How long should a battery last?

[sootie]

I wish they used that lovely engineering on my ZZR6! Mine's been through a few batteries (some my fault, left sitting) in the last two years, a few reg/recs and three stators or something along those lines

Seems to work well now there's nothing OEM left
Motobatt AGM battery, I re-wound the stator (Bogan fixed my drunken winding...) and it has a Honda reg/rec for now

I am surprised you have had all that trouble. All the Kwakas I have owned have had excellent & reliable charging systems, even the KZ400 of 1979 vintage. I have had basic design problems (ie not failures, just not enough power to keep the battery up with short distance running) with most of the other bikes I have owned though including now a 2009 scooter! I would imagine most BMWs are OK, but no experience there.

[BoristheBiter]

queue the "....you mean you have to put water in them?!?!"

I'm still getting over the fact is has a battery and i'm meant to do something to keep it good.

Now to find the one on the XR..............

[BuzzardNZ]

Yeah and if a blueish gel like stuff starts to appear on the connections, I think that's a sign that the thing might be on its last legs ( battery, not bike I mean ).

[ducatilover]

I am surprised you have had all that trouble. All the Kwakas I have owned have had excellent & reliable charging systems, even the KZ400 of 1979 vintage. I have had basic design problems (ie not failures, just not enough power to keep the battery up with short distance running) with most of the other bikes I have owned though including now a 2009 scooter! I would imagine most BMWs are OK, but no experience there.

Could just be the 20yr old parts? It's the first bike I've had that's broken down so much, and I've done about 3k over the last two years (maybe 4, not sure).
Certainly not reliable. But, it's worth it

[neels]

Still plenty of flooded batteries out there in the world, in fact there's one in my bike at home, can't really check the liquid level too often as it's a fairing off job to do it. The last one was the same and lasted 5 years until a sudden and complete failure half way through a 400k trip home and wouldn't turn the bike over at all, replacement is a couple of years old now and still going strong.

Main causes of short lead acid battery life (other than charging system faults that fry them) are insufficent inital charge, discharging below 1.8V per cell, and leaving discharged for an extended period of time.

[sootie]

discharging below 1.8V per cell, or leaving discharged for an extended period of time. ('stuffs a battery')

Leaving a lead acid battery discharged or even half charged for extended periods will kill it - I doubt that anyone would deny this. The never below 1.8V per cell is certainly what the text books say, and I would stick to this but ...

Some years ago I totally discharged a 2 day old car battery by leaving the headlights on for 12 hours. There might have been 0.5V left per cell, but not a glimmer of headlight output. I immediately put the battery back on a 1/10 charge (about 4 amps in this case) & let it gradually recover to ~14.1 Volts. I don't think it did the battery any good, but that battery started the car & performed normally for about 3 years after that.

I think the trick here was that the battery was never left in a discharged state. FYI.

[DEATH_INC.]

Could just be the 20yr old parts? It's the first bike I've had that's broken down so much, and I've done about 3k over the last two years (maybe 4, not sure).
Certainly not reliable. But, it's worth it

Those old Kwakka reg/recs are friggen bulletproof. The original one off My turbo ended up on the gixxer after it's one died. Mt Eden motorcycles used to retrofit them to all the H*ndas so they were at least partly reliable. How did you kill them, hook them up to the mains or something????

[joan of arc]

As has been said, it depends on how the battery is treated (and to some extent its chemistry). Lets talk about plain sealed lead acid batteries since they are very common.

When they aren't used (aka exposed to charge) they suffer an effect called sulfation. So if you don't ride your bike for 6 months, and don't put the battery on a trickle charger during that time, it'll probably be written off.

If you only ride once every 3 months under the same circumstances, the battery will also have a greatly shortened lifetime.

If you ride monthly, ... you get the idea.


So if you ride several times a week, and keep the battery topped up, you might get 7 years out of it. Do anything else, and that number starts coming down.

Thanks, that explains alot. Long story, a bit like the string...... but bike had not been ridden much when I bought it so the battery was probably faltering then.

[sootie]

Those old Kwakka reg/recs are friggen bulletproof. The original one off My turbo ended up on the gixxer after it's one died. Mt Eden motorcycles used to retrofit them to all the H*ndas so they were at least partly reliable. How did you kill them, hook them up to the mains or something????

Motorcycle designers tend to engineer stuff well when they share ideas & facilities with guys who design stuff for use in the aircraft industry & who work for a company with a long track record!

As I commented, Kwaka charging systems tend to look after batteries rather well!

[Hopeful Bastard]

One in the Cage lasted me 4 years and that was running DRL's, 15" Sub and constant short trips to and from work (10mins each way)

The bike battery has lasted 4 1/2 years.. Was a Gel Cell. Would of kept going but it got overcharged and the Cells bulged out... Would barely hold charge for 2 days.. Let alone a week. (Was charging it off an Old School welding machine and had a fail-proof system in place... But that system failed )

[ducatilover]

Those old Kwakka reg/recs are friggen bulletproof. The original one off My turbo ended up on the gixxer after it's one died. Mt Eden motorcycles used to retrofit them to all the H*ndas so they were at least partly reliable. How did you kill them, hook them up to the mains or something????

