Battery Discharge\Troubleshooting

[Pat Buzzard]

OK, I replaced the battery on my 1100RT a little over a month ago. It ran great for a while but always needed to be placed on the battery tender or it would drain the battery. This worked great until I broke my powerlet adapter. In the interim I tried my best to start the bike and ride it\run it a little each day to replenish the battery, this mostly worked. Last week I hooked up the battery tender using the battery charger clips. I managed to get it all hooked up and left it on over the weekend. The battery tender says it was charging, but the bike doesn't even have enough juice to turn over. I recently replaced teh powerlet charger, and I am unable to get the battery up to snuff using that either. Now I AM able to jump start the bike off of my truck, and it runs fine, and the battery will hold a charge (without tender) for about 16 hours after I ride it for 45 mintues or so. So do I need ANOTHER new battery or do I replace the tender?

 

Thanks guys,

Pat

[dirtrider]

Afternoon Pat

 

The absolute best thing to do is to use a small ammeter and check the system for a parasitic drain. Then have your battery load tested.

 

If the above isn’t an option then ride the bike or use you charger to bring the battery up, then disconnect it (the battery) for over the 16 hours to see if it will stay up with the bike’s system load removed.

 

It sounds like a battery going bad but without a few tests that is just guessing at it.

 

[Danny caddyshack Noonan]

Probably not the charger. Possibly not the battery.

I'd do the following first (systematic approach):

disconnect the battery immediately after shutdown after riding. Come back the next day, reconnect and see if it still has a good charge. If not, the battery is suspect....not unheard of at all.

 

If the battery is good, after the above, then start removing relays and parasitic sources and let it sit overnight to see if it's drained down. I think I'd start with the Powerlet adapter....easy place to get some debris. After that, maybe go circuit by circuit.

 

I usually start troubleshooting with circuits I've added or, that are not lines the bike needs to operate properly.

This is just a start, hopefully, it give you an idea for where to go.

 

Dang, DR beat me to it while typing.

[boatzo]

Pretty good advice in the 2 posts above. I would add; connect the battery charger directly to the battery terminals instead of going through the powerlet. Get a good connection, you may be able to recover your battery. However, even new batteries do go bad on occasion so good tests are called for.

 

Also, some tenders do not put out enough to recover a deeply discharged AGM battery. Try a 6 or 10 amp charger in lieu of the tender, but be careful not to over charge.

[Ian]

Not the first time I have had a brand new (car) battery fail on me.

 

Ian