Dead Battery

[celticus]

The weekend before last I installed a new larger horn and a horn relay. All worked well....... I generally keep the bike on a smart charger 40% of the time . Then last weekend at a rally Saturday morning the battery did not have quite enough power to turn over the engine. So I had to boost the bike off of another battery. It started just fine after a very short boost. I rode the bike around that day stopping and starting it four or five times. Sunday morning it started just fine. I rode it home and parked it with the charger on until Monday when it showed completely charged. Last night I installed my new Kisan headlight modulator and when I went to fire it up ....nothing. I checked the voltage on the battery and the meter read 6.45 volts. I plugged the charger in and the voltage began to climb. This is a trickle charger mind you 1.25 amps I believe. After charging over night the voltage at the Centech fuse box is 12.5. Do you suppose that my battery needs replacing? It is going on three years now. The battery power to the horn relay IS fused and the fuse is unblown. Do you think I could have a slow voltage leak somewhere? If so where and how should I check for one?
Mark

[MikeCam]

Parasitic drain somewhere is what occurs to me as well. Perhaps during your installation you have inadvertently set up a live wire to ground circuit that is neither fused, switched, nor relayed, thus creating a constant low grade flow.

BUT FIRST: check the more common culprits. 1) re-connecting the battery so that both + ands - posts are tight and well connected, 2) any wires tapped are cleanly soldered, sealed and routed without a chance to fray, rub, short, 3) every switch, fuse block, relay and device has its own ground on the load side of the device; all grounds are to known good ground points.

The battery (at 3 years) could be dying. Lead-acid especially, but also AGM or "Gel". Worth checking with a load test, individual cell check, SG check and total voltage check. One pair of shorted internal cells can do this.

Best of Luck.

[celticus]

I DID have a question about the ground on the relay. The relay has a hot + in from the battery, a +and - to the original horn wires, and two + out to the new horns. I am at present only using one of them. The relay does not have a place for - from the battery. I used the ground terminal from the relay that goes to the original horn wires (or activation terminals )and ran a wire to the battery ground. I ran a wire from the negative on the horn to the frame. It all worked when I got done so I figured it was kosher but now I wonder. Especially about the lack of and possible non-need of a ground terminal on the relay.
Mark

[Dan-A]

Last weekend the battery on my R1200R died suddenly and would not take a charge, even overnight. It left me stranded 200 mies from home (luckily at my cabin) and I had to have my wife bring one up from the city. There was no indication of trouble as it started normally all day, there was no battery light displayed, nothing.

RE: Drain. There is always some drain on the R battery, (which is small to save weight), regardless of the accessories you have added. (I think I read it in owner's manual). My bike is parked on a battery tender at night to compensate. .

I am not sure about your wiring, but I am thinking the stock horns should not work with the key off, so if the relay is wired to trigger off the stock horn terminals and switch, which is what it sounds like, there should be no voltage there (a +and - to the original horn wires) with the key off or the button not pushed, measure with a VOM. If there is no trigger to the relay there should be no voltage on the output (new horn side) of the relay either, but there will be on the hot side that is wired to the battery.

In my case the battery was under 2 years old so I believe today when I go to A & S BMW for the weekly Saturday AM coffee, donut and Bull Sh** session, they will refund the money as a warranty.

IMHO, if your battery is three years old, replace it. The BMW battery is a sealed gel type, and costs about 120.00 at the dealer, ouch.

Related: Two years ago my Aprilia Caponord battery left me stranded in Death Valley. It took a day to get one in from Las Vegas. That battery was about three years old, maybe 4.

As a result, I keep my bikes parked on a tender and replace the batteries at three year intervals. Getting stuck is a pain.

[celticus]

$120 does seem like alot. I wonder if Panasonic has a cheaper one?
Mark

[ShinySideUp]

My battery has always been a bit weak, it seems to me. Sometimes the cranking isn't snappy. I attributed it to the R12R being a twin and higher compression than the 4 cyl bikes I've had in the past.

On a whim, and not wanting to get stranded, I recently switched to a battery I found on eBay.
The Odyssey PC535 seems to have a good reputation in the forums. It was $106.80 plus shipping.

The case is a bit larger than stock. I had to persuade the seat retention hooks to move a little bit to the outboard position, using a hammer judiciously. The seat still fits fine onto the hooks.
I also had to abandon the stock battery retention strap. In its place a made a small L-shaped piece out of some aluminum I had on hand and screwed it into the same anchor point used by the stock strap. The bottom of the L presses on the top of the battery and keeps it from jumping up and down on bumps. The fit was so tight that I almost didn't use any kind of retention, but thought better of it.

I haven't used this battery long enough (about a week) to know how it will hold up, but the cranking seems strong so far. I agree that periodic replacement of the battery is good for peace of mind.

Here's the specs from the eBay site:

PC 535 Specs:

* 535 cranking amps for 5 seconds
* 465 cranking amps for 10 seconds
* 410 cranking amps for 20 seconds
* Short circuit current over 1000A
* 14.8 amp hours
* 21 minute reserve capacity with 25amp load
* With metal jacket
* Length 6.70"
* Width 3.90"
* Height 6.13"
* Weight 12.0 lbs

Odyssey design:

* 2 year full warranty (Manufacturer's Warranty: 400 cycles, 80% depth of discharge, or 2 years for power sport applications)
* Rugged Drycell sealed design
* Military grade
* Vibration resistant
* 60% more starting power
* Deep discharge reserve power
* 2 year storage life
* 8-12 year design life

[NeilS]

Mark,

The first thing to do is check your "dark current." Remove a battery cable, and insert an ammeter between the cable and the battery. DON'T turn anything on. Let the bike sit for a few minutes (maybe an hour) and then read the ammeter.

