Dead Battery

[JimV]

Has anyone push started an ABS bike? The ABS unit needs 12.5vdc in order to pass the power on self test. I suppose this is one of those chicken or the egg timing issues but I'm curious if you end up with a red ABS light after a push start because the ABS PST doesn't complete properly.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[RadioHowie]

I don't think anthropomorphizing here is appropriate to the situation for a couple of reasons...

Howie,

Is that still legal in Florida?

I'm sure they tried to outlaw it. :haha:

They tried, but the Palm Beach crowd couldn't figure out how to punch the little paper dots out with a pencil point and we all wound up moving to Key West and ordering hamburgers from fry cooks with lithps.

 

[FiveOon05]

Just my fiddy-cents worth- As i pull into the lot everyday at work I see about thirty bikes. We jump start them all the time from other vehicles on the lot. They even make smaller battery jumper cables for cycles to cars. NO we don't turn the car on but we do jump them. Seen this done for years no problems. However if the battery is gone.. its gone so just replace it and be done with it.

fiveoon05

 

[Bounce]

It seems to me that there are some here that must believe that just because the amps are available they will come squirting out of the battery into the electronics of the cycle. You could safely use a 1,000,000 amp battery (if you could find one) on your bike as long as it is 12V. Amperage is determined by the resistance of the circuit of the bike, not the capability of the battery.

There's more than the battery to worry about unless you're disconnected it from the bike. There are a lot of bikes out there with switched and unswitched loads on their bikes.

 

[Bounce]

Under either circumstance, I don't think there's additional strain.  The alternator is under the same mechanical strain, rpms, whether it's charging or not.

Tell that to the owners of the 1984 and 1985 GL1200's.

HINT: They used the same "shunting" style of charging system that the FJR uses, as did all pre-1988 Wings. The difference was that Honda "upped the output" of the first 2 year model GL1200's without changing the size of the stator housing over the 1982 GL1100. The end result was a stator that was putting out as much as was possible for the constraints of its contrainer. Sound anything like what we've heard about the FJR?

Husband your charging system while using the bike so that you aren't running at max load all the time, baby your battery when you're not using the bike. All that magic smoke trapped inside will thank you. Of all the cases of failures and multiple failures of their stators on their 1200's, I never had to swap mine. I attribute it to the above precautions.

Even if the cyphering and decyphering don't support it, taking care of your charging system can't be bad for it. Besides, the cyphering also says bumble bees can't fly. :bigeyes:

 

[Just Plain Dave]

Wow...I believe this

Having a low battery is easier on the system cause more of the current is used to recharge the battery along with running the other loads.

is pretty much what I said here

If anything, I'd guess a nearly dead battery is less demanding to the charging system than a fully charged one

yet no one offered me no damn cigar. :angry:

Does anyone out there have a cigar from the Clinton office we can send to RH? :boss:

 

[RadioHowie]

Dayum Right!!!

 

[Fallen Jim Rides again]

Has anyone push started an ABS bike? The ABS unit needs 12.5vdc in order to pass the power on self test. I suppose this is one of those chicken or the egg timing issues but I'm curious if you end up with a red ABS light after a push start because the ABS PST doesn't complete properly.
Cheers,

Jim

I have.

Came in from work about a month ago in a dead hurry to get the car and get up to the school for my daughter who is in band. Killed the bike with the kick stand and left the key in it. It was broad daylight and I was a *******. When we got home my daugher noticed that the key was in the bike and it was making a ticking noise. The battery was so dead that the lcd wouldn't even come on. Got the bike pushed out to the road where there is a slight grade and got it rolling pretty good. Dropped the clutch, the motor turned over a bit (maybe a full second) and then fired right up. BUT; the ABS warning light wouldn't go out. I rode around the block and knew that the battery needed a while to get a charge and decided that most likely the abs error check wasn't allowed to run therefore the light. I rode around on the back roads around here ( I live in a semi rural area) for about 45 minutes then found a good spot at the crest of a hill. Killed the bike and waited for 30 seconds or so then switched on, the error check completed and the light went off, then I started the bike normally. Only then did the pucker in my seat ease up, as I was just sure I had fried something. I've never had moments trouble since and I NEVER leave it on, now.

 

[torch]

Tell that to the owners of the 1984 and 1985 GL1200's.
HINT: They used the same "shunting" style of charging system that the FJR uses, as did all pre-1988 Wings. The difference was that Honda "upped the output" of the first 2 year model GL1200's without changing the size of the stator housing over the 1982 GL1100. The end result was a stator that was putting out as much as was possible for the constraints of its contrainer. Sound anything like what we've heard about the FJR?

That's not quite the same thing. Honda was trying to get more out of the alternator. In other words, they were attempting to get more than 100% of it's original designed current rating.

