My Battery is toast

[madmax-im]

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

[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.

[BA80]

Put an AGM in mine last fall when the wet cell failed. Cost, from amazon, was actually less.

Don't recall the brand now but when I tested it right out of the box it had TWICE the CCA as my wet cell did new.

[TopCatGr58]

Well, it looks like it's tougher than I first thought!

Okay, after a few days on the minder/pulse/charger it finally completed the cycle, checked it and showed 13.4 V. 2 Hours later ~13.10, 3 hours later, still ~13.1V. Load tested it for 5 seconds, Voltage dropped to ~10.8 during test, stayed within the GOOD zone for the 300CCA range on the tester, and after the test, the battery came back up to ~13V after a few minutes.

So...looks like it has been saved, and I'll put it back in the bike this weekend and see how it behaves. Hope the weather turns nicer, has been rainy/cool the past few days.

T.C.

[TopCatGr58]

Just a quick followup,

Put the battery back in the bike tonight, fired right up on the first attempt of just a few cranks. Race Alt still working strong cranking out 14+ volts. Will be taking it in to get inspected tomorrow for this riding season! Thanks for watching, and glad I don't have to replace this battery YET.

T.C.

[TopCatGr58]

Followup on AGM battery

Hey there Folks,

First of all, I used that recharged AGM battery last year, performed just fine all the way down to XSSE 2015 and back....IN THE RAIN!!!!

Have a new story to tell. My wife's sister passed away this past fall, and she had a motorized wheel chair. It runs on 2 of the 12Volt AGM style batteries. At first we kept it charged/plugged in, but later we moved the chair and left it unplugged. I didn't realize that the batteries would run down like they did the last 6 months! We were moving furniture around again and when we plugged the charger into it, it showed the batteries were charged. But I knew/realized that the charger was circuited like a smart charger and suspected that the voltages were below 10 Volts which kept the charger from applying a charge.

I pulled the batteries out, put them in parallel with a good 12volt battery, and connected them to the PULSE charger that I have promoted earlier in this thread. BTW, the batteries showed 0.6 V...yes...LESS than 1 VOLT! And I don't know how long they took to loose that much power? I was worried about them being totally sulfated. It took a few days for each one, but they finally came back up to 12 volts. Once each one got to 12 volts, I took off the parallel battery and then transferred it to my regular 2 amp car battery charger and let it percolate on that one another 24 hours. I LOAD tested it tonight, and it held to the just barely good zone of the 300 CCA zone for 5+ seconds! So I can assume that it's not just a surface charge. I have the other battery on the PULSE conditioner charger ALONE now...it already showed 13 Volts, but want to let the pulse affect work on the plates a bit longer, and I'll LOAD test it tomorrow, but I'm expecting the same good results.

SO...aside from the good conditioning work of the PULSE charger, I also am happy about how the AGM type batteries perform. After this type of response, I will never go back to a regular wet cell battery again. Okay, just wanted to provide an update on both my bike's AGM Scorpion brand battery, as well as the Pulse Charger/conditioner.

T.C.

[madmax-im]

Thats awesome news...I've been convinced that AGM batteries are the way to go...Thanks for ascertaining that...

[motoman]

this is exactly why my battery is toast...one or 2 cells dried out and when i went to charge it up i burned it out....no fires but battery was real hot after 2 hours on the slow charge setting...holy crap...

slow cgarge?...........hope you mean no more than one amp. charge rate. If charge rate is more than that....a toasted battery IS in store.

[madmax-im]

slow cgarge?...........hope you mean no more than one amp. charge rate. If charge rate is more than that....a toasted battery IS in store.

not sure Brant...that charger went bad and I didnt know it so it fried the old add water type battery......but I seem to recall there was a 2 amp selection rate switch...when I got the AGM Deka Battery currently (ha ha) in the bike I went with the pulse rate battery charger/tender...but this battery has lost very little in between the few times I have put the tender on it...and in less than 5 mins on the tender and its already in maintenence mode...
This charger was set to 2 amps but it still was too much/ Thjis thing got run over by one of our cars ..it still worked for a few yrs prior,,,
[IMG][/IMG]

[HalfCentury]

The majority of lead chemistry batteries are designed to lose something like 10% of their capacity (amp-hours) maximum before being re-charged.

Lead batteries should be charged to full once a month. This insures that the battery capacity ages the minimum possible.

Draining any lead battery below the above mark will reduce its life. That is not to say that you cannot use it after the abuse. It will just have had a longer life if you charged it to full on a monthly basis.

[motoman]

The majority of lead chemistry batteries are designed to lose something like 10% of their capacity (amp-hours) maximum before being re-charged.

Lead batteries should be charged to full once a month. This insures that the battery capacity ages the minimum possible.

Draining any lead battery below the above mark will reduce its life. That is not to say that you cannot use it after the abuse. It will just have had a longer life if you charged it to full on a monthly basis.

lol......wrong understanding of lead acid batteries...sorry. Having been certified in this particular field, what to simply remember is a lead-acid battery is only as good as the amount of times it has been re-charged with a charger. In other words, less IS better. I use Interstate batteries only in both my vehicles and motorcycles. I also get 8-10yrs. of use with all before they finially sulfate.

[3Phase]

Man! Y'all are so full of certified theoretical battery book and classroom larnin' it's hilarious!

The XS11 and XJ11 both put out more than 20A, then slowly taper down to 12A to 15A and they'll do it for as long as the engine is running. If all of that dangerous overcharging was anything to worry about then not one of our bikes would be able start and run after a couple of days without replacing the overcharged, badly baked and damaged battery.

Brant: keeping the bike/battery in the garage most of the time while you ride another bike (cough)ST11(/cough) doesn't really count but it is an interesting anecdote for successful long-term storage.

.

[motoman]

Well, since the (cough)ST(cough) and my body got totaled last June, have to see how that works out for the Interstate battery that was installed new just prior to the Durango rally July 2011. Last time bike was fired up and ridden out of garage was Sept. two yrs. ago. We can always hope.

[madmax-im]

BTW a charger will sulfate a battery but a tender will not...provided the battery is fully charged then the tender is only maintaining the full charge and not actually doing any charging...

[3Phase]

Well, since the (cough)ST(cough) and my body got totaled last June, have to see how that works out for the Interstate battery that was installed new just prior to the Durango rally July 2011. Last time bike was fired up and ridden out of garage was Sept. two yrs. ago. We can always hope.

Yeah, see, wrecking the other (cough)ST11(/cough) bike and getting yourself rebuilt like the $6 Million Dollar Man doesn't do diddly to the XS1100 with its Interstate battery languishing peacefully and tranquilly in your garage. That lucky battery'll die from orneriness, old age and hardening of the electrolyte and surrounded by friends and family, not from having too many cycles!

Sure, charge and discharge cycles are finite and can be calculated, measured, plotted and graphed in the lab or on a bench but running vibration and heat is what kills most batteries long before they run out of charge and discharge cycles. Did I mention heat? Heat. Oh, and then there's heat too.

.