Battery Changing / How to know when to change the battery?

Another concern.: I had a flooded lead acid battery fail on my last bike, a c-10 Connie. I was traveling and it failed to start the bike in the morning at a campground, Blue Ridge Motorcycle campground. The campground owner had a small shop with some tools that guests could use, if needed. I jumped the battery and got the bike started. The bike had a volt meter on it. When we disconnected the jump battery the voltages where jumping all over the place because of the bad battery not acting as a "damper" for the electrical system. I shut the bike off and got a ride into town to get a new battery. I was concerned that the voltage spikes may take out the ignitor or??? Now with ECU's and other fancy stuff on bikes I would be quite leery of running it with a compromised battery.

Shameless plug. I mentioned the name of the campground because they were quite helpful during the above episode. It's a way cool motorcycle only campground on NC 276 near Crusco, NC and the Blue Ridge Trail. And they do have a few sleeping cabins.

First , anything in this post is strictly my opinion. I did a post on series and shunt regulators and how they relate to battery life. My opinion of using a battery tender every time when parking the bike would fall under the same as a shunt regulator( more harm than good using a tender), unless the bike is sitting for 8 weeks or more, the advantages are limited, and only if you are using one that cuts off 100% and also cycles , on the long run you evaporate fluid, thus the green light when plugging in and no capacity, if you did a visual you would find a dry battery. I said it before, my second Versys, so far my 2015 with original battery, I expect to replace it winter 2022, yes I get 6 to 7 years out of the Yuasa battery. Also I look at 12.6 VDC or less indicating time to replace ( I load test it, I will do a test on my 2015 and post the current and duration ), ( after 10 minutes of sitting after a ride). FYI, the voltage is a very poor indicator of battery condition, use a battery tester and see what amps you get and the duration. As a example, I have had AA batteries measure 1.49 VDC, and shorted it put out less than 50 milliamp and went to 0.3 VDC rapidly, I have also had AA batteries that measured 1.3 VDC and put out over 2 amp, current is work done, like I said , battery voltage is a poor indicator of battery condition.
Here is a really good site Battery Basics - Guide to Batteries | BatteryStuff

Starter actual current, using hall effect clamp on and Fluke 189 , yellow case meter. The photo is for display purposes only, the current was 50 amp at 11.0VDC ( this is the actual voltage measured while producing 50 amp, no load voltage was 12.9 VDC) This is with the bike not running
I had to give thought as to how to do this with the least trouble, something to consider is carrying a say 6 inch piece of 10 gauge insulated wire, I jumped out the start relay allen head socket screws with my amprobe clamped around the wire.


Please note; the photos below are using a car battery load tester. The above test using your starter and not using the start button, simply because we are using a known fixed current of 50 amp, we don't know momentary current for fuel pump/ ignition, lights etc.
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FYI the yellow jacket meter is current in amps DC
A related thread

I am going to post some photos and add some text. I will come back another day and edit this post, already several hours into this. I mentioned my last ride was 10 minutes within city limits after riding over 300 KM round trip, this was two days before testing, so my guess is the battery was at about 95% charge, because the fan was running during this 10 minute ride within the city, several stop lights.
So I was using a Fluke 189 set on millivolts and my hall effect amprobe was tested prior and the battery voltage was within spec. My first two tests were without photos, voltage measured was using a Fluke 8060A which is equal to the 189 and the meter on the left. My battery tester is a cheap Princess auto / Harbor freight .
So test #1 12.8 VDC , first load test was 84 to 86 ADC at 10.8 VDC for 20 seconds ( very maximum as plastic was melting on insulation within tester)
Test #2 after 5 minutes wait , 85 ADC at 10.8 VDC for 10 seconds

What to do if you aren't sure--is it the battery, the charging system or a little of both ( edited June 2021)
First hopefully you own a digital voltmeter and a battery tender/ motorcycle specific charger.

Battery testing information from Yuasa

Information guide to testing automotive, car, motorcycle, leisure, marine and garden batteries by Yuasa Battery

www.yuasa.co.uk

This is specific to the AGM motorcycle battery;

#1- Hook up your charger /battery tender, after 2 hours I want to know what the voltage is at the battery with the charger connected. Next , charge for a total charge time of 6 hours ( the charger should be a motorcycle charger with a preferable 1 amp maximum charge rate. At the 6 hour time I want the same reading of battery voltage with charger connected, then take the charger off.
#2 after 1 hour I want the battery voltage measured without keying on. I posted this link the second time because who better than the manufacturer , see what the voltage measured should be.

using either shorting out the solenoid contacts , or removing the connector at the start solenoid and providing a control power of 12 VDC to the coil circuit of the solenoid. This is what I want you to do ( no key on)
Run the starter for 10 second intervals with your meter connected to the battery. 10 seconds on and wait 30 seconds, do this 6 times. The voltage should be 10.6 VDC during testing or greater. Please be sure to use the same meter and post the fully charged voltage, it is possible to have a meter off by 1 volt, in this test that voltage is extremely important.. So total start at 50 amp was 1 minute total for 4 minutes total.. My test was actually higher at 80 amp, but a new battery.
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The following is what I originally posted 9 months ago;
So I started the bike , ran it for 10 minutes, and proceeded to do tests for a total of 8 times all around 8 to 10 seconds long.( the last test was done after running at or above 195'F , so the fan was running and I was actually discharging the battery, because I was at idle of 1500 RPM )
This is 20 seconds of on time, the switch was just released so the voltage shown is no load, recovering voltage, it was taken to demonstrate what red hot looks like












I think you get the picture, a 5 year old Yuasa battery, each test I waited from 2 to 5 minutes for the tester to cool down, here is the last of 8 tests, two I deleted as meter readings were hard to see.

fasteddiecopeman said:

Glen - I'm glad that you're my friend, and could tell me my... whatever... is faulty, 'cause your post is mostly "Greek" to me [apologies to any Greeks on the Forum].

THANKS for posting this info...!

Click to expand...

Well if it is Greek, that means only I understand and I haven't done a good enough job. Your post is like feedback, it helps to make me think, if you don't understand probably there are more, just afraid to ask.
So I have the test equipment , a Hypatia milliohm tester, I checked my tester to see the actual ohms, it measures between 0.120 to 0.140 ohms or120 to 140 milliohm/s. Why does this matter? Ohms law says current is found by dividing volts by ohms, in this case at 12.9 VDC 92 amp to 107.5 amp maximum, since it is nichrome wire , even1 second is too much for my Hypatia tester.
So that Princess Auto is a voltmeter with a fixed load, if say we had 6 volts, our current would be about 50 amp or exactly what the starter draws. Next time I will calibrate the battery tester meter needle to match what my Fluke meter displays.
The second reason for doing this battery test on a 10 amp hour Yuasa battery that is 5 years old, is to show a base line for current output, all my tests were above10.8 VDC under load with the current exceeding start motor current by 30 amp minimum, that amount exceeds the total base load of the Versys by roughly 100%.