Battery care

[Slenver]

I can't seem to get this right.

I've had bikes before that I've not used over winter and by spring the battery's dead and fails to recharge properly. So I've had to replace.

So I bought a decent trickle charger a couple of years ago which seems to improve things. Though an RAC man recently told me that they're rubbish and do more damage than good.

More recently and specifically, I've not used my bike since before Christmas. And it's been sat happily in the garage on said trickle charger, all good. Took her the 100-mile round trip the other day for its MOT and worked a treat. And now, suddenly dead. Why?

In this case, the charger had a red light on it, clearly indicating something wrong, and it the battery was dead as a dodo. So I charged it up overnight with a 'proper' charger and all it indicated fully charged this morning. Ignition, dash etc, all good but nothing but a click when I tried to start it.

Is it just me? I seem to need a new battery every 2 years whatever I do.

[weeksy]

Not usual for me.

I use a NOCO genius charger on the zx6, charging once every 6-8 weeks over winter. Battery is 4+ years old.

The other bikes I've not owned ling enough to give you an answer

[Supermofo]

I dont ride over winter and so bring my battery in to live under the stairs in the house in the warm. I then put it on trickle charge once a month or so for a few hours. Seems to work for me

[Rockburner]

I dont ride over winter and so bring my battery in to live under the stairs in the house in the warm. I then put it on trickle charge once a month or so for a few hours. Seems to work for me

This.

I'm not sure that keeping a battery on 'charge' permanently is a good idea. Charge it, then store it somewhere warm, then charge it again before you put it in the bike for use.

[Slenver]

I dont ride over winter and so bring my battery in to live under the stairs in the house in the warm. I then put it on trickle charge once a month or so for a few hours. Seems to work for me

This.

I'm not sure that keeping a battery on 'charge' permanently is a good idea. Charge it, then store it somewhere warm, then charge it again before you put it in the bike for use.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

I suspect the problem is that I'm used to riding all year - I've commuted on the bike for years but have become more of a fair-weather rider or late. So I guess I never have the mindset of laying the bike up over winter, I always think I'm gonna use it. But don't.

I think I just need to be more honest about my usage and prepare better!

Still not sure why this current battery just upped and died though when it was fine only 2 weeks only on the last ride.

[Supermofo]

Any accessories draining the battery? Alarm?

I didn't own a car till I was 28 but as soon as i did my first winter in a car I changed to a wuss FWB overnight.

I first removed my battery cos I didn't have a charger and would borrow one once in a while. But even once I did my garage is separate to the house so have no power so stuck to what I had been doing.

[Rockburner]

I dont ride over winter and so bring my battery in to live under the stairs in the house in the warm. I then put it on trickle charge once a month or so for a few hours. Seems to work for me

This.

I'm not sure that keeping a battery on 'charge' permanently is a good idea. Charge it, then store it somewhere warm, then charge it again before you put it in the bike for use.

Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

I suspect the problem is that I'm used to riding all year - I've commuted on the bike for years but have become more of a fair-weather rider or late. So I guess I never have the mindset of laying the bike up over winter, I always think I'm gonna use it. But don't.

I think I just need to be more honest about my usage and prepare better!

Still not sure why this current battery just upped and died though when it was fine only 2 weeks only on the last ride.

Mostly the same here, but like you, I'm not riding daily as much any more.

Mind you - when I had the ZXR400 I used to lay that up over winter, charge the battery, stick it in the airing cupboard, then charge and re-install in spring and the battery lasted years. I then either commuted by train, or had a winter hack. It was only when I consolidated and moved all my riding to the Rockster that I ended up with 1 bike for all-year-round usage, and the battery never gave trouble.

[Slenver]

Any accessories draining the battery? Alarm?

No, nothing. And previously, if I haven't attached the trickle charger, it'd last a fair few weeks and still start. Months even.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I leave the bikes in the garage all winter, no charging on anything, go to them in the spring and they start, use them for the summer, been doing this for years, only batteries I've had problems with were Lithium Ion ones on the DRZ400 I used to own, which needed an optimate on it.

My FZR400 has only been ridden once on a track day this year, I'll go to it and it will start, might take a bit of spinning over, but the battery will be fine.

[Dodgy69]

Is it the correct charger for battery, lithium use different i think. They don't continuously charge. They initially fully charge , then monitor and trickle when needed. My optimate must be 20yo and is connected up most of the time in garage if laid up. Never had a problem.

[JackyJoll]

Smart chargers sometimes go wrong and destroy the battery.

