G@& Damn. Battery!

[bluesdog]

Just left the Scorpion on the Tender for 24 hours and she would not crank the bike.Three week old battery now. No emails back from Batterystuff.CON !

Send one more email, making sure to emphasize, using capital letters, that you are a member of a significant number of relevant Internet fora, not to mention facebook and twitter, and that you are preparing to file a complaint with BBB.

If they have a facebook or twitter account, make your situation known there, too.

iirc, they offer a one year, no questions warranty on those Scorpion batteries. If true, and if your battery is still within warranty period, I would think they are required to satisfy at least the conditions of the contract, even if that only amounts to replacement, not refund. Failure to do so could put them in a delicate legal position*

{ Yuasa denshi dantotsu! I actually taught ESL at a Yuasa factory in Japan, and helped translate a service/training manual. I was impressed by their operation }

*(I am not a lawyer)

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Here's a link for checking leakdown voltage although it seems you have it pegged down to a bad, new battery.

Post #19; https://www.600riders.com/forum/fz6-electrical/54442-battery-leads-reversed-what-now-2.html#post601549

If you want to know W/o guessing if the battery is good, simply get it LOAD TESTED.

It should be fully charged before hand. Most auto parts stores, Walmart, etc, will check it for free.

BTW, when you get a new battery and fill it, its only approx 80% charged. A trickle charge(1.25 amp is fine) is needed before any load is put on it. It will extend the life of your battery as well.

My new, 210 CCA Yuasa battery (just installed last week) took about 10 hours to finally go to "green".

 

[numb41]

So you get what you pay for... a $200 battery is better than a $150 battery? A $300 battery better than a $200 battery?? idk, i have a 2007 yamaha atv. it sits outside(i am in south dakota), ten degrees below zero, 95 degrees above zero, no battery tender; no nothin....starts every time...whats up w/that?

 

[MrZappo]

That's luck.

Obviously it isn't all dollars but, I think that it is safe to say that in most cases you get what you pay for. Except Yamaha final drive oil that is.

 

[mc05fjr]

Just left the Scorpion on the Tender for 24 hours and she would not crank the bike.Three week old battery now. No emails back from Batterystuff.CON !

Send one more email, making sure to emphasize, using capital letters, that you are a member of a significant number of relevant Internet fora, not to mention facebook and twitter, and that you are preparing to file a complaint with BBB.

If they have a facebook or twitter account, make your situation known there, too.

iirc, they offer a one year, no questions warranty on those Scorpion batteries. If true, and if your battery is still within warranty period, I would think they are required to satisfy at least the conditions of the contract, even if that only amounts to replacement, not refund. Failure to do so could put them in a delicate legal position*

{ Yuasa denshi dantotsu! I actually taught ESL at a Yuasa factory in Japan, and helped translate a service/training manual. I was impressed by their operation }

*(I am not a lawyer)

I sent four already ....will update ASAP.... which will be if they reply. I thought it was a 15% restocking and shipping. I could be wrong and often am.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

I sent four already ....will update ASAP.... which will be if they reply. I thought it was a 15% restocking and shipping. I could be wrong and often am.

If its faulty, there shouldn't be ANY RE-stocking fee.

**If they ignore you, don't make things right, contest the charge on your credit card, or Pay Pal, you'll win...

BTW, "Amazon" itself (besides vendors there) sells Yuasa batteries. They come dry, you add acid(included).

I read one guy had an issue, Amazon sent a new one immediatly, no questions asked..

Can't get much better than that..

I would be checking for any excessive, electrical draw while the bike sits before installing any new battery and rule that out..

 

[mc05fjr]

Update on Scorpion battery. I finally charged it at 10 amps on my old Schumacher charger for four hours and it cranked the bike all weekend so far. I guess I should have did that when it first came instead of just putting on the 1.5 amp Battery Tender overnight. There were no charge instructions on the sealed unit. I normally do that with the units you add acid to.I had enough confidence in for a two hour ride yesterday. We will see how it holds up. I put the Tender back on it today just for a peace of mind.

 

[ionbeam]

FWIW, a new battery is supposed to be gently charged at 10% of the amp/hour rating, which is a 'trickle charge'. An 18 amp/hour battery should be trickle charged at 1.8 amps. Heat is the enemy of batteries, a slow charge doesn't cook the battery like a high current, fast charge. Hooking a new battery to a brute force charger is no different that simply putting the new battery in the bike and riding off.

 

[mc05fjr]

Actually the Schumacher 10 amp charger is 15.7 volts versus the bike altenator is 14.2 to 14.4 volts. So there is a difference in he charger and bike in the volts and amps too.

