My Battery is toast

[Rasputin]

I have 5 years right now on the first of my AGM batteries. I parked it in the fall of 2013, Fired the bike up long enough to get it off choke in 2014, but never rode it at all. The bike has never been on a charger nor lived inside. It lives under a canopy in all kinds of heat and cold. We are not strangers here to the -40 thing.
Suffice it to say that I suspected it would not start when I tried it the other day (2015). It was 0 degrees C and I have 20/50 dino oil in it. That sucker turned over like I just parked it last night, started and ran. It does have old gas in it and one of the floats must have stuck cause I dripped gas out of the airbox while starting it. So I had to repeatedly start it to try to get the new gas thru the carb's. Probably restarted the old girl about 8 times.
I have no draw on the bike like LCD clocks or anything like that. I have gotten 7 years out of the old acid filled ones as well, but usually the first start in the spring is a wee bit "iffy" if I have not charged it.
Long story short I have 3 of these in my bikes so far and I will be buying more as the others come due. In my opinion the extra cost incurred has so far been minimal, worth every penny.

[madmax-im]

Good luck TC.... Sounds hopeful ...if you are able to get it that far it should be alright..

[TopCatGr58]

Well, there may be hope!?

I got a reply back from the website, yes my battery was beyond the 1 year warranty period. However, they provided some CHARGING tips and tricks.

Seems my REGULAR style charger is still a semi-smart type....it's an automatic unit that will slowly turn itself down/off as it senses the voltage and amperage power as the battery recharges. And so apparently it also doesn't like to play if the battery is below a certain voltage level...ie. 10 volts? And so when I had it on this charger it apparently didn't actually do any charging because it sensed the too low voltage!?!?

The website told me about the Parallel type dual battery connection to try.
So I pulled the bike battery OUT of the bike, and then used a short pair of lightweight jumper cables to connect it to my car battery in parallel. I then attached the Standard Charger to the battery at 2 amp rate, and let it run for 30 minutes. Prior to this I checked the voltage, and it showed ~9 volts. After the 30 minute charging session, it had jumped up to ~11.4 volts.

So...I then disconnected the Parallel jumpers, and then connected the bike battery to my PULSE charger. I'll check the voltage again in an hour to see if it's at or over 12 V. IF so...then I'll know that it is actually taking a charge, and the pulse charger will take a few days to get it back up to full level again.

My dash gauge cluster has an LCD clock that displays all the time. Also, when I had the pulse charger/minder connected to the battery....but not plugged into AC....the LED on the minder was shining which shows that the minder is connected with the correct polarity...and that may have provided the other power drain enough to drain it over the 2-3 week period that I had the charger unplugged!? SO...hopefully I haven't killed the battery, and that it will come back to life. I'll perform a LOAD test on it once it gets fully charged BEFORE I put it back in the bike and try it out. Because of the gauge clock is why I kept it on the tender during the winter months when the garage got down to ~30 degrees at times.

Wish me luck....I'm hoping this will let me get a few more years out of it afterall!?

T.C.

[madmax-im]

My personal experience with AGM's, I would never use a trickle charger on them, they will fire up the bike just fine after 4-5 months of sitting, YMMV.

this is exactly my experience thus far...except i havent let it sit that long...

[DiverRay]

I have the GEL in the MNS, and after sitting for three months without anything connected to charge it, it fired up! NO, I do NOT OWN OR USE a trickle charger. I think they are a waste of money and kill batteries. A good charger, used only when needed, is MUCH more useful. The GEL's and AGM's do NOT sulfate like a flooded cell, so they do not need to be charged every three weeks like a flooded battery, IMHO.

[bikerphil]

My personal experience with AGM's, I would never use a trickle charger on them, they will fire up the bike just fine after 4-5 months of sitting, YMMV.

[madmax-im]

I'm quite happy with my new battery,which BTW is made by Deka. Didnt say so in the ad but when it arrived it was in a box with their logo on it. Battery mart got it to me in less than a week and free delivery too....and a battery under 100 bucks...

its been 16 months since I bought this and it still cranking fine...

[madmax-im]

I believe you'll find the Scorpion is made in China. It's a fact they attempt to hide. Good luck with it.

TC we did have this discussion already about Scorpion..I did consider it early on but Marty convinced me to look at American manufacturers...I'm glad I did...

[madmax-im]

I got 9 years out of an AGM battery in my XS650! I never charged it at all. I replaced it with a USA made Deka AGM battery now on its fourth season. The XS1100 got a USA made Deka AGM at the same time. I got a good price and fast response from batteryweb.com

This is the same battery manufacturer i have ....the battery minder has only been on it twice to check if it needed to be on the tender...both times i connected the tender it indicated the battery was fully charged and would go into tender mode...I have not kept the battery tender on it all winter basically because I have been riding jsut about every week except for one 3 week period when it was too cold...even for us...

[jetmechmarty]

I got 9 years out of an AGM battery in my XS650! I never charged it at all. I replaced it with a USA made Deka AGM battery now on its fourth season. The XS1100 got a USA made Deka AGM at the same time. I got a good price and fast response from batteryweb.com

[TopCatGr58]

Ps

I went to the website where I got the battery.... www.batterystuff.com and sent the following two replies/messages.

I purchased a SCORPION brand AGM style motorsports battery a little over a year ago. It worked fine all last year, then parked the bike in the garage this past winter, had the battery on a fancy pulse charger/maintainer. Went to try to use the bike this weekend, would NOT start. Battery showed only ~8.6 V on the voltmeter. Put the battery on a 2amp/12v charger for about 8 hours....STILL showed only 8.6V, so it's NOT taking any kind of charge. Apparently it has developed a bad cell or two. Not the durability I was hoping or expecting from this AGM type battery that was supposed to be built specifically for Motorsports usage!?