[cheb]

My battery care extends to buying the suitable Motobatt, fitting it to the bike and ignoring it. Works for me. I've gone for Motbatts as they can be got by post but aren't as pricey as lithium based ones. The bike doesn't need the weight saving, I do.

And that's when the old battery has died completely and irrevocably. The last couple of bikes I've bought have had half empty batteries, I topped them up with water from the dehumidifier and left them to it. Both bikes still start, kickstart only 2Ts, so there must be enough juice in there. They are Yamahas with a power valve and it does a test rotate when the ignition is switched on.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Yamaha two strokes don't need a battery to start or run

[Yorick]

For 15 years I laid up my GSXR1000s for 4 months every years. Always started first prod in March.

We ride all year here but as I have the bike alarmed I give it a quick boost if it's been stood a month. This battery is much smaller than previous models.

[cheb]

Yamaha two strokes don't need a battery to start or run

Thanks. I'd wondered about that, but had never bothered finding out. And the test whirr amuses me enough to keep a battery on the bike.

[Slenver]

Well, it's sounding more like the trickle charger killed it then.

I'm going back to the old ways

[MingtheMerciless]

Telecoms Tech for 20 years (EVERYTHING important is battery backed and runs off a 50DC supply). I specialised in Uninterruptible Power Supplies supplies amongst other things and before that I worked for a firm that made battery formation plate chargers for Chloride batteries and Telecoms Power Supplies.

Lead acid batteries love to be left topped up by something like a optimate, not a shitty cheap half wave rectified halfrauds charger with an electrosplytic cap for a bit of smoothing. Extreme heat and cold are your battery's main enemy. Lead acid life spans are drastically shortened once you go over 21C (had a man from SEC batteries explain all this, along with reading the manual of the expensive yuasa battery testers we had at work). I've seen this personally on nation-wide scheme where new container type telecoms sites were installed with their UPS battery banks fitted, but left unpowered, heated or cooled, after 2 years sitting there, freezing and cooking with no charge they were all FUBAR. That cost over £3000000 to sort out.

Modern bikes with electronic gubbins like alarms and trackers will be a constant drain on them so topping up is essential to avoid deep discharge and killing the plates in each cell. Lead acid bike and car batteries are a bit of a compromise, they have to supply heavy cranking currents (we measured 800A peak with a clipon meter for one of the works diesel vans, it was only a 1.6 and it was warm!) so the lead plates are reinforced with antimony to make them physically stronger to resist the physical forces that that sort of current draw can cause, but this then compromises the batteries ability to sit there quietly supply a trickle current of mA to alarms, electronic gizmo's and trackers.

Telecoms UPS batteries are built differently, still 12V and 160Ah etc but they don't like sudden heavy loads (no antimony) but can supply constant loads for a long time if the power fails.

Li-Ion are different in that keeping them topped up voltage stresses the battery construction reducing their lifespan, so its better that they are left half charged (for Ebikes, mobiles, laptops, torches etc don't know too much about automotive Li-Ion). Not sure I'm too keen for Li Ion in my car or bike as they are prone to failing rather spectacularly (Tesla type car batteries are different and have a lot of safety features built in to kill the battery by breaking cell to cell connections/blowing internal fuses if they detect a short or earth fault to the car body).

Hope this helps

Oh and back to the antimony thing, apparently its such a pig to remove from the lead that "fresh out of the ground lead" is used for Telecoms standby batteries and recycled battery lead is used for automotive.

[Skub]

Lemme tell ya Slenverz baby.

When I sold my ten a few weeks ago it was 16 years old. I had it for almost 14 of those years.

I never needed to replace the battery,so it was at least almost 14 years old.

Every time I parked it up it was connected up to an Optimate. During the Winter months the bike never moved. The damn thing lasted so long I was getting twitchy about it letting me down somewhere inconvenient. I considered buying a new battery just in case!

I tend to keep my bikes long term and have used Optimates from the first model,I don't remember the last time I bought a battery for a big bike.

ZX10R nope

GSXR1000 nope

ZX9R nope

ZZR1100 nope

That's going back to the early 90s.

If RAC man is including Optimate in his comment of 'more harm than good',I say he's talking out his arse.

[Doc]

+1 for using an optimate or similar battery monitor.
Used one for over 20 years and my bike batteries typically last 8-9 years before I replace them.
Constant trickle charging isn't great for LA batteries but monitoring the voltage and topping up when required is the way to go IME.

Call me cynical but don't the RAC (and AA) make quite a bit of money flogging batteries?

[JackyJoll]

I park up over winter and charge for a couple of hours, a couple of times, with a dumb charger.

Battery lasts a few years.