My old battery was 2 years old and it started to require push starts after every week and the battery needed to be recharged so I bought a new battery.
After two weeks the same issue started occurring. My battery for some reason is being drained and I don't know how.
Last night I used a low maintenance charger at 2 amps setting and charged it and put it back in and the bike can start. However, this morning the engine wouldn't turn and I had to push start again.
I'm not sure what might be wrong since the battery drained enough overnight that I couldn't start it up in the morning with a two week old battery.
Thanks.
Do you own a multimeter? Im not an expert but a quick search points towarda the charging system failed, says to test stator and regulator voltage.
Just so I'm sure I understand: You charged the battery overnight, then started the bike, then turned it off and left it overnight, and now it wont start again because the battery is dead?
I would have the battery load tested. If the battery comes back good, test the charging system as Darkstar suggested. If that comes back good, search your wiring harness for any kind of short that may be draining the battery (ignition switch malfunction, damaged insulation on wires, etc).
Quote from: qcbaker on December 23, 2016, 09:45:04 AM
Just so I'm sure I understand: You charged the battery overnight, then started the bike, then turned it off and left it overnight, and now it wont start again because the battery is dead?
I would have the battery load tested. If the battery comes back good, test the charging system as Darkstar suggested. If that comes back good, search your wiring harness for any kind of short that may be draining the battery (ignition switch malfunction, damaged insulation on wires, etc).
Battery wasn't charged "overnight" I just let it charge for 1 hour and the charger kept flashing at 100% so I stopped.
Multimeter shows it at 12.6V or so right when I take it off the charger though.
I'll check the wiring to see see what could be draining it.
So far, I check with a multi meter on the battery before charging. It says 10.12v. Not even 10 minutes later it says its full charge with a green light and power on light and the needle jumping to the 100%. I check the charge its 12.63v and its slowly dropping down every second by .1 etc. so 10 seconds or so its now at 12.5v. So I just put it back on the charger and will just let it charge for a few hours but if the charger says its full charge isn't it done?!
I have it on a 12v charger, on conventional low maintenance at the 2 AMP charge rate.
~edit. When I bought the battery they didn't fill the battery fluid up to the correct levels so some cells were below the line. When I noticed after a week or two that I had to push start it I took the battery back to the place I bought it and they filled it up. Could this "killed" the battery or does it not matter since it was filled up even thought it's a new battery and this be causing issues of battery not holding charge?
Top it up with deionised water and charge.
Chris
O0
Quote from: the_63 on December 23, 2016, 05:52:48 PM
Top it up with deionised water and charge.
Chris
O0
Thanks for the reply,
It has been topped off and "charged". I use the SE-5212 A Battery charger - link here "https://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-SE-5212A-Automatic-Handheld-Battery/dp/B0009IBJCQ"
and It charges it and then stops after 10min to 1 hour.
Should I be using a trickle charger or something to charge it like this? "https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-021-0123-Junior-Charger/dp/B000CITK8S/ref=sr_1_4?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1482545752&sr=1-4&keywords=battery+tender"
Or is the one i'm using fine.
It feels like the charger doesn't do much but if it goes from 10v to 12.6v after 10 minutes of charging then drains overnight IDK what to do.
This sounds like a weak battery to me.
Does the bike charge the battery up well when you ride it?
Quote from: Arpee on December 24, 2016, 09:08:22 PM
This sounds like a weak battery to me.
Does the bike charge the battery up well when you ride it?
I just put a voltage meter on the battery so I can see the voltage while running. It's around 12.5v before starting and once bike is running it's in the 13v range and throttling it brings it up to 15v-ish and fluctuates between 14-15v revving to 3k.
I'm pretty sure that means its charging it right?
Correct. Your charging system is good.
The battery just sounds like it's not holding a full charge. As someone earlier stated, you could take it in and have it load tested to see if it's any good, or just go ahead and buy a new one. I do prefer maintaining my battery on a trickle charger if I'm not riding at least weekly.
Quote from: Arpee on December 25, 2016, 07:39:04 PM
Correct. Your charging system is good.
The battery just sounds like it's not holding a full charge. As someone earlier stated, you could take it in and have it load tested to see if it's any good, or just go ahead and buy a new one. I do prefer maintaining my battery on a trickle charger if I'm not riding at least weekly.
