Battery not lasting long

[The Disapproving Brit]

The last month or so, my battery seems to die every 3-4 days. Initially, I blamed the battery, so bought a new one. The new one performs slightly better, but still dies pretty quickly.

I installed an alarm (Cyclone C11) about 3 months ago - could this be to blame? Or is it just a combination of cold weather and short commutes (2-3 miles) killing it off quickly? Bike lives outdoors so it's exposed to the cold.

On a related note, what does an Optimate offer over a bog standard charger? I keep hearing about them, but are they actually significantly better than a cheapo one?
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Current Bikes: 1983 Honda VF400FD / 2003 Honda VT750 Shadow
Bike Test Passed 18/03/09, Car Test Passed 14/05/13

[rotax81]

an optimate keeps your battery on full charge and you can leave it on.
a battery cheapo charger will have to be taken off once charged.
the optimate also looks after the battery.

it may just be that time of year.
short journeys, lights always on, the cold etc all affect a battery.
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ZX636C6F road. ZX636C1H track. ZX7R redundant. ZX0.5R minimoto as ornament.
Audi A4 Avant 1.9TDi and VW Transporter 2.5TDi 888 Special (no mot and tax lol)

[loply]

If it's consistently dying every few days I would say that is definately abnormal.


You need to verify the current being drawn by the alarm. Do you have an electrical multimeter? If not, they are only £10-£20.

Set it to DC Amps, sometimes labeled DCA, and disconnect your positive battery lead whilst the engine is off. At this point the alarm will probably go off.

Then put one lead of the multimeter on the positive battery terminal, and the other onto the lead you just disconnected.

The multimeter will now tell you how much current is being drawn, I don't know how much alarms are meant to draw but a normal bike with a clock etc would only suck <10mA. For a fairly hefty 12ah battery if the alarm was sucking 500ma the battery would be dead in 24 hours. Similarly, 250ma would kill the battery in 48 hours.

If the alarm is not killing the battery, it may be that it is not being charged by your bikes charging system.

Again use the multimeter to test this. Put it in DC Volts mode and put the two probes on the two terminals of the battery. It should be something like 12.8v. Then turn the engine on, it should jump up to about 13.5. Rev the engine up to about 5k and keep it there , the voltage should go up some more. Note to do this with the lights off.
If it doesnt, this would seem to indicate your bike isnt recharging the battery - could be a faulty reg/rec or various other things.
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[The Artist]

Could be part of your charging system gone wrong or broken.

Make sure your rectifier is plugged in properly and check any other cables around the bike.

What bike is it?

[joop200789]

if your thinking its the alarm,just disconnect it for a few days and see if the prolbem carrys on,just to rule out the alarm

[loply]

[joop200789]

[Walloper]

Time of year I bet. At this time of year you are most probably running short trips with heated screen, wipers and heater on full blast thaqt's sure to drain the battery.

Or you have a short in the wiring.

Make a test between the battery + terminal and the + lead to see if you are pulling any amps.
Or measure the open cell voltage with the leads on Ignition off then compare with leads disconnected. The theory is that the voltage should be 13.5v with leads off and not drop any with leads on.
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W-ireless A-rtificial L-ifeform L-imited to O-bservation P-eacekeeping and E-fficient R-epair

[Ariel Badger]

[iooi]

[Timmeh]

I think you'll find that it's a combination of a cheap gel battery, a poorly-performing chinese-made reg/reg and the current drain from a cheap alarm.

Luckily for you it's got a kick-start.
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GSXR400 x2 | '94 RVF400 | '93 TZR125 4DL (again)
20:22:30 BLUEX5: i would love to be forced to undergo a**l plugging with different sizes
20:48:18 Temeluchus: comp you hunk of smouldering homos3x you

[The Disapproving Brit]

Thanks guys.

Point about some people having sigs turned off duly noted Yes, it's a '2000 Kymco Zing. Unfortunately, I've not really had it long enough to know what's 'normal' (I had it about 2 months before I bought the alarm, but the starter motor was dead until the same week the alarm was fitted, so not really a basis for comparison)

Yes, this time of year it's all short journeys with headlights on - no heated bits on the bike though!

Removing the alarm would involve rewiring the ignition to remove the immobiliser - doable, but would prefer to avoid.

When we have a half-decent day weather-wise, I'll go over it with a multimeter and give the wiring a quick once-over to check for loose connections etc.

Thanks to all for the pointers

Edit: might be taking the alarm off after all. Discovered today that I'd lost one of the fobs, and I'm not massively taken with the idea of a keyfob with the ability to remotely start my bike floating around in the wild.
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Current Bikes: 1983 Honda VF400FD / 2003 Honda VT750 Shadow
Bike Test Passed 18/03/09, Car Test Passed 14/05/13