Had a gell battery on the 996 for about a year, usually connected to a accumen smart charger I took it off yesterday and found the front of the battery had bulged out, the back had gone wavy Still holds charge but guess it's goosed Any one else had trouble with gell batteries. My last battery lasted 5 years with no bother
Does your smart charger 'float charge' or constantly trickle? if it doesn't float charge and shut down intermittently then a constant heat will slowly effect the sidewall structure of the polymers low HDT: saying that the battery should still be fine to use.
I think it's a float charger It's dual charger and is hooked up to the rgv too and that battery ( MF type) is fine I was worried it may be gas that caused it to swell had visions of it going bang lol
Its fubar! Could be a result of overcharging? Might be worth checking your regulator to see if that's been over cooking it?
Any battery where it shows signs of casing damage should be discarded, the integrity could be damaged which could lead to leakage. I would not trust it personally, perhaps taking it to someone for a second opinion who knows about Gell batteries would be in order.
I had one on my 998 and it went "rouge" which apparently is not unheard of, my engine would not stop turning over despite me not even pressing the starter button and eventually the wiring started to get very hot, the only way I could stop it was to disconnect it. it was quite worrying at the time and I posted about it on the old Ducati forum and had a few replies back saying that it had happened to them also, there is a possibility of the battery actually blowing up and one person related a similar tale where it did it in a helicopter he was in and it exploded!!!!
Think that's convinced me .. New battery and regulator check Good old fashioned lead acid or lithium ?
lithium has many advantages, not only in weight and compact size but also in cranking current. I'd go lithium personally. I ditched my lead acid ducati battery which was turning into a yearly purchase for the bike and went for a Ballistic Evo 8 cell battery. Coupled with a starter lead upgrade it cranks like somebody stole the piston rings. The only thing to be aware of is that some battery chargers will knacker a lithium battery insofar that should they do a desulphate cycle they will deplete the battery below the voltage at which it can recharge, and then you have to shock the battery back into life. We had this issue with some of our lightweight batteries and we circumvented it by linking it in parallel with another battery so fooling it.
