Charge battery before race?

I don't use the charger unless it's really cold or the bike has sat for over a month. Depending on your charger, sometimes when you charge the battery, the fuel injection and fuel pump will cycle. I just unplug the fuel pump and no problems. The battery is very strong and the Berg has an extremely strong charging circuit.

I leave mine on a battery tender ALL the time. I just unplug my fuel pump right behind the air cleaner like you asked Ted.

Most of the time you will see the rear light come on for a few seconds until the power relay drops out and that's the end of it.

Ted is also right about the bike having a strong charging circuit. If you notice the reg/rect gets warm pretty quickly when the bike first starts up, and I have measured the voltage at the battery while it was running and it showed 14.5-14.7VDC.

I know that it has a 210 watt stator, although some of that is going to run the ECU and fuel pump. UHE member Davo did a consumption test a while back on all the components, so maybe he could chime in here. There was a thread about running helmet lights sometime back and Davo went through and figured out how much power there was left over.

Yeah the consumption post for fattirecolorado was back here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12662
I nearly tested everything.

I still have to test why a bump start doesn't work with a flat battery.

I have connected a 2 pin plug to my Battery and a length of wire that tucks up near the fuse box. This allows me to quick/easy connect a small Battery Charger (Tender) at home when bike is not being ridden and while I am in the bush riding I can charge my Iphone via a little adapter thing I made up that plugs into the 2 pin plug.
With the Iphone I can check UHE of course! :wink:

I am a bit slack and hardly ever connect the Battery Charger (Tender) but the bike seems to fire up without it even after 6~8 weeks without a start.

The main reason to keep your battery on a tender is to keep the plates from sulphating (sp?) This is basically a coating of a Sulphur on the plates and will eventually lead to the lower CC's on your battery and it's death. This occurs as the battery slowly discharges, EG the electrolysis that makes the batteries power possible in the first place through the dissimilar metals and the electrolyte. As the battery discharges the electrolyte's ph and specific gravity changes as well. That's why the best way to check a batteries level of charge is with a hydrometer, but, you can't do that with these little sealed batteries so you have to go by voltage.

12.7 vdc is considered a 100% charge, 12.5vdc is 75% charge and is supposed to take 4 hrs at .5A to charge it.

Anyway, the Battery Tender type of charger keeps the voltage up at what in considers 100% charge, once it drops below that voltage it goes into a charge cycle, at a max of .75amps. The other thing that the newer versions do is, as it is charging it varies the voltage up and down, or what is known as peaking. This helps to clean the plates in the battery as it is charging.

The expected service life of a YTZ7S battery is roughly 3 years, I have gotten 4 out of mine, and that was before I put it on a battery tender all the time. When my battery went bad, with no load it showed 12.5 volts, but as soon as you hit the button it dropped to about 8 or 9 vdc. That is the result of heavy sulphating of the plates, enough plates to produce good voltage, but, no volume or CC's.

So this is my long winded opine to keep your bike on a battery tender all the time.

Hey Dale.. i just installed the 2 prong connector to my bike FX450 and the fuel pump cycled. why is it necessary to unplug the fuel pump? will it keep cycling? thx johnny

The 2002 DRZ400 I just sold in favor of the FE450 had the OEM battery in it and it was still working. On a tender at all times when not in use. My FZ1 street bike is also on an Optimate - which I switched over to the 450 as I found the Optimate does not cycle the electrical system.

I am quite a believer in Battery Tender and Optimate chargers. :cheers:

FWIW the original battery in my departed ZX9R lasted 14 years. Never on a tender, and at times sat for a few months, including Monaro winters with down to -12 c

Having said that, my fleet is now mostly on CTeks.

Steve

Glenn141 said:

I am anal about pre race prep ....

Click to expand...

Clearly not that anal.

To keep a battery in prime condition, keep an intelligent battery tender hooked up to your bike every minute that the engine isn't running. I use an Optimate (see: http://www.tecmate.com/) although others will be just as good.

Greg