C
crazyrnus
Guest
I need some help from those much wiser than me!
I have a 1.5 amp charger and a new battery. I went through all the set up steps for the battery and had a voltage reading of about 13 when I installed it.
I moved all the grounds to under the front bolt of the battery box. I scraped all the paint off the frame and mounted them under the rubber mount, directly to the frame. The ground from the battery and a black/white wire that comes out of the wiring loom.
I ran the bike for a little while after an oil change. No leaks!! Anyway, I put the charger back on and it sat there for over an hour without showing a full charge. The battery is bubbling and shows a charge of about 14 volts after this charging. I unplugged the charger so I didn't "over due it" with the battery. Is this normal? I don't want to ruin a new battery. I know the charger works ok because it showed a charged battery when I took the first reading at 13 volts.:|
I have a 1.5 amp charger and a new battery. I went through all the set up steps for the battery and had a voltage reading of about 13 when I installed it.
I moved all the grounds to under the front bolt of the battery box. I scraped all the paint off the frame and mounted them under the rubber mount, directly to the frame. The ground from the battery and a black/white wire that comes out of the wiring loom.
I ran the bike for a little while after an oil change. No leaks!! Anyway, I put the charger back on and it sat there for over an hour without showing a full charge. The battery is bubbling and shows a charge of about 14 volts after this charging. I unplugged the charger so I didn't "over due it" with the battery. Is this normal? I don't want to ruin a new battery. I know the charger works ok because it showed a charged battery when I took the first reading at 13 volts.:|
, having just gone through this.... I'd also check to make sure that your battery is charging OK in the bike. IE charging at a rate of about 14V or so with the RPM's up. Just measure the voltage at idle, and the voltage holding at a constant RMP. It should have a voltage increase, but reasonably so and cap off at any higher RPM's. Most charging systems aim for about 14V and 2 amps for smaller batteries (but these bikes are un wildly in my experience so you never know). There are some helpful guidelines here to check these things. As my case, I was cooking them charging them at 16-19V, which will boil the battery dry. Ask me how I know this? 
I replaced the R/R. Now I had a good charge on my battery for a week and now I'm at not charging at all. SO there are worse things.... Stators are expensive... Sorry side note... Also when charging on a benchtop charger in the garage, some benchtop chargers will force 5A+ or more though the little motorcycle battery and boil it while doing the initial charging (That's to much by the way for motorcycle batteries). I had one that tried to charge the battery at 5amps and I realized it too late. Took the battery back as "defective" The micros are suppose to prevent this but most battery chargers assume they are charging a sealed automotive battery (even on a 3amp wet battery charge setting). I invested in a 2 amp motorcycle battery charger/conditioner that is a little slower, but also dosn't cook batteries, and my battery has not boiled in the charger sense. Most smaller batteries will expect you to charge them at 1.5-2 amps in my GS450L's range. 3Amps would be the max charge rate I would force on the battery and I would expect it to boil a bit. Your 1.5 amp should not boil the battery unless its not controlled with a micro, but it may boil a bit in the bike. As long as your battery holds a constant voltage over time disconnected you should be fine. IE you should not see a voltage drop if its sitting on your counter disconnected. Over 1V drop over time and your battery is more than likely bad. This is because your battery should hold a constant voltage and current and not discharge significantly over a short period of time, this indicates typically that a cell is leaking. If you have ever had a battery in your car die, sometimes driving it around will revive it and you can start the car right away, but if you let it sit for 15 minutes it is then very weak and will have lost a significant capacity. This is essentially what a load tester is doing charging and measuring voltage changes over time. Some boiling is natural with non sealed batteries, and mainly what you want to check for (besides the recommended amperage rating for charging) is if the battery is getting hot or not. Batteries on charges can melt and short, IE explode. So if its warm that's OK, but if its hot, its best to let it cool and charge it at a slower rate. Your 1.5 Amp charger is more than likely OK since its such a small charger, they may have just assumed that it will turn off when its full, and not worry about pulse charging on a micro. Mainly car transformer style battery charges are the problem with overheating a battery, but I have seen Micro controlled pulse chargers do some crazy things.... Voltage only gives you a piece of the picture, buts its great for quick and easy measurements for the larger picture. You can also measure amperage draw/charge rates if you really want. Though most cheep multi-meters will not have a very high current rating, and they require the measurement to be taken in series with the circut. IE, disconnect the negative lead, connect one end of the mutlimeters testing lead to the negative battery terminal, and other other multimeter test lead to the negative cable, leaving the terminal and the cable disconnected. Now you can compare your amperage draw over time with the amperage draw rating of your battery, and you can then get an idea of how much time you can continue using your battery with that draw. Also the reverse is true, you can estimate how much time it took to drain your battery, vs the rating to tell how much current you were drawing. Of course your less likely to care when the result is a dead battery! 
You can always have a shop load test your battery for little to nothing around here to give you piece of mind that your fully charged and have 100% capacity. Of course they may try to sell you a new one if not.... 
