Do the maths, its not always the case to leave a battery on charge for 4 hours or over night or whatever. Calculate the number of hours to fully charge your flat battery by whatever method is available to you by dividing the battery’s Amp hour rating by the battery chargers charging Amp rating and adding 10%. Examples:
BTW The 250 has sat where it has sat for 12+ weeks before now and without any tending of the battery it starts on the button first time every time. A good battery is a good battery anything else should be replaced.
BTW The 250 has sat where it has sat for 12+ weeks before now and without any tending of the battery it starts on the button first time every time. A good battery is a good battery anything else should be replaced.
National Treasure
yeah maybe that's the case this battery was bought in august last year and died three times since then when bike was in garage for longer than 2 weeks
The 250’s battery is what it came with when I took it on over 2 years ago, no idea how old it actually is. Never been tended or charged, often left for extended periods of neglect. Used and abused its always started on the button, first time, every time.
Currently testing the solar panel approach myself. Drz400sm has a marginal size battery for its needs, so eats even a good battery - testified by 1 x Yusa and 2 x Varta all beyond saving.
I got an Optimate d/c to d/c charger utilising a big leisure battery as the supply and it works a treat. But then you need a suitable charger to charge the leisure battery a few times a year depending on usage. So all in all it is not a cheap way of doing it. But it is reliable.
I take it the garage is too far away from the house for an extension lead to be used once in a while? When I was in London I used to park the bike outside the flat and charge it by hanging the charger out the living room window on a weekend afternoon.
I always thought a good 20 minuit ride ripping the arsenal out of it was enough to charge any battery…if you still have problems after this it’s either your charging circuit has problem or the battery is knackered and not holding charge and needs replacing.
Some bikes seem better at looking after their battery than others in my experience.
nivag
That's the real deal. Its all about standby current drain which is more critical on mo'cycles fitted with lower Ah batteries and/or having a higher standby current drain. It can be useful to check the standby current drain as each mo'cycle will be different even when comparing like for like models. The result will determine if there is any electrical fault causing battery drain. Its also worth knowing what the standby current drain is to determine what needs to be put back into the battery when using the likes of solar panels to keep the battery topped up.
Note a 35mA (0.035A) standby current drain, which is about what is required to power those always on electrical items such as an alarm, dash clock etc, would completely drain an average motorcycle battery in less than 10 days!
To check standby current drain remove the battery negative lead and connect a multimeter between the battery’s negative lead and negative terminal. Note multimeter settings for reading Amps are - connect the red probe to the 10A DC socket, connect the black probe to the COM/Earth socket and set the dial to the 10A DC range. Standby current drain should be less than 35mA (0.035A) If the standby current drain is any higher than that you need to find out what is draining the battery.
I take it the garage is too far away from the house for an extension lead to be used once in a while? When I was in London I used to park the bike outside the flat and charge it by hanging the charger out the living room window on a weekend afternoon.
monkimark
lol totally, l have it in underground parking space and the building is stingy on sharing electricity there l guess ;) will give it a kick start to see if it will work at all and maybe ride it a bit. what it really needs it proper 2h trip to get it going again. if not will just have to take that damn battery out and charge it home after all...
