Buggered My Battery.....

Chalky723

Chalky723

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I replaced my F650 battery a couple of weeks ago with a nice, shiny Motobat 16ah jobby.

Went to Yorkshire this weekend - rode up with heated grips, jacket & trousers on, parked the bike for a couple of days & then rode back - bike started, but hesitantly, I then rode home with all the gear turned on.

Stopped halfway, bike was even more hesitant to start, but did.

When I refueled near to home it wouldn't start & was totally dead. Nice AA man came & jump started me, I rode home & stuck it on the optimate.

I realise now that I've had too much gear turned on for the alternator to deal with, I'm also going to be checking that out too to check if it needs replacing.

I've been away all week, finally home today & there is a red light on the optimate, bike only just starts & my LED Voltage Light is indicating that there's less than 11.5 volts.

I'm assuming that I've buggered my new battery? If so, how come? (Not very electrically minded).

Cheers,

Damon
 
If there’s 11.5 volts with the engine running you have damaged more than the battery. I’d get a proper charger and charge the battery. I don’t think much of the optimate. With battery charged do a few tests with a proper multi meter. JJH
 
You normally kill a battery by

Sulphation - leave em standing for too long in a discharged state

Overcharging - to much voltage in = heat and you buckle / distort plates

One or more cells going down - never seen it happen so quick

Sulphation i would say is unlikely, as is over discharging

Only thing that springs to mind is overcharging- if you had all your gear on, you may not notice the effect, as all your gear was masking some of the excess volts amps by way of heat.

Your battery on the other hand.....

One way to check - syart the bike and see what the alternator is pumping back to your battery

Normal should be between 12.8 - 14.5

then put on all your gear, and see what the volts goes up to.

Last scenario is a duff battery. rare but can happen - it will have a warranty - return it under that,

but check out the charging side of things first, or you'll kill another battery
 
The battery may have been duff from new, I would have thought the alternator would cope with that load OK if the charging was OK.
Were you having trouble with the previous battery retaining its charge?
 
Yeah, the reason for getting the new battery was that the bike was hesitant starting with the old one, some testing showed it was under 12v. Alternator looked OK with a multimeter - but I'll check that out again properly this weekend.

I'm not going to rush into getting any new bits & bobs until I'm sure I've identified the issue properly!

Cheers,

D
 
Santa-2512 said:
Only thing that springs to mind is overcharging- if you had all your gear on, you may not notice the effect, as all your gear was masking some of the excess volts amps by way of heat.
Click to expand...

I had to keep turning the gear up to keep warm, I thought it was just due to the chill seeping in at the time, but even the grips were on the high setting towards the end....

I'm thinking that the alternator wasn't putting enough back into the battery, but I'm surprised that just draining it killed the battery.

I'll try a proper charger too - the optimate may not be up to recovering it from the level it's at...

D
 
Is your Optimate a recent one? Older ones cannot get an AGM battery like the Motobatt properly charged. If you drained the battery quite low to begin with then it might need a good kick in the arse with a properly equipped charger that has an algorithm to charge AGM batteries.
 
Got a digital voltmeter, easiest is to attach it to the GPS connector under the tank cover as it is then linked to the CANBUS. It will then always give you a warning if you have a bttery/stator problem.

You should see 14.5v with the bike running and no additional items on. I find the heated grips will pull this down to 13.9v.

Anything less and you have likely joined the fried stator/rectifier gang. There is lots on info on advrider.com about it.


Alex
 
Hi Chalky723. Good choice with the CTEK charger, I use one with no problems. Mine is wired direct to battery and charging point cable tied to frame tube. Care to share what make of voltmeter you got and where from. Think I'll put on my F650.
Cheers & Beers.
 
loadmaster said:
Hi Chalky723. Good choice with the CTEK charger, I use one with no problems. Mine is wired direct to battery and charging point cable tied to frame tube. Care to share what make of voltmeter you got and where from. Think I'll put on my F650.
Cheers & Beers.
Click to expand...

