Lithium bike batteries.

[The Spin Doctor]

What’s the benefit of lithium batteries? Is it just weight?

Doesn't discharge when standing for weeks on end. And that means significantly longer life for a little-used bike, unless you have a garage where you can hook up a battery tender.

I don't, so as I said, my Hornet isn't used so much these days so it's got a Li-Fe in it.

The Shido when I bought it was actually slightly cheaper than a MotoBatt.

[A_morti]

My BMW 650 single has a Lucas lithium battery in there. They hold 13.2v for ages which is nice but means you can't get a handle on the charge level of the battery unless you can reach the battery and press the button on top of it, which is a PITA on the BMW. It cranks the bike pretty convincingly and is a whole lot lighter and smaller than the original. Most relevant on this bike is the battery's location. It's under the fake tank, right above the engine and next to the dry sump oil tank. It's warm in there, which makes normal batteries dry out if you're lucky and boil the acid out on to the cylinder head if you're not, and/or if you don't top up the water regularly enough. Was about the only useful mod the previous owners of the bike did.

[Tricky]

Sounds like a waste of money unless you're racing if that's the main tangible benefit. I'd stick another lead/acid in.

My view too- I had a Shido on my little RC390 project bike, but it was of course a "race" bike and every gram counted there

They are great in terms of size/weight /CCA, but of course need a different charger, and I don't see me bothering again for any of my other bikes unless it's special and I want to re-locate it / save space, or just lose weight.
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I'm a massive fan of "Enduroline" batteries- really are superior to any other AGM / lead/acid in terms of CCA IME , and last as well as Yuasa - the one on my 525EXC is more than 10 years old, frequently sits for weeks or months on end without being touched and gets a hammering ( it's only 4Ah and has to spin a fairly big high compression single) with loads and loads of starts every time I go out and has never let me down, unlike the previous couple of (Motobatt and Exide) ones- that's not my only negative experience of Motobatt either and I'd now never bother with another.


TBH on a TDR,with no electric start requirement I personally wouldn't give it too much thought, don't think it matters too much.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I've heard of people having trouble with Motobatts on older bikes, I assumed it was down to the charging system, a lot of older bikes have quite variable charging voltages, which could be down to a number of things, but most likely is a poor feed back loop into the regulator / rectifier.

I had trouble with Yuasa lithium ion batteries on my DRZ400, it would eat one a year, but the electrics weren't very waterproof, handy on a trail bike.

[cheb]

Noco are off the list because of the hyperbole of their advertising. My last battery charger that was about 20 years old did all the things that Noco's genius charger claims to do.

And Genius FFS, the new stupid advertising buzzword, even Arnold Clark salespeople are Genius.

Halfords won't post theirs to me so I'll get one next time I'm on the big island, there's no rush. That's despite them saying free home delivery on the item's webpage.

[Supermofo]

Noco are off the list because of the hyperbole of their advertising. My last battery charger that was about 20 years old did all the things that Noco's genius charger claims to do.

And Genius FFS, the new stupid advertising buzzword, even Arnold Clark salespeople are Genius.

Halfords won't post theirs to me so I'll get one next time I'm on the big island, there's no rush. That's despite them saying free home delivery on the item's webpage.

Have you tried Wemoto? They delivered my last battery.

[cheb]

It was the charger that Halfords wouldn't deliver. Neither would Screwfix send me sandpaper. I'm not joking.

I'll swap batteries between the various bikes and they can get charged by the engine.

[cheb]

It was the charger that Halfords wouldn't deliver. Neither would Screwfix send me sandpaper. I'm not joking.

I'll swap batteries between the various bikes and they can get charged by the engine.

Curious, Halfords won't deliver a battery charger, item number 629518, to me, but they will delivery a battery charger, item number 496838, and as the latter is over £20 it's free delivery. The trade card discount on the first one is £5, on the second one it's only £3.61.

The curious part is they only seem to differ by item number.