Failed bike battery fix.

[transam]

Probably many of you know this fix, but for those who don't it may help in the future.

 

Mrs.Trans has a less than a year old Yamaha Grand Filano Hybrid ABS. She forgot to turn it off, the hybrid ABS has no key so easily done. Two days later the battery was dead, I took it out and tested it, 2 volts, my smart charger will do nothing under 7 volts.

Took it to a battery shop to get it going, they said it is finished (they did not sell bike batteries).

 

Took it to Yamaha, to 'complain', they said battery has a 4 month warranty, replacement Yuasa YTZ7V is 1,200 bht. We walked.

Went to a local bike spares place, they said, you left the bike turned on, it has stuffed your battery, we have a cheap YTZ7V, 540 bht....OK.

 

That got us out of trouble, but I thought our dead battery is near new, I must try and do something with it. Anyhoooo, the fix that worked after a bit of Googling.

Pulled the battery out of the car, stripped some wire and connected + to + and - to - between the car and bike batteries, the power from the car battery flows through the dead one as one, then left them for an hour.

To my surprise, the now disconnected bike battery showed 12 volts, so then I quickly connected my smart charger to do its thing. It has a readout screen, so you can see what it is doing. Two hours later the battery was 100% full at around 13 volts, put it on the bike, started and the bike readout showed 13 volts then with a wee twist of the go thing 14.10..

 

I will test it again in a couple of days, just in case...

 

PS. The cheap battery shows 12.9 when I took it off the bike, so have a good spare which will get the occasional charge....????

[Daffy D]

Old trick but worth a reminder  

[Crossy]

There are times when a "dumb" charger is a handy thing to have.

 

Deep discharge is really not good for a lead-acid battery but if you re-charge it promptly it can recover, it likely won't have the life that it would have but should serve reasonably.

 

Amazing that the bike doesn't have some form of automatic "I'm not being ridden, I'd better switch off" arrangement.

[Kwasaki]

39 minutes ago, Crossy said:

There are times when a "dumb" charger is a handy thing to have.

I have a cheap charger with wet and dry settings what ever that matters, and it will charge a run flat, run dead whatever battery. 

[Kwasaki]

57 minutes ago, transam said:

PS. The cheap battery shows 12.9 when I took it off the bike, so have a good spare.

Cheap Thai batteries I've use on bikes for a couple of years now. 

 

I drink Chang so when I saw Chang batteries for sale ???? I  bought one for a Wave 12v5amp 180baht. 

 

My Mrs never uses choke on her old Mio scoot so it gives a battery a hard time and run it flat. 

 

I swapped over the Chang battery to the Mio with the Wave one so that will be a good test. ????

 

The Wave only kick starts but the old Mio battery had enough to start the Wave and after a week of running it in the Wave checked the old battery and it reads nearly 13v so it not dead yet. 

[transam]

1 hour ago, Crossy said:

There are times when a "dumb" charger is a handy thing to have.

 

Deep discharge is really not good for a lead-acid battery but if you re-charge it promptly it can recover, it likely won't have the life that it would have but should serve reasonably.

 

Amazing that the bike doesn't have some form of automatic "I'm not being ridden, I'd better switch off" arrangement.

I think it has, I/we just thought that is what happened. But, I did notice today, when I put the battery back in, that the orange engine light was on, so took the battery off and put the new one back, light still on, so there could be an underlying prob, though the new battery has been on for a month now.

Told her to take it to Yamaha to test stuff, which the handbook says..

 

Just remembered, she went through a flood on the thing, hmmmmm....

[Crossy]

1 minute ago, transam said:

Just remembered, she went through a flood on the thing, hmmmmm....

 

 

 

[Kwasaki]

7 minutes ago, transam said:

I think it has, I/we just thought that is what happened. But, I did notice today, when I put the battery back in, that the orange engine light was on, so took the battery off and put the new one back, light still on, so there could be an underlying prob, though the new battery has been on for a month now.

