Well since I've had the bike painted the battery isn't holding its charge very well, maybe it's because it died whilst they had it as I remember reading if the red switch is left down they drain (or something like that) and I distinctly remember it being down when I went to collect. Anyway I put it on an optimate, then it was ok..... Then went away on holiday without leaving it plugged in and it died again So...... Is my battery just shite? If so what's a reasonable replacement to get that won't cost a ONE MILLION DOLLARS...... And no I'm not moaning about the bike..... Battery's die.... I'm over that part
I'm still on the original (Yuasa?) at 4 years old, which, touchwood is still going strong. However, I recently fitted a Motobatt AGM for about £56 to my Suzuki Kettle and I am well pleased with it. It spins up and fires quicker than the Mutley, which ain't bad for a 38 year old bike! I know the Lithiums are supposed to be good, my pals '08 GSA has one on it, but I can't justify £150+ for a bike battery? If the Yuasa fails, I will drop a Motobatt in.
Yeh. I'm not spending £100+ as with today's exchange that's about ONE MILLION DOLLARS however £50 is £50
You lucky man! I only rode a kettle once, and I thought it had one of the nicest engines ever (and I preferred it to the 3-cylinder Kawasakis that I also tried). I'd go for a Yuasa or Motobatt too, although my own Suzuki has a Bosch maintenance-free unit which seems good (not fitted by me). For the Multistrada it looks as if there are plenty on offer on eBay in the £50 region - always worth checking carefully on postage and, if it's not maintenance free, whether the acid comes at extra cost (my recent eBary Yuasa came with it included and I now have a litre spare - not enough for any Breaking Bad activity though).
I was thinking more of the "dissolving the evidence" aspects! I belueve it can be done with battery acid, but it takes a lot more than I have.
Just come back from 2 weeks away and the bike's battery had 1.4v showing! Charged it for 3 hrs and it's showing 4v so I suspect the battery is goosed after just 3 years FFS. Just ordering a MotoBatt for it, hopefully that's the end of the problem.
All lead acid batteries (Gel or not) suffer from what is known as "Deep discharge". Once they go below 1.75V per cell (six cells in our bike batteries) and are left that way (for a few days) hard crystals of Sulphate form on the plates within each cell. This cannot be reversed by normal* charging. So if you let the battery drop to below 10.5V or lower even for a short time you'll massively reduce the capacity of the battery. Note: You can do this with a brand new battery, not just a 3 year old one. This includes your MOBATT battery. Lithium offers a better (3-4 times the price) choice if you continue to expect to flatten the battery, they actual like being run flat. Not so good on a really cold day (very icy), but then neither is a lead acid. *You can buy special conditioning charges to help mitigate this damage. Good ones aren't cheap. They start from around £300 for a car/van sized one.
Optimate couldn't recover it. Interestingly I had the battery go flat a few weeks ago (no alarm) so I suspect either a collapsed cell or it was damaged last time it went flat. What caused that initial voltage drop is an unknown though. I'll have to monitor the new battery for the first couple of days in case I have a voltage discharge issue or a bad earth somewhere.
Did you leave the red switch down. On the early software it made the key receiver stay active draining the battery. Note an optimate is not the special type of charger I was referring to. This won't recover a sulphated battery, as it lacks the necessary electronics. It's a great tender or float charger for the money.
I really don't think so as I've been very careful not to do that since I've had the bike but cannot say in all honesty that I didn't.
So, new MotoBatt fitted, it had dropped to 11.4v after a couple of days so there's definitely a voltage drain going on somewhere. I've hooked it to the Optimate to fully charge up, disconnected the accessories I have fitted, will disconnect the Optimate today, leave overnight and check the voltage tomorrow. I see a stripping and cleaning of the R/H switch cluster in the near future....
Have you measured the current when the bike is off? Do you have an after market alarm or tracker? My van tracker went mental for a while. 0.125 (or an 8th of an amp), but every 3 minutes about 4-5 amps for a short while. Really hard to track down!!
I would hazard a guess that the 4-5 amps drain could be that the rechargeable battery has dropped below a certain limit so is being topped up.
No alarm or tracker fitted. I disconnected the accessories and it seemed to stabilise. Going to check the Fuzeblock when I get 5 to ensure that's all still OK internally and that nothing has come loose. A job for the weekend.