FWIW, a new battery is supposed to be gently charged at 10% of the amp/hour rating, which is a 'trickle charge'. A 18 amp/hour battery should be trickle charged at 1.8 amps. Heat is the enemy of batteries, a slow charge doesn't cook the battery like a high current, fast charge. Hooking a new battery to a brute force charger is no different that simply putting the new battery in the bike and riding o

 

[RossKean]

As the battery's charge approaches full, the charge rate from most chargers will drop - depends upon whether it is a constant voltage or constant current charger (or some combination).

If, in fact, you are charging at ten amperes, that is five times the recommended charge rate for a small powersport battery.
Ten amps for four hours represents 40 ampere*hours; more than twice the battery's total capacity.

I hope that your charger is of the semi-intelligent variety where charge rate is automatically decreased for lower capacity batteries and that the charge rate drops as full charge is approached. One charging "event" like this may not kill a battery but certainly doesn't do anything to extend the life. Charging at too high a rate, overcharge and deep discharge are killers for lead-acid batteries.

Quite a few people seem to take pride in the fact that they keep their battery on a tender any time they aren't riding. Not only is this unnecessary, it can be harmful if the tender does not regulate voltage accurately at the "float" point (I have seen a few). The self-discharge rate for a healthy modern AGM battery is slow enough and the FJR's parasitic draw is low enough that a nice slow "top-up" charge once per month (or less) is all that is needed. Mine gets a refresh charge at a one ampere rate about every 6 weeks in the off-season - 127,000 miles and almost 8 years on the OEM Yuasa and its just starting to show its age.

Note: Ionbeam makes an excellent point about charging a (nearly) dead battery by putting it in the bike and riding. This is a "brute force" charge and although it isn't good for the battery (excessive charging rate), I think everyone has done it upon occasion (I know I have!). Its probably nearly as bad for the battery as the deep discharge event that preceded the "ride to recharge".

 

[mc05fjr]

UPDATE : Batterystuff has shipped me a free replacement and told me to recycle the old one (less than a month old) from them. Right now I am going to take the one in the bike and off the Tender for a few days and see what she does before putting the new one in.

 

[mc05fjr]

As the battery's charge approaches full, the charge rate from most chargers will drop - depends upon whether it is a constant voltage or constant current charger (or some combination).
If, in fact, you are charging at ten amperes, that is five times the recommended charge rate for a small powersport battery.

Ten amps for four hours represents 40 ampere*hours; more than twice the battery's total capacity.

I hope that your charger is of the semi-intelligent variety where charge rate is automatically decreased for lower capacity batteries and that the charge rate drops as full charge is approached. One charging "event" like this may not kill a battery but certainly doesn't do anything to extend the life. Charging at too high a rate, overcharge and deep discharge are killers for lead-acid batteries.

Quite a few people seem to take pride in the fact that they keep their battery on a tender any time they aren't riding. Not only is this unnecessary, it can be harmful if the tender does not regulate voltage accurately at the "float" point (I have seen a few). The self-discharge rate for a healthy modern AGM battery is slow enough and the FJR's parasitic draw is low enough that a nice slow "top-up" charge once per month (or less) is all that is needed. Mine gets a refresh charge at a one ampere rate about every 6 weeks in the off-season - 127,000 miles and almost 8 years on the OEM Yuasa and its just starting to show its age.

Note: Ionbeam makes an excellent point about charging a (nearly) dead battery by putting it in the bike and riding. This is a "brute force" charge and although it isn't good for the battery (excessive charging rate), I think everyone has done it upon occasion (I know I have!). Its probably nearly as bad for the battery as the deep discharge event that preceded the "ride to recharge".

The old battery charger does go down in amps as it charges going by the amp needle.

 

[LKLD]

Rode the bike Friday, no issues. Went to ride today, dead. Tried the Deltran tender, and it won't charge. Pulled the battery and tried my normal charger, got 1.1 volt and error code to replace battery. Put my voltmeter to it and got 1.6 volts.

This is a 2013 w/ original battery (2 1/2yrs old). I have a GPS directly wired to the battery, though the GPS wasn't on the bike, and a TPMS wired to the glovebox. Both were added right after I got the bike, so nothing new added. The key wasn't left in the bike.

I've seen others getting many more years off the stock battery, so I'm surprised by this. Do I have a bad battery? I can't think of anything that would draw it down at this point. GPS not on the bike and TPMS switched. If it's the battery, does this fall under warranty or just go get another.

This is the first time she has let me down

 

[majicmaker]

Check to see if the warranty is still good. Other than that, you either left that lights on or, it just died an early death in the Florida heat. It happens. Bummer.

