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Bandit battery didnt start 2nd time in a week. Only 1 yearish old

cozy said:
Thanks. I do usually turn it and with chike on and let it run for a minute or two before I begin riding, because usually if I ride away immediately after turning on ( especially if I don't use choke ) it will die - stall. But once the choke is on and it warms up I turn choke off after a minute or two of riding as that prevents it shutting off for lack of fuel circulation I assume.
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Your riding habits sound fine.
 
cozy said:
Usually i ride around 3 or 4 days a week. Mostly from San Anselmo I do a loop around china camp park via san pedro rd and north san pedro rd, then back. Sometimes I ride farther, up to Lucas Valley rd, or San Antonio Rd and back around to San Anselmo area or up to Petaluma and back.

But lately Ive mostly been doing china camp park route. So not long distances and not at freeway speeds more often than not.

I have only used the recharger i have when the bike battery didnt start, so Ive only used it to recharge battery maybe 5 times in the recent year.

Somewere along the way I acquired a notion from some online comments that usng the charger if battery starts the bike fine, will weaken the battery. Sounds like that may be incorrect.?
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If it’s a “smart” charger, it shouldn’t cause any problems. I have a 5 amp smart charger for my two cars. I don’t drive them much. I’ve had one or the other vehicle plugged in for two or three weeks before swapping the charger to the other. Zero problems.

If it’s a dumb charger, then yes, leaving the charger running can kill the battery.
 
ST Guy said:
If it’s a “smart” charger, it shouldn’t cause any problems. I have a 5 amp smart charger for my two cars. I don’t drive them much. I’ve had one or the other vehicle plugged in for two or three weeks before swapping the charger to the other. Zero problems.

If it’s a dumb charger, then yes, leaving the charger running can kill the battery.
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Because I have no private parking space and use public parking , I have no option to plug and charge motorcycle while battery in still in the bandit. So I remove battery and bring it inside my place to plug in & recharge for a few hours until the charge indicator light turns green.
 
I've been wondering if my most common rides through China camp are not fast and long enough to keep the battery weklcharged.? Since except for a short maybe mile length of road, most of the road is twisty small road with speed limits of 30pm and less.
 
San Anselmo, around China Camp, back to San Anselmo is more than enough to maintain a healthy battery.
 
Looking at the battery recharger I have, it says its a battery maintainer, 1.5a maintain. Input 120ac 60hz 04a.
Output 6.12 v.dc @1.5a.

So im assuming that is not enough to charge a new battery correctly. Just for recharging when needed and trickle charging maintaining when staying connected to motoruckce sitting for periods of time?
 
cozy said:
Because I have no private parking space and use public parking , I have no option to plug and charge motorcycle while battery in still in the bandit. So I remove battery and bring it inside my place to plug in & recharge for a few hours until the charge indicator light turns green.
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Oh, I understand your situation. Just saying that if it’s a smart charger, there’s no limit to how long you can have the charger connected to the battery.
 
cozy said:
Looking at the battery recharger I have, it says its a battery maintainer, 1.5a maintain. Input 120ac 60hz 04a.
Output 6.12 v.dc @1.5a.

So im assuming that is not enough to charge a new battery correctly. Just for recharging when needed and trickle charging maintaining when staying connected to motoruckce sitting for periods of time?
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It might be considered a maintaining charger for bigger batteries, like a car or truck, but it’s an actual smart charger for a motorcycle. 1.5 amps, give or take a little, is the maximum amperage a small battery like those in a motorcycle should ever be subjected to. You are good to go for both charging and maintaining your motorcycle battery.

And whether the battery is in or out of the vehicle does not make a difference. Since you can’t run a cord to your bike, if you know you won’t be riding for a few weeks, remove the battery, take it inside and hook up your charger and then forget about it until you ride again.
 
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ST Guy said:
It might be considered a maintaining charger for bigger batteries, like a car or truck, but it’s an actual smart charger for a motorcycle. 1.5 amps, give or take a little, is the maximum amperage a small battery like those in a motorcycle should ever be subjected to. You are good to go for both charging and maintaining your motorcycle battery.

