wintertime: battery and power leak question

[jhondius]

Hi All,

Guru's: please check my math.

 

Wintertime on my hemisphere.

Less riding, bad for battery. How bad?

 

 

Our Z's (S and SM) draw 1.65 mA of power to feed the digital clock and RR (link below)

Am i right in thinking that is about 1Amp-Hour every month?

But hey! the YT7B-BS is 6AH total. (in top condition)

 

If so ill cut the clock feed wire i guess.

 

https://www.thumpertalk.com/topic/545852-drz-400s-current-leakage-revisited/

 

[olyridz]

Ride more! Battery Tender...

[Noble]

Disconnect the battery. Then you are only dealing with the self discharge internal to the battery.  No mater what you do, the battery will need charging about once a month in storage.

[DrzDick]

Also your battery is the type that has liquid sloshing around inside so you'll need to agitate it every now & then to stop stratification happening.

If it were mine I'd either take the battery inside the house, charge & shake monthly. Alternatively disconnect the battery (via main fuse) then charge on the bike monthly but also shake the bike around and bounce it a little, the suspension would probably also appreciate that as it'll move the oil around too. 

Edited October 16, 2013 by DrzDick

[jhondius]

Thanks guys.

Shaking it is new to me.

 

 yes, ride more! 

 

Thinking about making a mains switch to disconnect the battery.

Esp. because i want to switch to lithium batt. when this one is done.

The parasitic draw may kill the lithium one, as it should never be drained completely.

 

Busy sourcing the parts for the free power mod too.

 

And yes, ride more! 

[shuswap1]

FPMod made sense for me, made a huge difference in multi-start situations. I've now gone to the Shorai, which I am very happy with so far. There is never an issue with it. I am concerned about maintenance through the winter. 

 

I'd be careful with that mains switch idea, you don't want to add another fail point or any additional draw to the system.

[MtnRyder25]

Disconnect the battery. Then you are only dealing with the self discharge internal to the battery. No mater what you do, the battery will need charging about once a month in storage.

What about riding the bike like once or twice a week during the winter? Is that sufficient enough to not need to use a battery tender? Or at the very lest starting the bike and letting it run lets say every other day? What would be a good length of time to let the bike run to justify not using a tender?

[shuswap1]

Don't start and just let it idle without a load....bad idea.

Once a week would keep the battery up if you rode for 30 min+ or so.

 

Personally(for many years) I've simply used a <$10 charger.....a cheap 1 amp unregulated charger to maintain a dozen batteries over the winter. I monitor the charge rate with my clamp-style ammeter. They often start out charging at 1.3 amps but quickly drop to .5 or .2 amps over the next few hrs, depending on the size of the battery and its condition.

 

There are many theories re battery maintenance, but don't idle your bike....that is a mistake for many reasons.