Dead battery question

Hello all,

I’ve been off the bikes for a few years; I don’t think I qualify exactly as a ‘Born Again’, although maybe that definition is quite broad. Anyway, it’s been a while

I'm hoping I could get some opinions on a minor issue I've had with the battery..


I picked up a K2 Curvy recently, as it suited my ‘commuter with lulz’ criteria. I bought from the husband off someone at work, 2 previous owners including the seller, apparently it had been rarely used over recent years (the seller preferring to commute on an old Honda 125). Mileage under 20K. Paid £1100, so I thought overall that was a fair deal. (Perhaps not though ...)

Test ride was all good, 50m blast back home was all good. Two 16m commutes also fine...

On the second ride home, the petrol light started flashing, but I got home ok. The following morning, I couldn't get the bike started. It turned over, not perfectly, but it had power - I assumed that this was linked to low petrol levels, although in retrospect this may not be the case; flashing petrol light should give a decent number of miles before giving out, I covered less than 4 miles with the light flashing, so there should be another trip left in her.

Anyway, no start, so I car'd in into work, returned with a jerry can of petrol.

Due to being busy at work, I didn’t use it for about 5 days. When I filled her up with the jerry juice, I flicked on the ignition and the battery was totally dead. I took it out to charge, and couldn’t revive it (I think that means that there was less than 2v in the box, which meant it’s basically scrap, I think anyway).

So, an old bike has a dead battery. No big deal right? My worry is that I’m missing something here.

What could have happened in that short time that killed the battery? Even if the seller had charged it up before I test rode it, it still would have had enough juice left in it to allow it to charge in the first place, so what could have happened?

I have a new Halfords lump in there now, so far so good, but its early days... I’m worried that the cause is an electrical issue, that could leave me without lights again (and £60 out of pocket).

I don’t have a multimeter, so I can’t monitor the charge in the battery over the next few days.

Could the cause of the unrecoverable battery be linked to the RR? Or, is this simply an effect of using a near dead battery? I.e., was it on its last legs, and I pushed it over the edge?

Any opinions on this would be great.
Cheers
MC

Mine did something similar at the start of the year, swapped the battery and it's been fine ever since.

I'll keep an eye on it... cheers man

[Biker Biggles]

Buy a cheap multimeter and test the charging system.That way you know if there is anything other than a dead battery causing the issue.We can only guess---?

Biker Biggles is right, get a multimeter for less than a tenner from maplin or somewhere. Then do a search on here for the electrical Charging tests, that should definitely find the source of your issue.

Otherwise you are just throwing money away on Batteries.

Yeah, sound advice, I'll do that tonight and report back. So this can be done with a basic cheapo meter?

it can do yeah, for the most part you only need to see the voltage coming from various places, AC/DC.

You may need to do some resistance tests too, but the cheapo meters do all that

This is a very helpful thread http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=103259

[Geodude]

If you get or borrow a meter run through this really good and easy to follow (even for a mechtard like me) Fault Finding Guide HTH

[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by Geodude

If you get or borrow a meter run through this really good and easy to follow (even for a mechtard like me) Fault Finding Guide HTH

Geodude, that's a great find!