I have on '07 VFR and the battery dies way too easy. If I do not start the bike for more 3 or 4 days the bike will not start and the battery has to be charged. This seems a little on the odd side. As long as I keep the bike running all of the time it works fine. I am thinking I need a new battery. I am going to buy a battery tender but I just wouldn't think I would need it for the bike sitting such a short time.
do you have an alarm on the bike, or have you added any other electrical accessories? You might have a short there, or the bad battery, or a bad charging system. If you hook it up to a battery tender type device, does the battery last longer after you remove it? If it does, that would lean the situation towards a bad charging system. If that makes no difference, you either have a short or bad battery. Or at least that is what I would start with. If of course you don't have the ability/equipment to properly test the battery.
I have not put any accessories on the bike. I did fail to mention that I had a wire cluster fall that is under the front cowl and the wires wore through and started shorting out the bike. I found that and taped up the wires and it quit blowing the main fuse. I believe that it did fry the motor on my fan because I had to have it replaced. That is what makes me think I have a bad battery.
Well i know here canadian tire has stores where you just take your battary in and hook it up to the machine to test it for free and it rates your battary. Sounds like something is drawing the current though such as a short.
your bike is a 2007 and the wire harness fell and a hole got wore in wires?? did the dealer look at it? is it still in waraunty?? I think something must be wrong here.. or did you take it apart and pinch the wires? good luck I think I would have a talk with the dealer or honda about that burning up your fan..geezz..battery should last 4 years .
advance or autozone should be able to test the battery for you. easiest test. just disconnect the negative battery terminal from the battery for 4 days. when you hook it up if the bike starts its a problem with the bike. if it doesent start its the battery. parts store should be able to test it and tell if its bad within about a minute.
Just the other day I also had the same problem with a dead battery. Up until then my standard procedure was to go to the nearest bike shop, fork out good money for a new gel type battery and discard the old one. However, after a little research and talking with people in the know, I was surprised to find out that discharged batteries are not necessarily useless. So I went and bought a Battery Optimiser/Desulphater/Charger by Accumate. OPTIMATE / ACCUMATE Products What this does is basically it doesn't simply recharge batteries. It desuplhates/reconditions them to be used for at least a couple more years! Add to that the benefit of the device coupling as a battery tender and you start to see the benefits! It costs very little (about half price of a good gel battery) and it really does work. I don't mean to advertise here, but I call em as I see em. The one I have is called the Accumate Optimate 3 SP (now replaced by Optimate 4), which has two different charging "regimes" for batteries depending on their condition. While charging, the device takes the battery through various discharging cycles and senses the load on the battery. If the battery doesn't behave within a very specific norm then it indicates faulty battery, while if it passes all the tests, you got yourself a new battery! Yesterday I hooked up an old battery I had lying around for about 6 months and today I tried it on my VFR. And lo and behold, the bike started up straight away! Result! It is really worth giving it a go! :strong:
all it does is cycle the battery. you might like to know that with other batteries. such as laptop batterys if you cycle the battery (compleetly drain and recharge) several times when you first get it you can increase the battery life. cycle it as many times as you can the first week. my wifes first laptop gained about a half hour more doing it.
you need to check the output of your charging system by putting a voltmeter across the battery terminals with engine running about 5000 rpm; you should see about 14 volts.
Nope. They way these work is that they look at the charging rates, and see that the battery is going up in voltage too quickly for the size of the battery (you select a charge rate based on battery size), which indicates that the sulfur in the sulfuric acid has bonded with the lead in the battery to create too much lead sulfate (this is called sulfation). You crank the charging voltage up to say 15-16 V for a 12V battery, and you'll see it start to "boil" the acid, as it pushes the sulfur back out of the lead. More sophisticated units use a high frequency waveform to help "knock" the sulfur out of the plates. What kills a lead acid battery is when you discharge it deeply enough that the plates start to warp or get holes eaten in them. Starting batteries tend to have minimal lead in them (light and cheap). My deep cell backup batteries for the house (solar panels + batteries for when the winter storms knock out the power) are massive in comparison to any starting battery I've seen (they make the starting batteries for tractor trailers go hide with their tails between their legs.. ). 117 pounds per 6V battery, but then they are 460 amp hours each (about 20x the capacity of an Optima RedTop).
Hey... I got stupid and left the bike on for like 2 days. Battery's dead. Can I use my regular floor roll around automobile charger set to 12 volts and 10 amps and charge it for an hour or two? Gordon
WHOA there!! Ya wanna explosion??? never charge a small 'cycle battery at more than 1.5 amps/hr, never!
Iv done it probably 30 times in the last couple months woring on my bike. even used the 100 amp start feature. Its still a 12v battery with simular amps. Its a smaller wattage battery. Charger will work fine. And realistically it wont explode. Before explosion it would have to heat up first, any battery. Acid based batteries have vent holes. when it heats up, acid vents out, the pressure is released. even useing the 100 amp start feature neither my cycle battery nor my even smaller lawm mower battery even warmed up.
Bit late... Didn't blow it up, but charged it for about 45 minutes. Still wouldn't start. Turned the charger to crank and it started. However, it only stayed lit for a few minutes and then shut off. I gather that I at least need a new battery. However, I don't know why it didn't stay lit once it started. Any thoughts? Did I fry something else? Gordon
Supervfr... Thanks. The battery did heat up. However, again, any idea why it didn't stay lit, once started? It just sort of slow died. Tried reving it, but it just went out. Gordon
Try the 2 amp charge. it takes more than a couple hours but its more efficient. and being a only 2 amps it wont heat up the battery. tho chances are that if it just died, even the 2 amp slow charge isent gonna work.
Not sure if its been said, but check your RR. On a 1986 its the black rectangle with fins commign off of it under the seat. should get about 14 voltes. An auto parts store can help. they let me use their volt meeter, mine broke. Could be its not putting out the electricity, or battery is broke. its work a 5 minute test. my apologies if its already been mentioned.
Thanks for the ideas. I just thought about it but do you think that the Lo-Jack could be running the battery down?