Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Battery / Alarm help

am having problems with battery on my speedmaster; keeps going flat. I have measured the charging voltage @ 4000 rpm as per Mr Haynes . 13.5 volts , on the lower end of acceptable according to Triumph. However if I measure the drain current with the ignition off and alarm set to winter mode , current is 130 mA which seems high .Disconnect the fuse to the alarm and it drops to 0 . Does anyone have any confirmed figures or a multimeter that can do the same checks and let me know the figures ?. Thanks J

Jane, You don't say how old your battery is!

Have you checked your battery voltage after it has been left for a couple days with nothing connected.

Jane, I have the same problem every winter, especially if I don't use the bike for a week or so

It seems to me that these modern batteries aren't too good at handling the cold we've been having, so I wouldn't sweat about it for now

If you can't rig up a trickle charger, I afraid you'll just have to charge the battery when it goes flat, like what I did. I got pretty good at taking the battery off and carting it back to me flat

My dealer recommends to all who buy a Triumph, and any other bike for that matter, to use a Trickle Charger whenever the bike sits for a period of time. Especially during the winter months. The proper Trickle Charger will keep the battery topped up and the charger goes into sleep mode till more juice is required. Your battery will come to no harm and will thank you for it.

http://tricklecharger.org/

True, but my situation was that my garage was 2 streets away with no power, so this wasn't an option for me

I could have got a solar powered one, but the chances are the local kids (bless 'em) would have either nicked it or trashed it

I don't know what Janes situation is though

Hate computers why do they always eat your words!!
Anyway thanks for you input; the battery is a year old and this is the 3rd one this bike has had. i had hoped this year that by running the bike regularly and putting the alarm into sleep mode then this would prolong the life of the battery. even after a run for 30 mins results in a dead battery next time I try to start it even after only a week; on this instance it ran for 5 mins and then died. Since then i can only get one start out of it; from a fully charged battery it will start once but there if tried again straight after it won't start. What is frustrating is that my partners bike does not have this affliction this is why we were thinking that the alarm is drawing to much from the battery.

Why not disconnect the alarm altogether and see if it's the culprit? I'd lean toward a regulator failure if disconnecting the alarm doesn't stop the battery going flat.

I had two batteries and a regulator go on me in 12 months till I remembered reading about an easy fix for the badly designed oem wiring that wasn't charging my battery properly. Who knows, you may have the same prob???

It is pretty easy to check. Buy a cheap portable volt/amp gauge with the two prongs and see for yourself what amount is charging your battery. In my case, from memory I was just charging enough to keep my battery alive but put a gps and music into the equation and you can see why my batteries weren't charging. I then did the thicker gauge wire bypass straight from the regulator to the positive side of the battery with an inline 30A fuse and voila. I go from below 13v charging to 14.7V in one foul swoop.

I think there's something on this one in the Tech Vault.

With the temps in your part of the world Jane I would ditch the alarm and get a decent lock. Your battery appears to be sulphated and developing what is known as a surface charge-makes it all look rosy when it is not! I have found the modern good quality battery to be superior to the old lead acid-have left my america standing for seven weeks after a knee replacment and fired up no sweat.

Jane, I don't remember reading what type of alarm you have. If it is the datatool model made especially for our bike ie plug and play, then they don't draw hardly any power. At least mine doesn't.

If it is one of those alarms that can be adapted to any bike, well I can't comment. It may be a combination of several factors why you are getting so much grief but as has been mentioned, you probably will have to disconnect the alarm in the first instance and maybe even buy another battery and start again. Then if you have the same issue occur, you know it wasn't the alarm. Sounds like from your testing it is the culprit though.

If you still want an alarm, the datatool hasn't given me one ounce of grief in 4 years. I love mine but I was lucky to pick it up new off ebay for $170AUD. Otherwise I wouldn't have one either. This was just an offer too good to refuse.

Good luck