a miracle, 4 is considered good.

The Yuasa is great (just got one for the RE) but if you haven't got the scratch LT Snyder sells one that's less expensive and still very good.  Got my last car battery at Batteries+ and got a very good deal.  Make sure you get gel no matter what you buy.  Liquid acid doesn't do well laying on its side.

Oh, and I still have 2 allen bolts for you left side cover in my garage somewhere.  Stop my dude.

Scott

[INFIDEL]

Yah, I bought the charger years ago because it charges at 2A and 10A.  The 2A is "safe" for bike batteries.  Only used it once before and it didn't (to my knowledge) damage the battery.  I did however get the battery tender to use instead.  Hooked that up and she's taking a charge or so the meter says.  About 1/2 way now.

For those who want to jump a bike from a car battery it can be done but it's tricky and risky.  You need to have everything in place and the car OFF.  It takes 2 people.  The rider and a helper.  1) Have key in ignition and ready to turn.  2) Helper attaches jumper cables. 3) Rider immediately turns on ignition and does not wait for FI to cycle but immediately thumbs starter.  3) Helper immediately removes cables on start or removes them immediatlely if bike doesn't start within 1 or 2 seconds.

That was direction from MotoCorsa back in 04 when I needed a jump.  That was also about the time I replaced my battery in hindsight so it's more like 7 years old.

Now I'm hoping the Power Commander has static memory or I just lost my mapping and she'll not run. 

[krolik]

It should, I've never had to get mine remapped after service.

[INFIDEL]

Took a charge.

Fired up.  Idling like shit though.

Gonna hook up a laptop later and check my map.

Hopefully the batter will get me through many months to when I can afford to buy a replacement.

If possible I'd like to replace it with: http://testsycl.com/

[Bendy]

Do those Power Commanders have to rebuild and autocorrect on your map after the battery dies? It's just a piggyback for air & fuel, yeah? Would explain the rough idle. My hot rod does it, thanks to the same principle.

[INFIDEL]

Yah, it's a piggyback system.

My throttle was way out of calibration when i hooked up the laptop.  So I calibrated that.  checked my map and the file name/date were OK and there were obvious differences where EDR customized it over the standard map.

I think I should be good ... I hope I should be good.  Let's see how my trip to work pans out.