Dead Battery

[ScottW]

Went out to start the RSV tonight for the first time in about 3 weeks and the battery was almost dead. I put the charger on for about 30 minutes and was able to start up. The battery is only 6 months old. The bike is a 2010. Is this common for the RSV?

[Condor]

Went out to start the RSV tonight for the first time in about 3 weeks and the battery was almost dead. I put the charger on for about 30 minutes and was able to start up. The battery is only 6 months old. The bike is a 2010. Is this common for the RSV?

 

Not really.... After 3-4 years maybe... Since you might have a drain on the batt when sitting you might want to have your Yamaha dealer check it out. If I leave my audio system on when in storage it will cause the amps to disappear somewhere...

[etcswjoe]

I left mine in ACC overnight and it still cranked right up, battery is several years old.

[ScottW]

Thanks Condor

 

Since I installed the isimple for my ipod I've had periodic battery drains when the bike sits for more than 4 or 5 days. Spoke with a friend of mine this morning and we're going to run a load test and some other test to see if there is a problem.

[dacheedah]

The ipod left on has the potential to be a battery hog, especially with the bluetooth and / or wifi set to on will drain the ipod battery and pull from the bike. If you use it you really need to turn the ipod off or disconnect.

[allwx]

FYI... I recently had a 4-month old U.S.A. made Yuasa go dead on my 07. Thinking there might be an issue with the charging system, I did some checks. Measuring the ignition-off current draw, I got just under one milliamp. My bike has no accessories installed, and in fact the audio system has been pulled out, the audio fuse removed. However, with ignition off yours should fall somewhere in that area, I would think.

 

Turned out, the battery was dead. That's the second new battery that has died in my Venture in the past four months. Weird.

[ScottW]

The ipod left on has the potential to be a battery hog, especially with the bluetooth and / or wifi set to on will drain the ipod battery and pull from the bike. If you use it you really need to turn the ipod off or disconnect.

 

I try to make sure it is unplugged when I stop. I have forgot a few times. This time I had the ipod with me while visiting the grandkids. A little puzzled since none of my other bikes have had this happen. I just went out and it started right away, withoiut hesitation. I hope it was just a fluke. But, we'll see what the test show on Friday.

[ScottW]

FYI... I recently had a 4-month old U.S.A. made Yuasa go dead on my 07. Thinking there might be an issue with the charging system, I did some checks. Measuring the ignition-off current draw, I got just under one milliamp. My bike has no accessories installed, and in fact the audio system has been pulled out, the audio fuse removed. However, with ignition off yours should fall somewhere in that area, I would think.

 

Turned out, the battery was dead. That's the second new battery that has died in my Venture in the past four months. Weird.

 

 

This is my second since December

[allwx]

I forgot to add, my recent battery problem started me looking for a load tester. I ended up buying one of these:

 

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/BA7-100-1200-Electronic-Battery-System/dp/B0015PI7A4/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1343260031&sr=8-7&keywords=battery+load+tester]Amazon.com: SOLAR BA7 100-1200 CCA Electronic Battery and System Tester: Automotive@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FNQyhhv4L.@@AMEPARAM@@51FNQyhhv4L[/ame]

 

It seems to work as advertised. I like the fact that it doesn't massively load the battery. The battery doesn't need to be fully charged. It also does charging system voltage measurements.

 

From now on, I'm going to frequently run a test on my battery.

[ScottW]

Not a bad idea.

 

Any thought on a battery tender? A friend of mne has an 08 RSV and always plugs his battery tender in after a ride.

[allwx]

Not a bad idea.

 

Any thought on a battery tender? A friend of mne has an 08 RSV and always plugs his battery tender in after a ride.

 

I don't think a tender is necessary if you ride regularly. If you ride at least 40 or 50 miles a couple days a week, you should not have a problem with a healthy battery. If you ride every day, and ride at least 20 miles every day, that should be way enough to keep the battery happy. I've had my Venture for almost five years, and during times two years ago when my wife was very ill with cancer, the bike sat for weeks at a time, and when it got ridden, it didn't get ridden far. Yet, my oem Yuasa always started the bike right away. I never used a tender on it during those years.

 

However, most batteries are on the way down. If you've got one that is three or four years old, it won't be as healthy as a newer battery, and you may be well advised to keep it on a charger during long spells of non-use. And like I do, because I use mine for basic transportation, I keep a spare battery on my bench to be prepared for the inevitable...

