Battery question

[Scorpio65]

My bike was sitting for over 3 months for repairs. I put some cables on it and it fired right up. i let it run for around 15 min then took it out for a little ride. when i hit my brakes, (front or rear) the head light would get brighter. also the turn signels were flashing a lot faster than normal. I got back home after a 20 minute ride, shut it off and tried to restart it, Nothing.. I plan on replaseing the battery today, but do you think theres more to it?
Thanks for your help, Bill.

[wildbill]

prob not. i mean you could put it on a tender and let it charge overnight and see if it will hold a charge. Worst that can happen is its dead. I had the same problem with an old battery just last week. I just went to pep boys and bought another unsealed one, works great .

[scratch]

Make sure it has fluid, too.

[ducati_nolan]

Did you put controll cables (throttle or choke) on it or did you replace some electrical wires? Your problem definately isn't your battery, you have some weird electical demons doing some black magic on your bike  . But seriously something weird is going on. I would check all your wiring to see if you have some pinched wires, especially arround the steering head stops. I've seem pictures of wires getting dammaged there and they could cross over from headlight to brakelight to turn signals. You may want to check behind the headlight too, there are a bunch of electrical connections there.

Other than that, I'm not sure what would cause this    But usually when your battery and charging system are low, your signals will flash slower. The faster flashing may indicate an overvoltage from the charging system.

It's easy to check your battery and charging system, If your battery can hold 12v or more for a day after it's been charged, and disconnected from the bike, it's usually okay. Put the battery in the bike and hook it up. If the voltage drops (even a little bit) when the ignition is off, you have some sort of short or drain in your system. Fire up the bike, it should indicate at least 12v at idle and arround 14v by 4,000rpm. If the voltage continues to decrease, your alternator or regulator isn't working. If you get more than about 14.5v at any rpm, then your regulator isn't working, and you should blow a fuse or fry some electrics.

I hope this helps, good luck.

[LimaXray]

When you drain a non-deep cycle lead acid battery (this goes for your motorcycle or your car) stone dead it will not charge from the generator/altenator well.  The battery is not designed to be drained then recharged, it is designed to remain constantly charged with the occational jolt to power the starter.  Therefore, it needs to be charged at a slow rate (1.1A for 10 hours in our case) for it to be able to hold a charge without damaging the battery.  

If you try ramming a charge down it's throat using the bike/car's charging system (the charging system charges in the 10s of amperes), you will have difficulty getting it to start to take a charge and you will damage the battery.  It will eventually take a charge and seem work fine, but the life of the battery has then been significantly decreased.    

You really should never jump/push start a bike or car with a completely 100% dead battery.  I don't mean dead like left your lights on dead, I mean sat without running in months and couldn't power a wrist watch dead, just like in your case.  If there is any sign of power or you have no other option, it's ok.  Otherwise, always trickle charge it back to life.

The only exception to this is with deep cycle batteries on boats and such which are designed to be run dead and recharged.  Deep cycle batteries also cost 2x as much.

[ducati_nolan]

Good advice on the battery charging LimaXray, but I don't think a dead/bad battery would explain any of the weird problems with the lights.

[LimaXray]

It doesn't seem like it, but the battery is a problem if it is totally dead.  Best fix the obvious easy problems first, then worry about the rest. 

One thing to take note of is the generator on the GS (or any rectified generator for that matter) produces a very uneven and choppy signal and by itself makes for a poor power supply.  The battery acts as a filter to smooth everything out and therefore a dead battery can cause more problems then one may think.

[sledge]

Lima is right, the battery is screwed. Its not holding any charge, Its probably gone totaly open circuit or its shorted-out internally. This is confusing the voltage regulator which needs the internal resistance of the battery in circuit with it to operate correctly. As a result the regulator is allowing more volts than needed into the electrical system in response to the additional current drawn when the various lights come on, hence the increase in brightness. Get a new battery and dont run the engine until its fitted, you might screw up the regulator, thats assuming its not already screwed.