battery problems

[chillpill]

ive got a new battery and its reading 18volts on the multimeter wich is very wierd and theres no power to the bike , lights ignition etc etc , im just wondering if my multimeters fucked or its the battery , i cant make any sense of it myself

cheers

[chillpill]

anybody have any ideas ????

[Bat]

Hi mate,

Does it give the same reading when connected to the bike and when disconnected?

[Blue_SV650S]

Try the multimeter on a 1.5v AA cell ...

But it sounds like you have bought a dud battery to me!!

Presuming it is a sealed battery, how long did you leave the acid to soak into the matting before charging or using it?
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The purpose of life is to fight maturity.

[chillpill]

yeah it gives the same reading both on and off the bike

thats a brilliantly simple idea blue ill give it a go tomorrow , after filling the battery with acid i let it stand for half an hour before testing it

[Blue_SV650S]

[Gareth]

I would take the battery back if you can. Explain whats wrong. I bought a new battery for my bike and filled it with acid water. Soon after i left it on charge for 3 hours or so have you tried that. try a new battery, like others have said you could have had a dud battery. cheers hope you can sort it. Gareth

[Finglonga]

[Raffles]

Wet-cell batteries normally knock out 2 volts per cell. How many cells does this battery have?
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A good loser will always be a loser.

[finpos]

meter out of calibration, user error or you have a battery full of magic and inadvertently solved the world's power problems and beaten some of the best scientists in the field! I can not recommend you take it back to the shop with the 18V story until you have determined which of the above is true. Unless you like being mocked.

[Blue_SV650S]

[chillpill]

yo cheers for the replies all

i checked the reading against a meter i borrowed from work and it gave a healthy 12.7volts , checked the fuse on the bike after that and it was blown so replaced it with a new one wich the previous owner had smartly stashed in the fuse case , happy days

next question , do i tink about why that fuse was blown or do i go by the .. if it aint broke dont fix it rule lol , ive got to be honest im swayin towards number two

[finpos]

12.75V? Thank goodness to laws governing conversion of energy have not been rent asunder.

Not much to be done about the fuse until it blows again, always worth checking all the electrical gubbins, honking the horn etc. Often it's a seized radiator fan that's makes it go.

f.

[Blue_SV650S]

[finpos]

He'd simply never have got 18V out of the battery. Each lead/acid cell working at an optimum will give ~2.1V, the battery puts 6 of these in series (you've got that series/parallel mixed up, btw) giving slightly more than 12V (2.1+2.1+2.1+2.1+2.1+2.1). Shorting a cell looses you 2.1V - it doesn't add it. That's the way it's manufactured and is the very definition of the word "battery". It is conceivable that the royal mail dropped the thing in such a way that it created an additional 3 cells carefully linked in series with the existing 6, you never know.

f.

[Blue_SV650S]

[finpos]

No, each cell, regardless of the number of plates it contains, gives you 2.1V and there are 6 of those. The idea that you can give it a good shake and re-arrange the connections between the plates to produce more, smaller cells is ludicrous enough, for me at least, to dismiss it.

[Blue_SV650S]

[finpos]

No, I don't think you get it. If I have read you correctly, you seem to believe that an internal short between plates in the cell will cause a 6 cell lead acid battery to output 18V. It won't. There is no actual mechanism which can account for this happening, so I call it magic.

There are several mechanisms by which an internal short in a cell may be caused (manufacturing fault, chemical deposits, the royal mail...), and manufacturers have to go to great lengths to prevent this from happening (see, for example, the rather splendid AGM battery). The end result of an internal short is as consistent as it is explained by simple physics - you loose some or all of the potential from that cell. No magic required.

f.

[unitybiker]

maybe the voltmeter was set on ac? or supplied dry?