I'm just going to get it replaced. It's only 3 weeks old and has a 6 mo. warranty so I'm assuming it just was killed because when I got the battery at LEAST 1 of the cells was low. Looking in hindsight it might of been more but riding with it for 2 weeks with some low cells must of done it and when they topped it off the damage is done.
Potential Parasitic Battery Draw?: Remove the positive cable off the battery, check for continuity (Ohm Setting) between the ground and the positive cable with the key in the Off position. If you show anything on the meter it's the same as having something On.
One of the cells was low.... So its lead acid.. When you get the new battery get a AGM or Gel type.. Muchly betterer!:thumb:
Sent from my LG-K500 using Tapatalk
It's been a few days since my last update. But it's been frustrating.
I went to a different store since the original store just kept telling me it needed to be charged and kept trying to sell me a new charger. For three days at the other store they charged it and load tested it three times and the battery will get to like 13.1 V and then stabilize at 12.2 V and stay at 12.2 V. From my understand that isn't fully charged is it? Well the new store said because it passed load test three times it's a good battery and they won't use my warranty other than me going back to the original store I got it from. I've checked for parasitic battery draw and nothing, have a volt meter and the battery "charges" while riding. I'll have the volt meter running and the battery will be from 12.2 V from starting and when revving and riding it will go up to 13ish V or so and fluctuate higher etc. (though it's not as high as it was before a week ago it was reading 14ish volts while revving)
Then today checking the voltage the bike is 12.1 V since the previous day of riding and I had to push start it.
So I'm just assuming the battery no longer holds a high charge anymore since purchasing the battery with low cell levels and riding it for 2 weeks and since they refilled it the battery's life is kaput.
Do I even bother going back trying to get a replacement or just go to a motorcycle store and getting a battery from there. It still has 5 months manufacturers warranty on it.
Quote from: Janx101 on January 02, 2017, 02:44:28 PM
One of the cells was low.... So its lead acid.. When you get the new battery get a AGM or Gel type.. Muchly betterer!:thumb:
Sent from my LG-K500 using Tapatalk
I had a Triumph Speed Triple that simply wouldn't start on anything but an AGM-type (deep charge) battery. There just wasn't enough cranking power in regular batteries. It was a known "issue" with the Triple and the only way to deal with it. On my Suzuki TL1000, I did something we called the "+" mod which basically sent a bigger shot of juice to the starting circuit to get those two big jugs spinning. Worked great. I totally forgot how to do it though. It's been about 10 years ago now. :embarrassed:
It really sounds to me like something on the bike is left "on" and draining the battery while the bike is not running. What was the resistance reading between ground and the positive battery cable when it was disconnected and the bike is off? This will tell the tale. Should be infinity. Something shorted could cause this, especially if it shorts something that turns a relay on and the relay coil is drawing current the entire time the bike is not running.
Have you tried just disconnecting the battery when the bike is off? This would also help isolate the problem. If the battery dies while sitting disconnected then there is something wrong with the battery. If not, it's something else on the bike.
Quote from: mr72 on January 03, 2017, 08:02:49 AM
Have you tried just disconnecting the battery when the bike is off? This would also help isolate the problem. If the battery dies while sitting disconnected then there is something wrong with the battery. If not, it's something else on the bike.
When the battery is sitting in the garage not attached to anything after being charged. It will drop from 13 V to 12.2 V just sitting. And thats after three loadtests and charges from the batteries plus store.
Quote from: broken26 on January 03, 2017, 11:06:19 AM
When the battery is sitting in the garage not attached to anything after being charged. It will drop from 13 V to 12.2 V just sitting. And thats after three loadtests and charges from the batteries plus store.
It's entirely possible that 12.2V is fully charged for that specific battery, and that 13V is a transitory state after being removed from the charge circuit. The question is not what is the voltage after it sits, but will it start the bike?
Quote from: mr72 on January 03, 2017, 11:10:31 AM
It's entirely possible that 12.2V is fully charged for that specific battery, and that 13V is a transitory state after being removed from the charge circuit. The question is not what is the voltage after it sits, but will it start the bike?
