Can I jump/save my battery?

[Quick Cal]

This is on my 96 1500. It has the proper motobatt AGM battery in it. I just got this bike this Spring. The po said the battery was new. But I have found he lied about a bunch of things. Doesn't matter,,,lol.

So I haven't started the bike for at least a month, maybe more. It's been too hot and just other things going on keeping me from riding.

Yesterday I turned the key on it was dead. I do have very dim green neutral and red oil light on. No horn or headlights. I think the saddle bag lights come on but are dim.

I'm guessing my phone charger killed it. I have a battery tender jr lead attached to the battery. I have that run into the right side cubby with a cig socket. Then a regular car usb charger plugged into that. The car charger has a little light on it. Truthfully I can't remember if I left the charger plugged in or not. But something killed it.

I do have the EC aux fuse block installed. It feeds my Bushtech trailer plug and all the wiring going to my side car. But all that is supposed to only have power when the key is on. The only thing that should be hot all the time is the usb charger.

I checked the voltage. It's 6.4. I plugged in my battery tender jr and there was no change in voltage. I thought my charger was bad. I tried it on another battery and it's fine. I'm hoping it's not too discharged to take a charge.

So. I think you are not supposed to jump a bike from a car are you? And you're not supposed to use a regular battery charger on an agm battery are you? Could I jump it from my spare motorcycle battery? It's a smaller regular one. Or here's a silly question,,,lol. Could I hook up a usb power bank into the usb charger hoping it would share the power some how? Or is that wishful thinking.

If I hook up jumper cable from the other battery should I try to start the bike and let it charge from the bike,,, if it starts?

I'm just hoping to bring up the voltage some and try and save this thing. Or is it trash?

Please advise. Thanks

[drmorick]

Charge the battery first. It almost sounds like the battery is completely discharge.


dr

[Mike D 1990 Goldwing]

What he said, charge the battery with a charger. The battery tender has lower amps to not over charge. If your battery is almost dead, it will take a long time for the tender to charge it. I had similar earlier this year, thought the battery was dead, so I got a new one because the old one was about 5 years old. I did start the bike a few times before I installed the new battery.

[Rambozo]

If the battery is saveable the tender Jr. should be able to bring it back, but it will take several days, since it maxes out at 750mA. A 2 Amp charger should be able to do it in a day or less.

[tamathumper]

If I recall, the Battery Tender Jr. may not try to charge the battery if it is too low, so if you can put another battery charger on it to get the voltage up then plug in the BTJr. it may finish the job.

[C-dub]

When my battery died on me at a gas station I was 500 miles away and not sure that it was the battery. It was a weekday during regular business hours, so I just called up my Honda service guy and he said I could get a jump from a car or truck, but that their engine must be off otherwise the bike battery would get too much juice. It worked and I was able to get to a place and get a new battery to install.

Also, since the BTJr, I also have three of those, is not a starter I doubt the battery would show any significant voltage when it is connected. I think the key will be which light is showing on the BT when plugged in. IIRC, flashing red means it is not connected, so if it is connected and flashing red then your battery is indeed too far gone. Solid red means charging, but less than 80%. Flashing green means charging and greater than 80%. Solid green means fully charged.

[Sadanorakman]

Amazing coincidence you have posted this:

(Too Long, Didn't Read): Motobat at 0 Volts, ordered new one; arrives today.

With having a side car, you could consider putting a full-size car battery in the boot as others do. Also not a great idea to have your usb phone charger always on, or anything else acting as a parasitic loss. You may be able to recover your motobat, but seeing as you don't know it's history: better to replace it in my mind. Gold Wings need a properly healthy battery to start.

I also have that motobat on my 1500.
Battery is almost four years old, but only used for last 18 months. Before this I kept it in the shed and charged it every few months to top it up. (I bought it for a 1500 I was refurbishing, and time ticked on).

I have a $100 C-TEK MXS 5.0 smart charger/maintainer, and normally plug this in when she's stood.

Two weeks ago after a leisure ride, I forgot to plug the maintainer in, but also inadvertently left the bike switched on either at ACC or full ignition on. Not sure which, but either would have drained the battery entirely.

Tried to start it three days later and nothing, not even a click. Battery was literally completely and utterly discharged.

Tried my Lithium jump pack, but that refused to enable its output, as it couldn't see a battery present.

Tried my C-TEK charger, and that also didn't see the battery at first, but after several minutes, started to reluctantly apply a charge.

Needed to ride to work, so I brought my car up and used jump leads to start the bike without issue, then after 25 mile commute, she started again on the motobat when it was time to ride the 25 miles home again.

