(no subject)

[noahgibbs]

Yesterday, after a delightful lunch, I went off to do an errand. It took longer than I thought, and I managed to leave the parking light on on my motorcycle (easier than it sounds -- you just lock the steering and turn the key very slightly farther, and the parking light stays on).

When I got back, my already-slightly-weak battery had finished dying.

Luckily, I was about fifty feet from a gas station. Unluckily, they didn't have a charger that they were confident would charge (but not harm) a motorcycle battery. We wound up trying a too-conservative setting on the charger, which failed to give it enough juice to start the bike. Then we tried jumpstarting the bike directly, which did no good and drained the battery absolutely dead.

So I wound up taking a cab home, charging the battery at home, and bringing it back this morning. Thanks for the ride, bk2w! And we discovered that the battery charger he uses for his Corvette has a weak setting, barely stronger than the one on my drip-charger, and a 15-amp setting which is three times the rated maximum for my battery. So I'm gonna have to be careful to never charge a motorcycle battery on that charger's default setting.

Anyway -- got back and did battery stuff just fine, and I *am*, at least, getting much faster at taking the battery out and putting it back in.

Comments

Jump

[zml.livejournal.com]

Weird, I've had no problems jumping my B6 directly from my car. There are strong warnings *not* to have the car running at the same time, just use the car's battery, because the voltage regulating circuits typically differ between cars and bikes (and might fight each other, basically). But I've jumped it 2 or 3 times now.

Of course, we have different bikes..

Re: Jump

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Yeah. They used a little 12-volt jumpstarter thingy, but it's a gas station so they have that kinda thing sitting around.

Re: Jump

[zml.livejournal.com]

And, yeah, sympathies on the battery. Mines been going out for a little while now, I actually haven't ridden in a while because I've been lazy about replacing it. I know, I know, it takes a couple of minutes, max.

Re: Jump

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Well, once you get used to it. I think it took me twenty minutes the first time I opened my bike up, or a little more. Now, though, yeah, more like three or four minutes. If I got better at getting the bolts back in with the Allen wrenches, probably more like two minutes.

But my bike actually needs a few other things replaced at the moment (tires are the big one). I'm just waiting for parts to come in. So I'm gonna be taking a break from riding soon as well, at least for a couple of days while the shop replaces things.

Push Start?

[jd5p.livejournal.com]

Did you try a push start?
My bikes service manual says to use a trickle charge with the battery removed from the bike and leave it on trickle for about 8 hours. I did this with my Sears charger (Has same settings as Brian's). It doesn't have a lot of info on what to do if you have to jump the bike though.

Re: Push Start?

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Didn't try a push start. Probably should have, after the partial charge from the gas station. After that (and before that), the battery would have been too dead even for that, I think.