"Parking Lamp"....or, how to drain your battery by mistake

[herm]

ok,..........2006 s2r1000
7800 miles
no mods which should effect the charging system

i inadvertently turned the key to the "P" position, and walked away from my bike for 6 days. fast forward to today. a perfect day to ride.....
unless you have a dead battery 

this leads me to think even less of that feature, and i wonder if anyone has had any success disconnecting it? is it just a wire into the ignition switch? and if so, which one is it?

any thoughts, or speculation on the success of failure of this idea? will it mess with the immobilizer somehow?

[uclabiker06]

I don't know but that sucks man.  I only used that thing once in a while when I pull over to the side of the rode at night but I barely  ride at night so the feature is more of a hassle then anything else.  Maybe someone else could chime in.

[pwndrew]

My alarm drains my battery all the time. I've gotten very good at roll starting it since waiting for the  battery to charge takes too long.

[He Man]

Mine are disconnected, and i havent had the parking situation problem since then. The only thing that turns on when im in Parking is my LED rear clear alternatives combo light. Your battery can power that thing for days on end though. (ive left it on for 2-3 days with no ill issue) I use to leave the bike on with the incandescent front parking lamp and it would kill the battery over night.

The worst thing is, leaving your heater grips on becasue that will drain your battery in a matter of 2 hours on High (ive done it atleast 5 times, the last few which were so bad that the battery wouldnt even hold a charge).

[Howie]

Yes, you can disconnect it.  You would need to disassemble the switch, which you are not supposed to do.  I do use the park position, though rarely.  It is a nice feature if you run into a store or whatever in the wee hours of the morning and your bike is all alone.  My guess is you will not  make that mistake twice.

[CairnsDuc]

What about simply removing the bulb?

Or does that cause more dramas?

[Capo]

I got a LED 'bulb' to replace the std one.

[Howie]

What about simply removing the bulb?

Or does that cause more dramas?

The tail light will still be illuminated.

[herm]

Update: so, whether or not i left the parking light on (who knows at this point), i have a problem.
hooked the battery up to the charger, and it tells me the battery is fully charged. double checked my connections, even tried a different charger. same result.

my first thought was that i was a moron, and it was the kill switch or something. however, i distinctly recall that the immobilizer light was not blinking. gonna take the battery to get it checked in the morning, and go from there.

i also thought for a minute that someone had make the beast with two backsed with my bike, but it was locked up in a secure storage unit for the time in question, and unless someone has a copy of my key, its unlikely.

suppose i could have a blown fuse, but again..........how/when would this have happened

WTF???

[Howie]

Definitely check the fuses, particularly fuse #1.  Do you have a digital volt meter?  If so, attach it across the battery.  The battery should read at least 12.6 volts.  If you get a good reading try to start the bike.  No change in voltage, another problem.  Reading drops below 9.6 volts your battery is toast.  This is not as accurate as a load test, but will be accurate enough.

[herm]

thanks howie. gonna check the fuses tomorrow. i dont have a volt meter, but there is an autozone around the corner.
what are the chances that a 3 year old battery has shit the bed?

[bigiain]

what are the chances that a 3 year old battery has shit the bed?

I'd say about 50:50

3 to 5 years is all you reasonably expect out of them, if you drained it completely at 3 years old it wouldn't surprice me at all to find that'd killed it. Lead acid batteries don't like being completely drained.

big

[jesse370]

it got me too....

last year, rode my Rs to work in the summer. With the bright ass sun I never noticed the lights on when I would check it out from the windows. Walked outside after work, in all my gear, to find my bike dead.....

And I quickly found out, after a full day of work in the middle of the summer in gear....you can't bump start a Rs.

[He Man]

thanks howie. gonna check the fuses tomorrow. i dont have a volt meter, but there is an autozone around the corner.
what are the chances that a 3 year old battery has shit the bed?

you'd be amazed at how resilant the new drycells battery's are. I've left my heater grips on (35watt draw on high) for 3 days (and over night on more than 1,2,3 or even 4 occasions., and someone put my bike in the ON position, (full high beam and all) for a whole week. You bet your ass the battery drained and then some. But each time the battery recharged back to full heath, though my charger wouldn't even detect it at first.

But at the 3 year mark, it is on its way out, especially if you have the older ducatis with the regulators that are known to give inconsistent charges.