And whether the battery is in or out of the vehicle does not make a difference. Since you can’t run a cord to your bike, if you know you won’t be riding for a few weeks, remove the battery, take it inside and hook up your charger and then forget about it until you ride again.
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Thanks! Good to know. So 3 days between rides, and the relatively short china camp loop rides I usually do, should not have an adverse effect itself on battery it sounds like.?

Seems maybe just the discharge after being blown over and towed with bike not running but lights on for a few minutes, and not connecting it to the maintainer / charger more than every few months at most, has damaged the battery.?
 
Weird...I thought i uploaded the photos of the battery maintainer charger when i posted at 12:17. But i dont see the photos now. So uploading them again.
 

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I have an older Schumacher 1.5 volt charger that has been excellent for the whole time I've had it. A guy on one of the Ducati e-mail lists who is an electrical engineer tested a bunch of chargers and found that one to be the best. I'm guessing they still make good chargers.

Not much else useful to add here.
 
The only way to determine a batteries health is to fully charge it, let it sit for a couple of hours and then have a load test performed. As previously pointed out, a battery will have a surface charge that will cause your charger to indicate that it is fully charged but that is not an indication of it's storage capacity.
Find someone that has a carbon pile load tester and not an electronic inductance tester.
Test your charging system to make sure it works. With your engine running at 3000 rpm, you should see 13.8-14.5 VDC at the batter. A cheap Harbor Freight $10 multimeter will do this. If you have less then 13.8 VDC, then further troubleshooting is required.
I gotta give you credit, you have an old bike, a low level of mechanical skills, mimimum tools, no place to store or maintain your old motorcycle, a limited budget and you haven't given up yet. Rock on dude.
 
cozy said:
Thanks! Good to know. So 3 days between rides, and the relatively short china camp loop rides I usually do, should not have an adverse effect itself on battery it sounds like.?

Seems maybe just the discharge after being blown over and towed with bike not running but lights on for a few minutes, and not connecting it to the maintainer / charger more than every few months at most, has damaged the battery.?
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Maybe not. Charge the battery fully. Disconnect the charger and wait two hours. Then measure battery voltage. Report back.
 
ST Guy said:
If the battery hasn't been charged or the bike hasn’t been run in a long time, it’s shot. Lead acid batteries of all types self discharge. They must be charged regularly or kept on a trickle charger to keep them healthy.

Do you have a volt meter? If not, get one. It’s probably the first thing you should buy when you get a motorcycle or car. With the bike’s engine running at 3-4000 RPM, measure the voltage at the battery. It should be 14.4 volts, give or take a little.
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To be clear, are you saying that even if I ride the bandit a few times a week as I usually do when not raining, it still needs to be charged occassionally for battery to remain healthy working condition? If so, how often?
 
Riding a few times a week should be plenty to keep the battery charged if the battery is healthy and so is your charging system. That’s why I said to charge the battery, wait a couple hours after removing the charger, and take a reading. While not as good as a real load test, it will give you an idea of the batteries health. And check your charging system as well. Report back with your numbers.
 
So are any of these suitable as a voltmeter mentioned to test motorcycle batteries ? They have so many settings i have no idea ...
 

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I must be doing something incorrect using the digital multimeter? As its showing around 34.8 when I connect prongs to battery terminal bolts.?

I don't know how to use these, just went by what guy at store said and from what I read . Toput switch to 9v25ma setting, and black wore from COM port and red wire from vupsode down ima port.

Is the black port hold connection supposed to he loose? As the wire doesn't snap in securely to it like the red wire port snaps in.
 

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Have you tried googling "how to use a multimeter" or "how to measure DC with a multimeter"?
 
cozy said:
I must be doing something incorrect using the digital multimeter? As its showing around 34.8 when I connect prongs to battery terminal bolts.?
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It looks like you have it on the capacitance setting.

You need to turn the dial to 20 on the DCV scale and then you'll get a valid voltage reading.

I only ever use two setting on mine. One is voltage and the other is resistance to check for open wires or shorted wires. The cheap multimeter works great for those two things.
 
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