[darthandy]

I tend to agree with Allwx. I never put mine on the battery tender in the warmer weather as regular riding keeps the battery well charged. Late fall, early winter and early spring are a different story. The bike isn't ridden as often or as far and may spend weeks not being used. A good battery tender will keep the battery in good shape. I've had excellent luck with both Yuasa and Dekka, but the Dekka was a lot less expensive. Cranking amps tended to be lower, but tat's more of a problem in the winter or if the bike is hard to start.

 

Andy

[playboy]

Not really.... After 3-4 years maybe... Since you might have a drain on the batt when sitting you might want to have your Yamaha dealer check it out. If I leave my audio system on when in storage it will cause the amps to disappear somewhere...

 

 

 

Don't think battery will be covered but what ever is draining it would be covered under warranty.

[Flyinfool]

Quick and dirty tests.

 

Start by fully charging the battery.

 

Check the voltage with the engine off and again with the engine at 2,000 or higher.

Engine off you should have at least 12.0V withe the engine running, If you have less than 12V, most likely it is a bad battery that is not covered by Yamaha warranty. But since the battery is fairly new its waranty should cover it. Have it load tested.

Engine running you should have around 14V, if not, back to dealer.

 

test two, if you have a lighted circuit tester.

Disconnect the negative battery terminal. Connect the tester from the neg bat terminal to the neg battery lead. If the light is visible at all, even if very dim in the dark, then you have something on the bike that is pulling power. Take out the fuses one by one till you find the culprit. Don't forget any fuses that you may have added for accessories. Once you determine that it is not something you did, then back to dealer.

[ScottW]

Thanks everyone

 

A friend of mine is going to load test and other test this afternoon after work. After charging it has started without hesitation every day. Maybe she was upset for us leaving town with out her.

[V7Goose]

Many people regularly destroy a battery long before its normal useful life - ESPECIALLY with motorcycle batteries. And almost nobody has any idea this is happening.

 

With proper care, a modern battery should easily last AT LEAST five years. For example, I have a seven year old battery from my RSV that I replaced over a year ago when I was troubleshooting other problems. The battery showed no signs of weakening at all, but I replaced it just as a precaution. That battery sat under my work bench for a year (with only one or two regular charges to keep it up), and now I am using it in my lawn tractor - still going strong as it approaches eight years old.

 

But with the typical use of many bike riders, a battery can easily die in only three or four years - even sooner in severe cases. Here are some of the typical problems:

 

First, many batteries are put into use without being properly charged first - this is a BIG mistake, as it will never reach full capacity after that, nor will it last as long as it would have if properly charged first. Many people think that the initial dry charge, coupled by the vehicle charging system is all that is needed, but this is not correct.

 

Second, many bikes sit way too long between rides. This has a cumulative effect of shortening the battery life by letting it sit for long periods below full charge.

 

Third, unless you regularly ride 100 miles or more, your battery is rarely being brought up to full charge. This is the BIGGEST problem for most people. Riding 20 miles in a day is absolutely not sufficient to maintain your battery. Depending on the electrical load in use and how high your average RPMs are while riding, 20 miles is often not even sufficient to fully replace the drain from just one start of the engine. And if you make one or two stops in that 20 mile ride, the problem is even worse!

 

So over time, the cumulative effect of each day's use (or sitting) builds up, and your battery can literally go months, and even years, without ever being fully charged. Once it is down to around 12 volts, it will still seem to crank the engine just fine, but the bike will need at least four or five hours of steady highway riding to finally bring the battery back to full charge. And on a bike with limited charging capacity, if you are running driving lights at all times (even the stock 30W lights for the Venture), you might not even be able to get it to full charge in that amount of time.

 

So what I am trying to say is that often the "sudden" failure of a battery to start the bike is not sudden at all - it has been close for a long time. Your best protection from this type of problem is to have an accurate volt meter installed and watch it carefully before every ride. This battery is not fully charged unless it is showing 12.9V AFTER SITTING FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS. The voltage right after you shut the engine off means NOTHING, so get in the habit of looking at it BEFORE you start the bike, and know that if it is regularly below 12.9V, you have a problem developing.

Goose

[allwx]

... unless you regularly ride 100 miles or more, your battery is rarely being brought up to full charge. This is the BIGGEST problem for most people. Riding 20 miles in a day is absolutely not sufficient to maintain your battery. Depending on the electrical load in use and how high your average RPMs are while riding, 20 miles is often not even sufficient to fully replace the drain from just one start of the engine. And if you make one or two stops in that 20 mile ride, the problem is even worse!

Goose

 

I'm gonna disagree wit ya that a 20 mile non-stop ride in moderate weather is insufficient to bring a healthy battery up to full charge after a single engine start. Assuming a bike not laden with fancy add-on lighting and electric clothing.

 

I'm gonna say this on the basis of years of riding this way, without using a tender, and having my batteries last and last.