In the case of the FJR, the alternator is outputting 100% current at all times. It matters not whether the current is flowing into the battery or back to ground. No physical changes (eg: stronger magnets) are made that will cause it to flow more than 100%.

If such changes were made, then you would have to rewind the stator coils with heavier wire to handle the extra current. Something that Honda apparently failed to do.

 

[tyronewildman]

I’ve just got 2 words for you-Read My Lips

I could be wrong...I have been before...but "Read My Lips" is 3 words. :haha:

No No RadioHowie

I should have said "If you don't like my avatar, I've just got two words for you, read my lips of my avatar"

Ha Ha Ha

Later De

 

[FJRottie]

I’ve just got 2 words for you-Read My Lips

I could be wrong...I have been before...but "Read My Lips" is 3 words. :haha:

No No RadioHowie

I should have said "If you don't like my avatar, I've just got two words for you, read my lips of my avatar"

Ha Ha Ha

Later De

Take a good look....

Shut the **** up is 4 words.

 

[Colin24]

I'm not sure I want to wade into this frackus. :dntknw: But what the hell! :thumbup:

If you are stuck with a dead battery you can.

1- Give up motorcycling and start walking.

2- Bump Start.

3- Boost

3- Charge and Start normally

If you are not ready to take up 1 yet and there still seems to be a bit of juice in the battery by all means try 2. If you've never done this before I suggest having someone else push. No one else around? Be careful not to drop the bike in the process! Get the bike going as fast as possible, jump on, snick into 2nd gear, Drop your ass on the seat as you pop the clutch. Your weight on the seat will help to keep traction on the rear wheel so it doesn't skid. If all goes well the bike is now running. If not be ready to put your feet down and get your balance before the bike chugs to a stop.

Now, if that didn't work try 3

Yes you can boost the bike from:

- another bike

- A battery pack

- A car

- A truck

- An Airplane, ocean liner whatever.

The catch is.

- The doner vehicle must have a 12 volt system.

- If the battery in the doner is bigger than the battery in your bike then the doner vehicle should NOT be running. So if your boosting from a car the car must be turned off. Or you risk frying your bike.

To boost.

- Hook up the jumper cables to the doner vehicle.

- While you were doing this the ends going to your bike should have been set asside or held by an assistance to ensure that the clamps do not touch each other.

- Hook the cables to the battery on the bike. Positive to Positive, Negative to Negative. If you are not sure, double check and make sure.

- As soon as the bike is hooked up turn it on and start it.

- As soon as it starts pull the jumper cables from the bike then from the doner. Be sure not to let the clamps at either end touch each other while doing this.

- If the bike doesn't start right away remove the jumper cables immediately anyways because you likely have other issues.

Now if 3 didn't work. Charge it.

Yes you can use a car charger. Its a bit overkill and you dont want to leave it too long. But in a pinch it will work.

A battery charger designed for motorcycle batteries is your best bet.

The earlier mentioned battery tenders and such are the best way to go IMHO. You can wire up a lead that can tuck under the bodywork when not in use. When you want to use it pull out the connection and hookup the tender. Then just plug the tender into the wall and forget it.

I've got a tiny little one that's just a little wall pack transformer and a connector on the bike. I keep the unit under the seat of the bike. In a pinch if the battery is not too badly discharged I can use it to recharge the battery at a gas station. Plug it in for an hour and there may be just enough to start the bike.

And one last thing.....

If you are boosting a bike make sure, make damn sure, make bloody freaking damn sure that the cables are hooked up positive to positive and negative to negative.

I know this because I borrowed a set of cables once in a pinch. They were home made cables pieced together from other bits. Unfortunately the color coding on the wires was not consistent and I crossed over the connections. :blink: Fortunately all it really did was overheat the jumper cables and drain the batteries on both vehicles. The good news is that after the battery was properly charged the FJR started fine.

- Colin

Use all of the above at your own risk. If you blow up, melt, short circut, fry, drop or even sneaze on your bike because of the above advice then tough ****, dont come whining to me about it.....

 

[torch]

BTW: the FJR is easiest to push start in 2nd gear. DAMHIKT.

Another "side-of-the-road" emergency trick is to swap out batteries with a running bike. I stress that this is an absolute last resort. There is probably more risk of damage with this technique than with any other because the battery acts like a giant capacitor and absorbs nasty surges that might harm electronics, but if you and a buddy are stuck out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road in the middle of the night with a dead charging system and no booster cables it is an option.

The bikes must have compatible batteries of course. The sizes must be the same and the terminals must be on the same side (or the wires long enough to cross). The donor bike is started and the revs held up around 1,500 or 2,000 rpm to keep the bike from dieing when the battery is disconnected. Have the dead battery ready to insert immediately to minimize the length of time the bike is run without a battery installed. Make absolutely bloody certain that you do not touch the + wire or a wrench or screwdriver that is touching the + terminal to any part of the frame during the surgery. Install the good battery in the bike with the dead charging system and away you go.