This will only be enough to start the bike like once and unless I have the bike running for a bit it will not start it up again.
I don't know what the batterys voltage was when I originally got it, but it started well for 2 weeks before needing push starts and that when I realized the cell being low was probably the issue. So I took it in and said they gave me a battery with low cells and noticed more than one cell was low and topped it off and sent me on my way.
Now it's a recurring issue to where I need to charge the battery often every other day to keep the battery enough to start my bike.
I've checked for parasitic battery draw, nothing, and checked to see if my charging system is charging the battery. And it is. I believe that getting the battery with levels low and riding on low fluid levels for two weeks killed it. But they tell me it's passed three load tests.
It's an Xtreme xt9l-b 12v 9aH battery I got from batteries plus.
Quote from: mr72 on January 03, 2017, 08:02:49 AM
It really sounds to me like something on the bike is left "on" and draining the battery while the bike is not running. What was the resistance reading between ground and the positive battery cable when it was disconnected and the bike is off? This will tell the tale. Should be infinity. Something shorted could cause this, especially if it shorts something that turns a relay on and the relay coil is drawing current the entire time the bike is not running.
I checked the resistance on the positive cable and negative cable. Not entirely sure what reading I should be getting but at the lowest ohms resistance i'm getting infinite throughout most of the dials. At the highest 20M I'm getting 8.04ish resistance reading.
Quote from: broken26 on January 03, 2017, 11:50:34 AM
I checked the resistance on the positive cable and negative cable. Not entirely sure what reading I should be getting but at the lowest ohms resistance i'm getting infinite throughout most of the dials. At the highest 20M I'm getting 8.04ish resistance reading.
8M ohms is a lot. You'd only be drawing 1.5 micro-amps of current when it's off, so that isn't the problem.
In that case I'd agree you probably have a bad battery :) Sorry for the diversion.
Quote from: mr72 on January 03, 2017, 01:45:08 PM
Quote from: broken26 on January 03, 2017, 11:50:34 AM
I checked the resistance on the positive cable and negative cable. Not entirely sure what reading I should be getting but at the lowest ohms resistance i'm getting infinite throughout most of the dials. At the highest 20M I'm getting 8.04ish resistance reading.
8M ohms is a lot. You'd only be drawing 1.5 micro-amps of current when it's off, so that isn't the problem.
In that case I'd agree you probably have a bad battery :) Sorry for the diversion.
Thanks for the help and reply. Just last note before I attempt to get my warranty to get a replacement battery. How would a battery be "bad" if the batteries plus people tell me because it passed the load test its good?
Is it no longer holding a full charge because build-up gunk ruining the battery while riding 2 weeks on low fluid levels? Or would a loadtest just not test for that. I don't really know what a load test means in regards to battery health.
If it were me I'd just tell them, "I don't know what the load test does but it doesn't work to start the motorcycle. I'd like to exchange it for one that will start the motorcycle" ... just play dumb and insist that a good battery should work to start the motorcycle after sitting overnight so this one must not be good, right?
You can google "why lead acid battery won't hold charge" just as well as I can, and the information you get there will be at least as good as what I would tell you. If you really want to know, then go for it. But they should replace the battery for you based on its actual performance in the intended application.
It doesn't really matter that the voltage reads 13.1 right after charging, for a flooded battery it should be 2.6 - 2.7 after it has been sitting for at least 4 hours. A good AGM battery will be anywhere from 12.8 to 13.1, your 12.2 reading would indicate that the battery is faulty that's only about a 40% charge. If it's three weeks old then the battery was faulty when you got it. Batteries don't lose enough water to get damaged in three weeks that is ridiculous. FFIW my flooded battery which is at least a few years old and has had the level drop down below the plates a few times, still reads 2.3V after standing overnight and still cranks the engine instantly.
Quote from: broken26 on January 03, 2017, 11:50:34 AM
It's an Xtreme xt9l-b 12v 9aH battery I got from batteries plus.
I'd like to add that even the 11Ah batteries are often marginal in the GS5.
I would ask for an exchange: pay just the price difference and get at least an 11Ah battery.
Even better, an AGM (Motobatt makes a 14Ah one in our size I think, MB10U).