The bike has a 14 amp-hour battery. Divide 14000 by the number of milliamps of dark current you read, and that tells you how many hours it will take to discharge a fully-charged battery in good condition. (That's not exact, but close enough.) If the answer seems unreasonable, then your dark current is too high. Check your newly-added wiring for "sneak paths." If the answer seems reasonable and you're not getting at least half the number of hours you calculated, your battery is dead.

BTW, I don't believe in continuously-connected chargers, even intelligent ones. They still seem to shorten the battery life in my experience. Instead, I have an Optimate charger, and I cycle the charger around all my batteries about once a month during the winter. I don't charge anything in the warm-weather months. Using this routine, I haven't had to buy any small-engine batteries in almost ten years.

[deilenberger]

While I own one - I never use my smart charger (Optimate as Neil has..) I just ride the bike. All the time. Everywhere. It's a sickness I'll tell'ya..

Oh - any 12V battery that has seen 6V is now toast. It's dead, kaput, gone to meet it's maker. It's new battery time, and based on my experience - if it was me - I'd probably go with another stock BMW battery. Mine has never seen a charger and never let me down, but then the bike has never sat for a week without being ridden either..

[celticus]

Thanks all for your advice. It makes me wonder if a battery bought on e-bay and delivered say by UPS might not get thrown around more than was good for it.
Mark

[Dan-A]

A & S BMW warranteed my battery, they issued a refund to my AMEX card yesterday.

[celticus]

What does your battery read , voltage wise after a couple of days just setting? Yesterday morning at 7:00 my battery after being just unplugged from the smart charger, a Battery Tender Plus, read 12.82 volts.
Yesterday evening at 6:45 pm it read 12.53 volts. This morning at 7:00 it read 12.35 and today at 7:15 pm it read 12.24. It started briskly and ran showing a charging voltage of 14.1 or 14.2.
After running for 5 or so minutes it read 12.83 just after shut off. I will check it again in the morning.
Mark

[NeilS]

Mark,

There's a phenomenon associated with all lead-acid batteries known as "surface charge." It means that, just after a battery comes off charge, its voltage is higher than the actual state of charge would imply. It takes a while (hours to days) for the surface charge to dissipate if the battery is not used, and this may be what you're seeing.

Try this: Repeat your experiment, but this time, after you turn the engine off, leave the ignition (headlight) on for about 2 minutes. Then take your readings again, and let us know what you get. The two-minute lights-on period should be enough to remove any surface charge.

[celticus]

After letting the bike sit for 24hrs it had 11.94v at the battery. It started normally. I have recieved allot of good information from yous guys. What do your batteries read after two days off the charger? just sitting having not been started.
Mark

[NeilS]

After 30 hours of non-use (after a ride, not off the charger), my RR's battery reads 12.83 volts.

After about two months of non-use, my other bike's battery reads 11.86 volts. That's a 24-year-old Honda, with a 5-year-old Wal-Mart battery.

This suggests to me that you have a problem, either excessive leakage somewhere or a bad battery. I'd check the dark current next.

[Dan-A]

After paying $120.00 for my BMW battery, (and getting a warranty refund) I decided to kill my KLR battery. Went camping this weekend about 125 miles from home on the KLR.

On the last day it was getting sluggish to start, but I made it home.

I let the stupid thing go dry. After all the sealed no maintenance batteries (like the R) these days it never even occurred to me to check the fluid level in the battery.

Rather than filling it and trusting it after nearly killing it I went to Cycle Gear and got a new one, $39.00.

[celticus]

Has anyone ever tried to fill their battery on these bikes? I changed some wiring on my horn relay setup and took it for a ride yesterday to apply my Ride ON tire sealant. The bike ran just fine except for a
mal-functioning Kisan head light modulator. The Can Bus doesn't like it. Anyway when I checked the voltage today 30 hrs after last riding the bike and I had 12.75 volts at the battery. Maybe I had a parasitic drain in my swell horn wiring job.
Mark

[Dan-A]

Has anyone ever tried to fill their battery on these bikes? I changed some wiring on my horn relay setup and took it for a ride yesterday to apply my Ride ON tire sealant. The bike ran just fine except for a
mal-functioning Kisan head light modulator. The Can Bus doesn't like it. Anyway when I checked the voltage today 30 hrs after last riding the bike and I had 12.75 volts at the battery. Maybe I had a parasitic drain in my swell horn wiring job.
Mark

I think the BMW batteries are sealed Gel type, not sealed liquid. Your wiring did sound suspicious.

[celticus]

Here we are two months later and after fixing my wiring mess up on the horn relay my battery seems to be working just fine.
After 4 days of inactivity the battery read 12.53 and starts just fine.
I was so close to buying a new one. I'm glad I waited.
Mark.

[sandycruz]

Hi Bay Area Bill,

Would it be possible for you to post some photos of your Odyssey PC535 installation?

I put an Odyssey PC680 in my R1100S, what a battery! I think the Odyssey is one of the best AGM batteries on the market.

Be cool to see your install!

Thanks,

David in Santa Cruz