 

I've got a nearly five year old Yuasa YTX20L-BL sitting on my bench. It came in my 07 Venture, so it probably was not properly prepared by the dealer (they never are). For two years, while my wife was in and out of cancer treatment, the bike barely got ridden. I think I put a total of 3k miles on the bike in those two years. There were times, two months would go by without the bike even being started up. I never put that battery on a tender during those years.

 

Every three years, I automatically replace a battery, which I did in this case. Now, it sits under my workbench as a spare, and lately it has been called into action to replace two defective batteries. Still works great. Somehow, my Venture with its miserable charging system, with the bike sitting for weeks and months at a time in a cold garage, kept this battery alive without any help from a tender.

 

As for the 12.9v number, that is an ideal number that would be very difficult to find on a battery that had a few months and miles on it. Most new batteries I've seen will get up to 12.8 or so, and that's about as far as they go. After that they gradually wear out, and after a couple of years will settle down to around 12.5. That is car batteries, too. I think that is normal. I just checked the 540cca Ford battery in my F150. This battery is six months old. Sitting still, open circuit, two hours after being charged to full, I measure 12.6v across the terminals.

[V7Goose]

Aren't opinions great? We each get to have one, and there is absolutely no requrement for me to agree with yours, or vice versa. Furthermore, we are all free to share those opinions with anyone who will listen.

 

I just hope that people do not blindly accept your opinion. Or mine, for that manner. The important thing here that that they learn how to monitor their own systems and know how to interpret the information they should be gathering on their own. That way it does not matter who's opinion is "right" - they can simply avoid problems by just monitoring the facts.

 

I do, however, think that you do the readers a disservice by claiming that the manufacturer's published information about full charge voltage of the battery in the RSV is incorrect. 12.9V is not "an ideal number that would be very difficult to find on a battery that had a few months and miles on it," it is THE factual number published by the battery manufacturer. If you find a battery that cannot hold that voltage at full charge, you have simply found a battery that has been damaged as I described. But again, I suggest any reader do their own research instead of accepting either my or your opinion.

 

Even though I disagree with your opinions, I do appreciate your sharing them here - maybe you are right, maybe I am, or maybe it is still something different - but that is the best way to make sure that all sides of a subject are available for each reader to evaluate. Ride safe,

Goose

[allwx]

I do, however, think that you do the readers a disservice by claiming that the manufacturer's published information about full charge voltage of the battery in the RSV is incorrect. 12.9V is not "an ideal number that would be very difficult to find on a battery that had a few months and miles on it," it is THE factual number published by the battery manufacturer. If you find a battery that cannot hold that voltage at full charge, you have simply found a battery that has been damaged as I described. But again, I suggest any reader do their own research instead of accepting either my or your opinion.

 

Agree with all you say about opinions. However, allow me to point out, again, that the 12.9v number is assuming the battery is fresh, ie brand new and fully charged.

 

A battery that is a year old with 12k miles on it, is extremely unlikely to give a 12.9v reading across the terminals even fully charged. Even perfectly maintained. The reason is due to the gradual decline of the battery, which is normal and expected. Most electrical and electronic devices change their operating characteristics as they age. They are engineered with those changes in mind, and capacities are designed so that the device can continue to provide good service within a range.

 

With anything BUT a brand new battery, the more likely measurement is going to be somewhere between 12.5 and 12.8.

 

If you also consider the other environmental factors, such as heat, cold, charging health of the system, riding styles, plus the fact that almost no batteries leave a dealer shop properly prepared, then it is demonstrably less likely that the older battery, though perfectly good, is not able to give the measurer the ideal 12.9v reading.

 

Just because your battery only puts out 12.5v after a full charge doesn't mean it is toast, or anywhere near toast.

 

And, riders who replace these batteries at that point, are going to be buying an awful lot of batteries, and sending an awful lot of perfectly good batteries to the recycle center. Which is the greater disservice? My information is based on my own observations, while yours appear to be based on a reading of specs in a book. Most technicians look at those specs knowing that they are not hard and fast numbers, and that what they will find with their meters will be quite different.

 

BTW I am no battery expert, and am learning new things all the time. I like to be enlightened by people who know more than I do, which is just about everyone. Show me some reliable printed data about batteries that proves your points, and I'll change my mind.

[Sailor]

Had the same problem with my 02. Left parked for a few days the battery would drain. I found that I had to ensure all the audio system was off (cb, radio, tape, intercom) before parking the bike. Problem solved.

[allwx]

Just to add weight to my thinly argued argument, here is an article from Yuasa about motorcycle batteries.