I've gone for this one, just trying to find somewhere to put it so I can read it, but it's not too "in your face" either..... On top left of the light housing is looking favourite at the moment....

I'll update with pics once it's on.

D
 
I’ve had my Optimate for 20 years. It’s used mostly for battery recovery and charge top ups. Still going strong.
Batteries allowed to discharge too far, will often not recover. Optimate worked on leisure, car and bike batteries. It’s great for diagnosing worn out batteries.
A dash voltmeter wired permanently to the bike will show up electric problems.
I’ve had batteries fried by failed alternators and replaced good batteries. A cheap voltmeter would have saved many times it’s cost.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Or buy a battery that doesn’t need a conditioning charger.
My JMT cost £65 will stand untouched for 12 months with no damage and lose 10% charge.
It’s slow below 5 degrees but allow it to turn for a few seconds. Pause, try again and it fires just fine. At least it pumps oil around before firing up.
There is no perfect solution but if the alternator regulator fails your battery will be toast vey quickly.

This one says it’s waterproof. It won’t be super accurate but good enough to watch the trend. >14.2v is getting high.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/142514391437


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
The Optimate has always been fine with "normal" batteries, it was convinced that this AGM was buggered though & just reported an error.

The CTEK has been running since yesterday morning & has brought the battery back up, I've fitted the voltmeter & will start the bike, take it for a run etc to see what's going on voltage wise....

D

d3ce8d75c06089cd8f39ab5eb9a7c136.jpg
 
I took the bike out for an "unloaded" run today, i.e. no extra extras, just the heated grips & LED DRL's on. Readings are as follows -

Before Starting (Straight off of the charger) - 13.6v
Riding (>3000 RPM) - 14.3v - no higher.
Idling - 12.6v
Battery Voltage 6 hours after the ride - 13.1v

That all looks OK to me, the Stator appears to be charging, the Rectifier doesn't let the Voltage go over 14.3v & the battery is holding a charge.

I'll be riding to work later on this week with the Heated Jacket on too & will keep any eye on things.

When it was jumped by the AA he pointed out that the Negative terminal connection was loose - obviously so - all connections are good & tight now obviously, I think that this may have been my issue - thoughts? Everything else seems to be OK, so it may be a case of "user-itus" (I'm hoping so anyway).

Cheers,

Damon
 
Voltages look good. Looks like you are trying to power to many items at the same time.
 
Chalky723 said:
I took the bike out for an "unloaded" run today, i.e. no extra extras, just the heated grips & LED DRL's on. Readings are as follows -

Before Starting (Straight off of the charger) - 13.6v
Riding (>3000 RPM) - 14.3v - no higher.
Idling - 12.6v
Battery Voltage 6 hours after the ride - 13.1v

That all looks OK to me, the Stator appears to be charging, the Rectifier doesn't let the Voltage go over 14.3v & the battery is holding a charge.

I'll be riding to work later on this week with the Heated Jacket on too & will keep any eye on things.

When it was jumped by the AA he pointed out that the Negative terminal connection was loose - obviously so - all connections are good & tight now obviously, I think that this may have been my issue - thoughts? Everything else seems to be OK, so it may be a case of "user-itus" (I'm hoping so anyway).

Cheers,

Damon
Click to expand...

A loose or dirty negative will cause exactly the problems that you describe. My friend fitted a brand new battery and took bike out and it wouldn’t start half way through the day. AA jump started it and it ran fine. It then ran fine for a few days until he went to it one morning and no start. I put jump cables onto battery terminals for him and no go so moved them onto bike leads and it fired straight up. Took negative cable off and dressed it with a file and it’s been spot on since. This doesn’t explain why your old charger won’t charge it properly though but it looks as though you have already found the solution to this. My opinion is keep running with the voltmeter as this will tell you what’s going on better than anything else
 
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