The dead battery will be charged by the good bike while the good battery slowly drains. If it is some distance to civilization then you may have to repeat this trick a couple of times to get to safety.

I have done this out of absolute necessity so I know that it can work but again I stress that it is a last resort.

 

[freshmeat]

I had this happen to me a few weeks ago - left the keys in the bike, in the "acc" position, for about 3 weeks (in my garage) and ended up with a dead, DEAD battery - no instruments, no headlights, not even the idiot ights - nothing.

Having "an advanced degree from a major university" - (in engineering, no less - a condition soon to be recognized by the feds as a cognitive disability) - I failed to think of the issues raised by the wiser folks earlier in this thread about sparks, under-voltages and the resulting effects on the 'magic smoke' in the electronics, so I simply jumped the battery with the booster pack from my car trunk. My major concern at the time was scratching the tank with the battery pack (short cables).

Observations:

1. I was able to start the bike w/o much of a problem this way.

2. Once the battery was disconnected, however, the bike would sputter and quit within a few seconds. This was true even when I controlled the throttle to maintain ~3000 RPM.

3. It took ~ 20 min of running with the booster battery connected to build up enough voltage in the battery to keep the bike running.

Based on this experience, I'd say that success in starting the bike by just dropping the clutch on a hill is going to depend on exactly how dead the battery is. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have worked for me. [the bike is a 2005, non-ABS version].

FWIW - YMMV, etc.

 

[ohiofjr]

If there is not enough battery to run the dash after the fuel pump spools up and kicks off I don't think a hill smaller than a mountain will start a feejer. I was amazed at how much current it takes to power up

 

[weekend rider]

So far everyone knows what to do when they are in and around there home area. What would you do on a 3 or 4 thousand mile trip in bum "f" egypt/ Me here is what I would do. Reach into my wallet pull out my motow insurance card from AMA towing and give them a call anywhere in the good ole USA, problem solved.

They will either jump it or take me to a dealer.

:clap: :clap: :clap: weekend rider

 

[Bounce]

Tell that to the owners of the 1984 and 1985 GL1200's. 
HINT: They used the same "shunting" style of charging system that the FJR uses, as did all pre-1988 Wings. The difference was that Honda "upped the output" of the first 2 year model GL1200's without changing the size of the stator housing over the 1982 GL1100. The end result was a stator that was putting out as much as was possible for the constraints of its contrainer. Sound anything like what we've heard about the FJR?

That's not quite the same thing. Honda was trying to get more out of the alternator. In other words, they were attempting to get more than 100% of it's original designed current rating.

In the case of the FJR, the alternator is outputting 100% current at all times. It matters not whether the current is flowing into the battery or back to ground. No physical changes (eg: stronger magnets) are made that will cause it to flow more than 100%.

If such changes were made, then you would have to rewind the stator coils with heavier wire to handle the extra current. Something that Honda apparently failed to do.

My understanding was that the 84 and 85 stators were wound more densely than previous (or even 86 an 87 GL1200s). In 1988, honda went to an 1-piece alternator (as discussed in the current issue of MCN). It was the stator that was failing (the windings).

Both the FJR and the GL1200 use the same style of full-output, 2-piece, shunting alternator (as opposed to the 1 piece like cars, Wings, and BMWs use).

 

[torch]

My understanding was that the 84 and 85 stators were wound more densely than previous (or even 86 an 87 GL1200s). In 1988, honda went to an 1-piece alternator (as discussed in the current issue of MCN). It was the stator that was failing (the windings).
Both the FJR and the GL1200 use the same style of full-output, 2-piece, shunting alternator (as opposed to the 1 piece like cars, Wings, and BMWs use).

I'm not sure what you mean by 1 pc vs 2 pc alternators. Are you referring to the rectifier/regulator as the second piece?

I think from your other posts that you are already aware the primary difference between the FJR alternator and the wound-rotor style used on most cars (and a few bikes) is the use of permanent magnets vs a variable field coil electro-magnet. A typical automotive regulator (built-in to the alternator or not) controls the current output by varying the voltage, and therefore the strength of the magnetic feild, applied to the alternator field coils. It has the advantage of reducing engine load when electrical loads are light but at the expense of wasting some power just to run the alternator itself. Also, if the battery voltage is not at or near 12v, this system may not be able to fully charge the battery for lack of available field voltage. This type of charging system will output more current -- and therefore generate more heat within the windings -- as more current is called for. The increase in heat is what may damage a poorly designed example of this type alternator under high-current conditions.

The FJR alternator has no such variable output. The output is determined by 2 things: the strength of the permanent magnets and the arraingement of the windings. Neither of these can be adjusted on the fly, so the alternator puts out 100% at all times. The regulator is completely different than the automotive type -- instead of applying a higher voltage to the field as the battery voltage drops, the FJR regulator simply shunts any excess current from the alternator back to ground.