 

http://www.yuasabatteries.com/pdfs/TechManual_2009.pdf

 

On page 15, notice the paragraph that refers to short trips on MOTORCYCLES as being less than "15 to 20 miles." This supports what I said earlier about a 20 miles trip (assumed to be a highway commute at highway speeds without stops) being sufficient to maintain a healthy motorcycle battery at full, or near full, charge. The idea that one would have to ride 100 miles to charge their battery is not supported by the company that makes most of our batteries.

 

On page 18, notice the chart that indicates a full-charge OCV to be 12.8v. No reference to a magical, mythical 12.9v. This 12.8v would indicate a full charge on a healthy, presumably brand-new Yuasa battery. It might even be lower than this, and probably would be, with a battery that has been in use for some time and suffered the ravages of daily abuse.

 

And as has been pointed out by several others here, that OCV must be measured a few hours after the charge is complete, not immediately after charging. Immediately after charging even on an older battery you should get over 13v. But that voltage will gradually settle down to the mid-12s.

 

And, as the article points out, the REAL test of a battery is a functional load test, and the real quality measurement is the voltage to which the battery drops during load of determinate period. The OCV is easy to do, and shows approximately what the state of charge is on the battery. But the accurate, meaningful test is into a REAL load where the current is delivered by the battery for a period of time, say 10 or 15 seconds, and then the lowest v dropped to is measured. By this saying, he who recycles a battery with 12.6v across the terminals might be wasting time and money.

[tibadoe]

I found this thread interesting so I thought I would post my results. I am also a firm believer that when I purchase a new battery its best to give a full charge before use. Hard to say how long it sat on the shelf or warehouse. I also keep my batteries on smart tenders that charge/maintain/desulfate. Each battery is load tested two or three times a year.

 

I have three batteries that I test on a regular basis. One tractor and two motorcycles. These are my findings:

 

All three batteries are reading just over 13v's.

 

Battery one is 4 yrs old and was not on tender for 3 days. (I was in a hurry and forgot to plug in when I put it back in garage - storm was coming) Reading was 13.02v Origional battery lasted eight years before a internal short.

 

Battery two is 3 yrs old and for the test I kept off tender for 24 hrs. Reading was 13.45v

 

Battery three is 1.5 yrs old and was on tender. I disconnected and turned on ign with headlights & passing lamps for 1 min. (This should take off surface charge) Reading was 13.08v

 

I figure most will say that my meter is wrong or off. So I used another one and got the same readings with only up to .01 difference.

It's a fact that when a battery sits the plates will start for sulfate. Dosen't matter if only for one hour or 24. My theory is if you keep a battery fully topped off it won't sulfate. These are just my results and opinions.

[Flyinfool]

I found this thread interesting so I thought I would post my results. I am also a firm believer that when I purchase a new battery its best to give a full charge before use. Hard to say how long it sat on the shelf or warehouse. I also keep my batteries on smart tenders that charge/maintain/desulfate. Each battery is load tested two or three times a year.

 

I have three batteries that I test on a regular basis. One tractor and two motorcycles. These are my findings:

 

All three batteries are reading just over 13v's.

 

Battery one is 4 yrs old and was not on tender for 3 days. (I was in a hurry and forgot to plug in when I put it back in garage - storm was coming) Reading was 13.02v Origional battery lasted eight years before a internal short.

 

Battery two is 3 yrs old and for the test I kept off tender for 24 hrs. Reading was 13.45v

 

Battery three is 1.5 yrs old and was on tender. I disconnected and turned on ign with headlights & passing lamps for 1 min. (This should take off surface charge) Reading was 13.08v

 

I figure most will say that my meter is wrong or off. So I used another one and got the same readings with only up to .01 difference.

It's a fact that when a battery sits the plates will start for sulfate. Dosen't matter if only for one hour or 24. My theory is if you keep a battery fully topped off it won't sulfate. These are just my results and opinions.

 

Curious?

What load are you putting on the battery for your load test and still getting 13+ volts under load?

[tibadoe]

Curious?

What load are you putting on the battery for your load test and still getting 13+ volts under load?

 

 

Not getting a 13v reading after a load test. The 13v readings are just the voltage reading.

 

I was just responding to this: "As for the 12.9v number, that is an ideal number that would be very difficult to find on a battery that had a few months and miles on it. Most new batteries I've seen will get up to 12.8 or so, and that's about as far as they go."

[ScottW]

After all test (load and charging), it appears the battery may be going. I placed the battery on charge to ensure it was fully charged and 2 hours after taking it off the charger the DC volts reading was 12.6. 16 hours after charging it read 12.43V and almost 20 hours after it reads 12.41V