 

[ionbeam]

That right there is a dead battery, not dead as in discharged, it is essentially deceased. Even it you hit it with a brute force charger and are able to get it charged up until a smart charger will take over, that battery will never be right again.

<Since this is a general population Forum, the following is written in more detail than what you may need to test your electrical system.>

When you get a new battery hook up the positive wire first. Now take your spiffy meter and put it on the DCA scale (DC amps) with the range pointing at the 10A setting; leave the black lead where it is in the meter and plug the red lead into the 10A socket. Connect the red meter lead to the minus (negative, black) post of the battery and the black meter lead to the disconnected black battery cable on the bike. The meter should bridge between the battery terminal and the bike's battery cable. DO NOT TURN THE KEY ON, AND DO NOT, DO NOT TRY TO START THE BIKE LIKE THIS.

What you read on the meter is the quiescent (parasitic) power draw of your bike. With no accessories installed it should be less than 0.002 amps (2 milliamps). If you read more than 0.010 amps (ten milliamps) this is undesirable and anything over 0.100 mA IMO, is not good. I had you start out with the meter set in case of a doomsday reading of > 2.000 amps, if it is less than that as it should be, move the red meter lead to the mA scale and set your meter range to an appropriate setting.

If you can confirm that your key off current draw is < 10mA you have no problem and your dead battery was just one of those things that you wished happened to someone else

If your battery draw with the key off is more than 10 mA IMO, the current draw source should be found and either fixed or changed over to an ignition switched power source.

A typical FJR battery is a 12 amp/hour battery. It can supply 12 amps for 1 hour before being totally discharged. Or, 1 amp for 12 hours. Or 0.01 (10 mA) for 1200 hours or 50 days, so you should be good for 25-30 days and still start.

BTW, remove the meter, hook up the negative battery wire when you confirm all is well and trickle charge the battery over night to get it off to a good start. Now, ride, ride, ride and smile.

 

[audiowize]

A typical FJR battery is a 12 amp/hour battery. It can supply 12 amps for 1 hour before being totally discharged. Or, 1 amp for 12 hours. Or 0.01 (10 mA) for 1200 hours or 50 days, so you should be good for 25-30 days and still start.

This is something that many people say about batteries on various forums, but it's not actually true. If we assume that the AH rating is given on the 10 hour rate (for starting batteries), then the battery will supply 1.2A for 10 hours before being completely discharged. If we don't know have another set of points (an AH rating on the 20 hour rate would do), then we can't really make a super accurate model for the battery. In fact, if we are only drawing 10mA from the battery, one would expect considerably more lifetime than the linear math would imply (which is why some folks report leaving their batteries hooked up over the winter without a tender without problems). Conversely, drawing 12A from the battery will kill it well under an hour.

 

[LKLD]

Ok, battery is dead. A bit disappointing, as I had hoped for > 5 years. So next question; is there any warranty left on it, or does it fall under Y.E.S., or just go buy a battery?

Ionbeam, thanks for the reply. Your description of the steps to take to find a draw are easy enough for even me to understand, as I had no idea how to check. Very much appreciated!

 

[ionbeam]

This is something that many people say about batteries on various forums, but it's not actually true...we can't really make a super accurate model for the battery...one would expect considerably more lifetime than the linear math would imply...Conversely, drawing 12A from the battery will kill it well under an hour.

Initial charge state, temperature and other factors don't make this an exact science where we can predict to the hour when the battery will no longer start an engine. I didn't try to include all possible scenarios or apply every electrical and chemical formula. I did provide the frame work to understand what's happening and some general guidelines that should serve the average guy in an average situation. 12 amps in 1 hour sure isn't average as audio' points out.

 

[RossKean]

...If you can confirm that your key off current draw is > 10mA you have no problem and your dead battery was just one of those things that you wished happened to someone else

If your battery draw with the key off is more than 10 mA IMO, the current draw source should be found and either fixed or changed over to an ignition switched power source.

Think it should be < 10 mA, not > 10 mA.

As Ionbeam says, a battery discharged that far is probably done fer. If you can determine that there is a reason for the deep discharge (and fix it), it MIGHT be worth trying to resurrect it with a slow (1 amp or less) charge for overnight. Lead-acid batteries do not like deep discharge but sometimes you get away with it. My 2007 OEM battery has two such deep discharges in the past 8 years and 130,000 miles and it is still limping along (replacing it this year).

If there is no reason (high parasitic draw) for the battery being flat then its definitely done. I haven't read the particulars of the YES coverage but I think that batteries are likely excluded; especially after the first year. Your dealer may, at his discretion, take pity on you. Never hurts to ask! Hope you just have a bad battery and not an impossible-to-diagnose electrical problem!

 

[majicmaker]

It had a short life but, It had a LOT of fun!