I am not intimately familiar with the GL example you cite, but speaking in general terms: To get more out of the alternator we need either stronger permanent magnets or a different winding arraingement, or both. The problem is that higher current output requires thicker wires to handle it. The higher current also generates more heat within the windings. Cramming more wires into the same available space limits any increase in wire diameter, while at the same time the higher density retains the heat. Increased heat generation + reduced heat loss = problems. I suspect that this is the wall that Honda ran into.

 

[tripletango]

When you buy your battery tender connect the unit directly to the battery with the ringed cable that comes with it. The battery is a pain to get to as it is under the front right black part of the fairing near the instrument panel.

The cable has a 2 slot connector that plugs in to the tender cable unit itself. This makes it dead easy to connect the tender each evening.

In addition radio shack sells a 3 slot 12 volt socket that i keep in my tank bag and it uses the same connector as the tender so you have a fused connection readily available to the battery.

I use the 12 volt sockets for my cell phone my radar detector and my XM all of which i carry in the tank bag.

 

[Bounce]

I'm not sure what you mean by 1 pc vs 2 pc alternators. Are you referring to the rectifier/regulator as the second piece?

1 piece=regulator/rectifier part of the alternator (like on a car, a GL1800, or BMW K1200LT)

2 piece = separate reg/rec like on the FJR or GL1200, GL1100, GL1000

I think from your other posts that you are already aware the primary difference between the FJR alternator and the wound-rotor style used on most cars (and a few bikes) is the use of permanent magnets vs a variable field coil electro-magnet. A typical automotive regulator (built-in to the alternator or not) controls the current output by varying the voltage, and therefore the strength of the magnetic feild, applied to the alternator field coils. It has the advantage of reducing engine load when electrical loads are light but at the expense of wasting some power just to run the alternator itself. Also, if the battery voltage is not at or near 12v, this system may not be able to fully charge the battery for lack of available field voltage. This type of charging system will output more current -- and therefore generate more heat within the windings -- as more current is called for.  The increase in heat is what may damage a poorly designed example of this type alternator under high-current conditions.

yep. electromagnets instead of permanent magnets exciting the fields. Cars, GL1800, GL1500, K1200LT, etc.

The FJR alternator has no such variable output. The output is determined by 2 things: the strength of the permanent magnets and the arraingement of the windings. Neither of these can be adjusted on the fly, so the alternator puts out 100% at all times. The regulator is completely different than the automotive type -- instead of applying a higher voltage to the field as the battery voltage drops, the FJR regulator simply shunts any excess current from the alternator back to ground.

Yep. FJR, GL1200, GL1100, GL1000. Full power all the time. Excess shunted to the frame (which is why it's best to ground audio systems to the negative post of the battery instead of using a chassis ground.

I am not intimately familiar with the GL example you cite, but speaking in general terms: To get more out of the alternator we need either stronger permanent magnets or a different winding arraingement, or both. The problem is that higher current output requires thicker wires to handle it. The higher current also generates more heat within the windings.  Cramming more wires into the same available space limits any increase in wire diameter, while at the same time the higher density retains the heat.  Increased heat generation + reduced heat loss = problems.  I suspect that this is the wall that Honda ran into.

That seems to be the general concensus. Honda upped alternator output on their 2 piece alternators when going from the '83 GL1100 to the '84 GL1200 but didn't increase the alternator housing volume so had to more densely pack the windings to get to there from where they had been. '84 and '85 models were well known for toasting their stators if much more than OEM load was placed in the system. So load did play a documented part in the failure of those shunting-style alternators. The failures were always in the windings of the stator (shorts across different phases as a result of heat-induced insulation failure). Yet a bike left stock wrt loads placed on the charging systems seldom experienced failures. In '86 and '87 Honda changed up the internals of the stator windings (larger wire? different insulation? less dense packing of the windings? - I personally don't know) and the problem was mostly cured (the '85 LTD and the '86i had larger loads on them than other models based on OEM EFI and other bells and whistles, so Honda was encouraged to find a fix from within their own walls). The factory repair for failed stators was to replace with an '86/'87 stator that was put into the pipeline as the sole part number. In '88 the GL1500 came out and Honda moved to the 1 piece alternator with brushes that occasionally needed replacing but even an alternator swap didn't require pulling the motor as was the documented way to swap stators on previous Wings.

When we read reports that no attempts to increase output on the FJR have been successful (by changing the windings in the stator) it sure seems as if the windings are as densely packed as is possible within the existing casing; not unlike the GL1200.

All of that to point out that even a design that perports to run at 100% all the time (with the excess shunted to the frame) can have a shortened life expectancy when accessories run at-or-near 100%. Real world cases have been known to fly in the face of theory.

It pays to husband your charging system. And thanks for the discussion.