696 Battery problems

[Geezmoz]

Hi all,

Need some help on this. 09 Monster 696... as it's parked at a car port, dun have a power point plus hadn't rode it for a while and the battery died the other day, since the battery is about 3 - 4 yrs old, decides to get a new one from PS and trickled charged for about a week.

Installed it last weekend and noticed my bike's volt meter was showing 12.5v. But when the bike's running, what I'm noticing is that the batt voltage slowly dropping over time. May be the lights and everything were sucking up juice, so took it for a ride, came home, switch off engine, check voltage, showing 12.5v... so all good.

Riding to work today, I noticed that the voltage dropping from 12.1v to 11.8v when stationary at the lights. Coming off the freeway and hitting city traffic, it was 12.2v dropping down to 11.7v.

My question is, shouldn't it be charging the battery at about 12.5v to 13v while running? Does that mean the alternater is srewed?

Will check the voltage again when I finish work and post it up here... thanks!

[J5]

likely to be regulator/rectifier

have a search , plenty of info on it

check out the fault finding chart here to sort through

http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/diagnosis-center/fault-finding-guide

[Geezmoz]

someone mentioned to me that the terminals might be lose and will need to recheck on that... it's a pain in the butt to get to the battery...

why do they have to put the battery under the tank!?! LOL

[svoloch]

Dunno on the monsters, but on the superbikes, to cut weight, Ducati puts toy alternators made out of rainbows wishful thinking.  They don't charge the battery at idle, and you find that stop and go traffic drains the battery.   That's why all the fuss on the external sipper charger dongles.