Flat battery?

[dangerous]

Thanks very much folks.
Regulators fine. Charging normally. It was my own charging of my flat battery that killed it. Cheap warehouse rubbish !
Im going to get a proper multi-meter. Put in a brand new battery this morning $95 later.
Now someones going to come on here and tell me where I could have got it cheaper. It was an emergency and I didnt have time to shop around.
Oh well. At least I know where I went wrong. Thoroughly dissapointed with myself but resolve not to let this happen again.

cheers !

$95 for a battery is cheap, my last one cost near to $300, get what ya pay for... in your case Id settle for none less than a gel, why by several cheap batterys over ya bikes life when one will do.
Forget the muilti meter, like I already said a battary maintainer will do the job of a muiltie meter, a charger, and it will drain the batt at the correct rate and re trickle it... ok it will cost you $130ish but, will save in the long run. I use a Oxford. just my opion

[p.dath]

Take it back to where you bought it. There should be a warranty ... or as stated ... an issue with the battery when you bought it.

+1. I think you just have a dud battery.

[Henk]

+1. I think you just have a dud battery.

Sorry disagree. The original problem was that he ran the battery to dead flat by leaving the ignition on, what probably killed it for all time is that he then hooked up a cheap nasty battery charger more than likely intended for cars.
Lead acid batteries, gel or traditional like to be charged with constant current at 10% of their rated AH capacity to a level (that I can't remember because it is years since I was working in the field) and then switched over to a constant voltage setup until fully charged and then switched to a maintenance charge. A charger intended for a car is likely to run way more than that 10% initially as the internal resistance of a dead flat battery can do odd things. May start really high and then go really low leading to the thing effectively getting boiled.

[neels]

Sorry disagree. The original problem was that he ran the battery to dead flat by leaving the ignition on, what probably killed it for all time is that he then hooked up a cheap nasty battery charger more than likely intended for cars.
Lead acid batteries, gel or traditional like to be charged with constant current at 10% of their rated AH capacity to a level (that I can't remember because it is years since I was working in the field) and then switched over to a constant voltage setup until fully charged and then switched to a maintenance charge. A charger intended for a car is likely to run way more than that 10% initially as the internal resistance of a dead flat battery can do odd things. May start really high and then go really low leading to the thing effectively getting boiled.

Agreed.

Charging from flat should look something like this (quick google search), the lower the terminal voltage the longer the constant current charge should be.



On our gear at work charging batteries from flat with a proper charger we've had SLA batteries die and get hot enough to melt their cases together.