Plugged in the C-TEK again (on the 1.5 amp AGM setting instead of 5 amps), and it finished charging the battery and showed as fully charged , and now maintaining.

Went for another ride few days later and things were OK. My alternator is charging btw.

Then yesterday I unplugged the bike and rolled it outside to replace the cornering bulbs with LEDs. Within about 3 minutes of having the ignition and lights on (side lights plus 1x18w halogen and 1x6w led cornering lamp (I was trying to compare the old with new)) she went completely flat again (7v). Remember that my maintainer was telling me the battery was fully charged just a few minutes prior.

So this time I put the maintainer back on at 5A, and in 'recondition' mode, that is meant to pulse a higher voltage and encourage gassing of the electrolyte. On a flooded cell this causes the acid to stir, (Acid can settle out, and become more acidic at the bottom, and less acidic at the top of the cell).
With this being an AGM battery though, I'm not sure how effective that would be.
The reconditioning mode is also meant to break down sulphation.

After a couple of hours charge, the voltage was showing 14.6V (whilst attached to the C-TEK), and should have had about 8AH of charge in it by then, but trying to start again, just produced a click of the solenoids.

Managed to jump start it with the lithium pack this time in order to bring the bike back in, then hooked up the C-TEK again and left it doing its thing on 'recondition'' until now.

Long story short, there's no way I could trust this battery again, with the starting requirements of a 1500, so I ordered a brand new motobat yesterday afternoon, and it gets delivered in about an hour.

Remember folks that vehicle lead-acid batteries are designed for cranking amps, NOT cyclic use, and they really don't tolerate being discharged and left discharged for a few days.

I take full responsibility for completely ruining this battery with one simple mistake.

I do have a battery tester, so I will charge the new motobat when it arrives today, and run a comparison between the two batteries, and post it here. MAYBE the C-TEK has managed to breathe a bit of life back into the old battery now, who knows, but it really wasn't looking good yesterday!!!

Need my bike to be running as got the 'Ride To The Wall' next Saturday!
https://www.rttw.org/

[Premtech]

Some think that batteries store electricity and nothing could be further from the truth. I think it's important to note how a battery works to more fully understand why this happens. A battery is an electro-chemical reaction between to opposing metals that are allowed to throw off - or pass their +/- ions through an electrolyte, in this case acid. You can make a battery using a lemon, galvanized nail and a penny. Zinc on the galvanized nail and a clean copper penny are opposing metals and when submerged in the acid of a lemon produce an elctro-chemical reaction that creates measurable electricity. It would take a lot of lemons in series to make 12 volts and several groups of those series in parallel connection to make enough amperage to start your bike, but it could be done.
Problem in a battery is, as the plates send the +/- ions to the opposing plate surface a white sulfation is left behind which insulates the plate and makes less efficient. Two things take place upon charging a battery. One, the plates are exposed to an electrical force that creates heat and removes some, not all, of the sulfation on the plate surface; and (2) charging stops the interaction between the plates. That's why a tender works, by preserving the battery's ability to create an electro-chemical reaction. What Sadanorakman experienced was a battery with almost the entire surface of the plates covered in sulfation. At attempting to recharge the battery some, but not all, of the sulfation was removed and for the time being the electro-chemical reaction was stopped. The next time he went to use the battery it only had a small percentage of the plate surfaces that sulfation had not happened so the battery could not maintain 12v as long, it was less efficient, because the ion transfer was limited to the unaffected surfaces only.
The other question raised in this section was can a car battery be used to jump start a bike. The simple answer is yes. It doesn't matter what amperage is produced by the supply, which is the force the battery is capable of producing, just as long as you're only taking on 12v. Diesel engines have two batteries, usually in parallel, which is still 12v but have the ability to maintain that 12v for a longer period of time, (higher amperage). Your bike won't take any more amperage than is required to start it. But shy away from some military diesel applications which can be 24v or higher.
Lastly, and here's the test, You charge the battery and it says fully charged. It's only measuring the resistance to the remaining plate surface available. So a battery, fully charged, with only 20% of the remaining plate surface can show fully charged but with only 20% of it's plate surface won't take as long to discharge as a battery that's new with 100% of it's plate surface available.