Please let me know what type of documentation I will need to provide to start the return/exchange/replacement process??

Well,

I just wrote you a nice long message about my Scorpion AGM battery and possible return/warranty service. I have just reviewed the specs on your batteries pages, found my battery..Scorpion SYTX24HL-BS 350CCA...the battery says made in Vietnam, but your webpage now shows that they are made in CHINA! And it also shows that it only has a 1(ONE) year warranty.

Well, that kinda does it for me. I'll be going back to WALMART and get a regular lead/acid battery that I can usually get 3 years worth of service, and 1/2 the price!

Thanks for the JUNK battery. I won't be ordering any more from your site, NOR will I be recommending this battery brand to any of my fellow bikers....I'm the ADMINISTRATOR for a classic motorcycle website the YAMAHA XS1100... www.xs11.com .

Sincerely disappointed,
T. Curtis Gresham

The fancy charger I used was specifically designed to be used on these more delicate AGM/VRLA type of battery, so I don't think that I killed it using the charger/tender.!

I'll wait 1 day and see what type of reply I get, whether I get any kind of DISCOUNT offer or not??? I liked the concept of the no maintainance sealed type of battery....thought it would be bullet proof and I would be able to get more than 3 years of service from it especially for that price! If I end up going back to the standard WET lead acid battery, I'll be taking the battery out of the frame during winter so that I can better monitor the water levels so that I won't prematurely KILL it like I did the previous Walmart one I had a few years ago!

T.C.

[TopCatGr58]

Now for my 12V "magic smoke" loss

Well,

I'm glad I posted in this thread a little over a year ago when I got my new AGM style battery, because I'm going to have to see how well they honor their warranty process!?

I used the battery last year, then parked it around 10/2014 in the garage, and shortly thereafter I put it on the fancy pulse charger/auto maintainer I got for it. Temps in the garage got down to freezing at times, but had it on the maintainer 24/7 for most of the winter.

A few weeks ago I was rumaging around the garage and heard this strange gurgling sound near my bike, and I remember a similar sound before, but it was actually coming from the 1 wire aftermarket ALT that I have on it, and when I put my hand on the sheet metal cover I have over it, it was a little warm...not hot. But apparantly the charging current is backfeeding to the ALT and possibly damaging the built in Reg/Rect components??

So...anyways, I unplugged the charger from the extension cord....BUT left the charging alligator clips on the + and - wires/terminals of the bike, this way I could more quickly plug it back in if necessary. But it had only been a couple of weeks, and this weekend's weather was nice, so I thought I would finally dust the cobwebs off of Godzilla and take him out for a little local jaunt. Got all geared/suited up, rolled it out to the end of the driveway, put the key in, turned it an NOTHING! Flicked the ER kill switch several times, turned the key again and the electronic gauge cluster came to life, turned the fuel on, banged on the carbs with my gloved fists a few bumps, pulled the choke, and hit the starter button. Again....NOTHING, no clicks, no growls...nada!

So...I got Unsuited, pushed the bike back into the garage, pulled out the voltage meter, and had only ~8.6V! So... I put it on the 2amp/12V regular charger because the fancy pulse unit will NOT attempt to charge if it's below 10V. Checked it again today and it's still ~8.6V, so it appears that I have a dead cell or two! So...I've got to contact batterystuff.com and see what I have to do for warranty service! Will keep you posted! BUMMER!

T.C.

[BA80]

Yeah, thanks Todb.

[IanDMacDonald]

Thanks for this Todd. So, I was going to take my batteries (Walmart Everstart lead-acid, and Interstate AGM) to Auto Zone for a load test. Ended-up buying a digital battery analyzer from Harbor Freight. It said both batteries were good, with the AGM having the lower resistance of the two. I did not charge it per the battery label (2.1a @ 5-10 hrs.) I used a 1a trickle charge and left it overnight. So, I guess that's $100 towards another mod, or possible new Torc T-22 helmet with Blinc 2.

[trbig]

Battery info

To Ian, (Since he asked) and others...

The battery I'm looking at is a Yuasa # YTX24HL-BS. I said that it was a gell cell, but that's not correct. It's a different technology (AGM) From a website I found this:

AGM batteries are also known as "Sealed Lead Acid" (SLA) and uses the same method of "gas recombination" as the "Gel" battery so these two are often confused.

The AGM (Absorbent Glass Mat) battery uses a very absorbent micro fiberglass material to trap the gas generated during discharge and recharge. The Gel battery uses a gelatin technology to similarly trap and recycle this gas internally thus both types are "sealed", "maintenance free" and "Non-Spillable". The AGM is the most common because of lower manufacturing costs and Gel batteries have an inherent disadvantage of requiring a very precise recharge voltage or it will be overcharged and ruined.

The battery I'm using runs @ 200-250 cold cranking amps (CCA) and just doesn't want to crank the bike much below freezing. This Yuasa battery is "Rated" at 350CCA, but they under-rate them considerably. The battery shop I've been using for years has done some load testing on them and said 700-800CCA is what the generally produce on these 350CCA rated batteries and strong enough to start even a car or truck. Pretty impressive from a tiny little battery.

Only downfall he can think of with them is if you ever let the battery get way down.. like 2-3 volts.. .they aren't good about picking back up a charge. I asked him about if it got down to 9-10 volts and was told that shouldn't be a problem and that they should last much longer than the cheaper lead/acid batteries I normally use. The "Cheaper" lead acid battery is $65 and the AGM battery is $95. Seems a no-brainer for my next battery purchase.