Told her to take it to Yamaha to test stuff, which the handbook says..

 

Just remembered, she went through a flood on the thing, hmmmmm....

There's some guys who bought a jet ski and coverted it into a scooter, you and engineer so sorry get to it. ????????????

[transam]

11 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

 

 

Is that a hybrid..?   ????

[Crossy]

Just now, transam said:

Is that a hybrid..?   ????

 

It's from the 2011 flood, were hybrid bikes even in country then?

 

Duct tape, tubing and jubilee clips are your friends. No idea how he treated the HT leads.

[Kwasaki]

49 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

It's from the 2011 flood, were hybrid bikes even in country then?

 

Duct tape, tubing and jubilee clips are your friends. No idea how he treated the HT leads.

Keep the throttle reving until it dies. ????????

[impulse]

You can also get a cheap battery desulfator and undo some of the damage done by the deep discharge.  I bought a couple of different ones on Lazada.

 

I used to fool my smart charger in Thailand with a scavenged 12V power supply laying around that came with some gadget that had worn out.  Only rated around 12 V and 1 amp, so not great for actually charging the battery.   But connect it across the terminals and it would trick the charger by showing enough voltage to turn it on.

 

 

[Agusts]

I'm surprised you had so much hassle with a flat battery, this must happen quite a lot...., I did it once, corner shop guy put it under his charger for 25min looked very old), gave it back to me, worked for 2 years after that until I sold it - must have been 2 years or so when that happened...! 

They just want to sell you a new battery those guys...

 

[transam]

12 hours ago, Agusts said:

I'm surprised you had so much hassle with a flat battery, this must happen quite a lot...., I did it once, corner shop guy put it under his charger for 25min looked very old), gave it back to me, worked for 2 years after that until I sold it - must have been 2 years or so when that happened...! 

They just want to sell you a new battery those guys...

 

Not in my case, the battery shop I took it to do not sell bike batteries. It wasn't flat, it was dead, just 2 volts.

Took it to Yamaha, they said it was finished. Took it to a bike spares shop, they said it was finished.

As the battery was near new, it was time for me to search the Net just to see if it could be woken up. After I got volts transferred into it from a car battery, it was time for the smart charger, which needed 7 volts to start with. I watched on its screen what it was doing, it was pulsing different amps, up and down, using its repair mode, clever stuff. 

Oh, I bought the smart charger on Lazada a while back, cost less than 300bht at the time, and does what it says on the box....????

 

 

[Agusts]

I think the un-smart charger is the solution then....! ????

 

So your experience is that if someone have a fairly new battery , then leaves the light on until it goes flat, then battery is dead and unusable after that - according to places you went to....!? A bit hard to believe....! Many people do the same around the world every day, I don't think they have to throw away and buy a new battery... ????

 

Anyway, glad you got yours going and good info....

[canthai55]

As TA said above - hook up a charged battery to the dead one. Once - in his case - the dead one reached 7V, the charger can take over.

Some will start to charge at lower voltages, some at higher.

 

[Kwasaki]

My cheap 800 baht battery on my Blade is started to to lose it's charge,  so will change it,  it had a hard time discharging many times over one year getting the bike sorted out.

It has lasted 2 years though, anyways have ordered a OD devil battery from Lazada anyone tried them.? 

[canthai55]

Never tried a Devil, but most all batteries I have bought here have been - I would bet - made in the same factory.

All copies of Yuasa. The part number is even almost identical.

Just the first few characters different.

[Kwasaki]

1 hour ago, canthai55 said:

Never tried a Devil, but most all batteries I have bought here have been - I would bet - made in the same factory.

All copies of Yuasa. The part number is even almost identical.

Just the first few characters different.

Yeah I'm ganna give it a try and see what life I can get out of it. 

It's only 500 baht I am a cheap skate. ????

[canthai55]

For sure - go for it.

Might be OK

500 THB - can't go wrong