[Pam]

I have had batteries so low the tender would not recognize it. I used a good battery and hooked it to the bad one and just let the juice symphon across to the dead one until the tender will recognize the dead battery. This has worker quite well in saving a battery

[Premtech]

Pam, when you connected it to another battery you created a small amount of heat which cleaned some areas, but not all, of the plate surfaces that allowed a measurable resistance for the tender to activate. But that battery is not long for this world unless you could remove the plates and scrub them clean of the sulfation and return them to their electrolytic. (That's not possible BTW) What you were able to do is clean enough surface area to charge the battery which again only cleaned a small area of surface from the plates. What that means is a battery then capable of producing 12v but for a far less period of time under demand. Starting for example, might only produce 12v for 30 seconds and then drop off rapidly, and may be enough to start the bike, but eventually it will be less and less time as the plate surfaces diminish being covered in sulfation.
There are battery testers on the market, fairly inexpensive, that test a battery's condition under load. This gives a great visual on what the battery is capable of producing. Here's just one example, https://tinyurl.com/bdfnzkry

[Sadanorakman]

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/b ... iced,block)%20for%20about%2024%20hours.

[imsbreezy]

I the instructions for my battery tender, it says that it wont put out any voltage until/unless it can see at least 8 volts.

[MCRider64]

My recommend is to use a smart charger. I have a CTEK Multi US 7002. It has a specific mode for AGM batteries. AGM batteries have a slightly higher voltage, about 14 volts. It does have a regular battery mode as well. The regular battery mode will NOT charge an AGM battery. It will magically deduce the battery's condition and start from the beginning. It may even let you know if the battery has a problem. Being a 7- amp charger that automatically adjusts to the battery's size and condition. I use it on everything that I own that has a battery, sometimes as just a maintenance charger to keep the battery fresh.

[OldguyGlen]

I don't like to "jolt" a completely dead battery with a full voltage/amperage source like a running car jump. Battery tenders are not all alike... some won't charge a completely dead battery. They won't even try. I have a 12v bulb wired with alligator clips that I use as a current limit device when charging completely dead batteries. Whether with a higher amperage charger, spare battery, or jump cables, the light glows bright at first, then dims as the dead unit comes up in voltage. It would eventually dim out, but I usually remove it when reasonably dim as the dead unit is now at 8+ volts and normal charge, or battery tender can take over.

[Rednaxs60]

Saving a battery should be a last resort. Our FI models, this includes the '82/'83 Honda FI turbos, the '85/'85 FI GWs, and the 1800s are power pigs. Much like our cars as well. These bikes are very dependent on a good power supply and when the battery starts to degrade, it robs power from the electrical system. The 1500 GWs emulate an FI system and need good power as well. Carb bikes are not as susceptible, but the 1100 and 1200 carb bikes have electronics that need a good power source. Making a battery last as long as possible is not good for the charging system.

The battery is used to start the engine, absorb random electrical spikes and supplement the electrical system when needed. A quick top up by the charging system and the battery sits as a "passenger" until next needed - continues to get a trickle charge because nothing gets to 100%.

A failing battery can impact negatively on an alternator RR, the early motorcycles have an alternator. It's generally referred to as a three part alternator because the components are separate.

Replacing the battery every 4 years is a good maintenance issue. Use the old battery for other projects and such.

A couple of thoughts on this issue. Just my $0.02 worth.

Cheers

[Pam]

Been hooking Two batteries together for years. Trucks cars tractors with no issues. Once the charger can see the low battery I put the charger on. Works for me just my method. Don’t need the science or a big long winded explanation

[mdblackjazz]

NAPA tell them you are AAA member , they gave me very good price for new battery no core exchange needed.

[agedbikeman]

Had the same with my car battery, forgot to turn off the lights and went away on holiday for 4 weeks, Ctec charger eventually brought it back to life, that was over a year ago, still going strong, if a c-tec doesn't do it nothing will

[Sadanorakman]

Had the same with my car battery, forgot to turn off the lights and went away on holiday for 4 weeks, Ctec charger eventually brought it back to life, that was over a year ago, still going strong, if a c-tec doesn't do it nothing will

Yeah, the C-TEK couldn't!!! Today I fitted the new motobat.

I'd left the C-TEK plugged in for the last few days, and the old battery was warm when I took it off today. Used my electronic battery tester, and it showed a CCA (Cold Cranking Amps) capacity of 20 Amps!!! The old motobat battery was designed to be 300 CCA!

I hadn't charged the new Motobat before fitting, and the battery tester said it was 92% charged, and calculated a CCA of 325! The new motobat is rated at 350 CCA, so they must have improved the design. Maybe I'd have gotten 350 if I'd have topped the battery up first.

[GL1000K1dan]

Premtech, that's great information you have provided.

[Wildwilly018]

I have had to jump my 88 off vehicle or vehicle or marine/RV battery a few times. Never had an issue. Bike battery is fine, but because of colder temps, bike wouldn't crank fast enough. My BT jr is what I use the most. Once a month, during the winter, I put it on each battery until they green light and don't do it again till the next month.