Battery Help Needed

Today I got a call from my lad whilst I was at work. Seemed he was riding
into town, went around a corner and the bike died.
Attempts to start it were futile, and the alarm was making a pathetic
parping noise.

He managed to push it to my office, and my immediate thought was the alarm
had become fucked. However, the lights were very dim, and the horn made an
even more pathetic parp than the alarm.

This led me to suspect the battery which we removed and inspected. 2 of the
cells were dry (odd). As the battery was new in November I was pretty sure
it had some life left in it so we high tailed it to Halfords, bought a
battery cahrger and deionised water.

Back at the office we topped up the battery and charged for abot 45 mins.
When we reconnected the wee beastie immediately greeted us with a cheerful
ring a dingg dinggg.

Anyway, it now seems okay, but I am concerned that the battery is not
charging. Could anyone vaguely mechanically sound advise me on checking the
charging circuit, and if the battery is not charging what the possible cause
could be.

Having challeneged my mechanical skills, the TS now seems to want to test
any electrical skills I may have.

BTW, it passed its MOT this week too.


--
Dan L (Oldbloke)
My Bike 2000 Honda CB500
M'boy's Bike 1990 Suzuki TS50X (Heavily fortified)

BOTAFOT #140, DIAABTCOD #26

 

Oldbloke wrote

The simple check is: do the lights get a little brighter when you rev
the engine from tickover to a few thousand revs.

The slightly more complicated version is to check the voltage at the
battery terminals which should be above 14 ands a bit volts when
charging.

From there you get really silly and put a meter in series with the
battery and see the current the flowing backwards through the circuit is
moderate number of amps.

 

Checking if it's charging is dead easy.

Get a multimeter and puit the positive lead on the positive terminal of
the battery, the negative on the negative, set the meter to "volts" (the
scale that reads, say, 2-20V rather than 200-1000, or 0.10-3).

It should read about 13v. As yours is ill, say 12.5v.

Start and rev the engine. It should read about 13.5-14v when you rev it.

Anything like 20v and the regulator/rectifier is fecked.

No increase at all - either the reg/reg or the alternator, or both, are
fucked.

 

We have an endless supply of distilled water from the condensing tumble
drier in the garage. I'll bottle a couple of pints for you, and you can
pick them up next time you're passing.

 

snip

FWIW I aalways use taaap water... works fine...
--
O
1 Black, shortly to undergo extensive surgery.
1 Red, undergoing lightweight surgery. -----
1 Blue, for Power-Ranger baiting. | o |
Numbers ... | o |
Stuff ... | ooo |
Life ... -----

 

Don't do that. If Owen was to drink pure, distilled water ...

 

Eek! "Critters" flashback!

 

Oldbloke wrote:
[snip tale of flat battery]

Cells going dry indicates overcharging rather than not enough charge.

I'd be checking the charging voltage at various RPMs. Most likely
cause of overcharging is a duff regulator. http://www.electrexusa.com
(click on 'Tech Support') has a good troubleshooting chart for
charging systems.

 

"Gremlins" perhaps?

 

Highly purified water (WFI etc) is very corrosive due to the lack of
ions and should not be drunk.

 

Oldbloke wrote:
[snip]

[snip]

I can recommend the battery power pills the have revived very old
batteries as well EthylDiaminoTetraAcetic Acid (EDTA) y'see. Swellers
sig has a link in it which explains it slightly better.

 

Yeah, one of them movies.

 

Sorry, in what way exactly could "lack of ions" cause something to be
corrosive?

 

it drops the pH level to 5.5 (IIRC) making purified water an acid.

 

Never used power pills but EDTA does have quite a remarkable effect on
sulphated batteries.
http://www.mztech.fsnet.co.uk/electrics/elc_edta.html

 

Right, I can see that, as it's had lots of alkiline salts removed, but
it's not the fact that there are 'no ions' in it that cause this.

 

ordinary water is a solution of lots of things, including a wide range
of metal ions (water is a great solvent), and fairly obviously at a
neutral saturation density. If you take all the ions out, not only
does water become acidic, but the saturation density for a given metal
ion is obviously zero. So, if you immerse metal in de-ionized water,
it'll dissolve any free ions on the metals surface i.e. is corrosive.

That's my understanding of it anyway - a real chemist will be along in
a minute to point out I'm talking shite.

 

Hi Dan,

Dry cells are an indication that the battery is not being properly
maintained, overcharged or both. You should load test it, so that
your dad does not get stuck out somewhere. For more information of
maintaining motorcycle batteries, please se Section 3 in the Car and
Deep Cycle Battery FAQ in www.batteryfaq.org. For more information on
testing batteries, please see Section 4 and for charging, please see
Section 9. If you need a replacement battery, there are some buying
tips in Section 7.

Kindest regards,

BiLL.......

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the

Only if your tap is giving out soft water. Hard water spells doom to a
bettery fairly quickly.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the

You can buy several lifetimes' supply of EDTA from a chemical wholesaler
for a couple of quid - makes the cost of the packaged version look
steep.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10