Well, the 400k stator blew, then a re-wound one blew, then the original 600d one blew, all in a short period of time. I've put it down too poo stators (incl. the one I wound) the current re-wind has 1mm wire in it and is in wye formation, works real well.
The 400k Reg/rec, 600d and aftermarket one I had, all went pop. I also put that down to poo regs, I wouldn't expect a reg to last that many KM any way. Current one is late 80s, early 90s Honda, no idea how it is still working... In saying, the reg on my Spada was original, with 154,000km when I sold it.
I just put it down to old 70,000km parts. Works fine now.
Plus I've added a fan to get flow over the reg.
The stock mounting for one in a 400k/600d is on the RHS behind the cwoling with a nice bit of foam on top to keep the heat in...

Motorcycle designers tend to engineer stuff well when they share ideas & facilities with guys who design stuff for use in the aircraft industry & who work for a company with a long track record!

As I commented, Kwaka charging systems tend to look after batteries rather well!

Well... my GPZ400 charged well But I think the ZZR4/6 had corners cut.
Mind you the GPZ had a gearbox explosion

[sootie]

Well, the 400k stator blew, then a re-wound one blew, then the original 600d one blew, all in a short period of time. I've put it down too poo stators (incl. the one I wound) the current re-wind has 1mm wire in it and is in wye formation, works real well.
The 400k Reg/rec, 600d and aftermarket one I had, all went pop. I also put that down to poo regs, I wouldn't expect a reg to last that many KM any way. Current one is late 80s, early 90s Honda, no idea how it is still working... In saying, the reg on my Spada was original, with 154,000km when I sold it.
I just put it down to old 70,000km parts. Works fine now.
Plus I've added a fan to get flow over the reg.
The stock mounting for one in a 400k/600d is on the RHS behind the cwoling with a nice bit of foam on top to keep the heat in...


Well... my GPZ400 charged well But I think the ZZR4/6 had corners cut.
Mind you the GPZ had a gearbox explosion

I just checked the specs on my ZZR1100. The alternator is rated at 400 Watts output! (14V at 28.6A)
If we had a long term power cut around here (remember Ak CBD a few years ago) I have considered parking the bike outside with the idle set up to 3000rpm, and using the floating 12V bike supply to drive my computer for a while each day via the uninterruptible power supply I use.

I think the bike electrics could manage this extra load (200Watts odd), and I consider the Kwaka designers were very serious about providing enough power to float the battery properly under all conditions it was likely to encounter! I compare this with Piaggios efforts on my scooter & that leaves a bad taste ...

I am surprised at your problems as described, but everyone makes Friday stuff I guess.
Anyone know what a Honda Goldwing alternator is rated at? It would be interesting.
[Just checked: 40Amps standard, but a 90Amp version also available as an extra]

[Hobbyhorse]

Keping the battery voltage up while not in use seems to be the secret. Some years ago I was master on a salvage tug that had 9 different diesel engines on board for running winches, pumps generators etc, all with electric starting and none of which had alternators. Batteries were maintained by 240 volt powered chargers which were hooked up permanantly and putting out 1 amp maximum thus the batteries were never allowed to drop their voltage. We managed an average battery life of 9 years on that vessel.

Rhys

[sootie]

Keeping the battery voltage up while not in use seems to be the secret. Some years ago I was master on a salvage tug that had 9 different diesel engines on board for running winches, pumps generators etc, all with electric starting and none of which had alternators. Batteries were maintained by 240 volt powered chargers which were hooked up permanantly and putting out 1 amp maximum thus the batteries were never allowed to drop their voltage. We managed an average battery life of 9 years on that vessel.

Rhys

About 14.1 Volts seems about the optimum to float a liquid filled battery on. O.5V higher & they tend to bubble off too much electrolyte water which needs to be replaced; 0.5V too low, and battery life tends to be shortened. Most of the sealed batteries seem to prefer a bit higher, maybe around 14.5V but they do vary a bit.

I wired a yacht for a guy about 20 years ago. On the basis that the diesel was usually only run for an hour a day, and then mainly for charging, I modified the alternator control circuitry to limit at 14.7V. Where charging time is limited this is a reasonable option. Modern electronics available to yachties often does more clever things than this & acts intelligently on the battery off float voltage. Looking after lead acid batteries is a bit more complicated than most people realise. With large (serious) power outage emergency lead acid batteries, the electrolyte density may also be monitored.

Lithium batteries are even more fun; if you get them badly wrong they can explode!

As you say though Hobbyhorse, lead acid battery life is very dependent upon an accurately maintained float voltage.

[Stevee2]

Noob question here, whats a good battery brand to go for? Not sure how old the current one is as no date stamp.

I'm assuming my battery in the Hornet is stuffed, charged it tonight (4amps for 2hrs) sitting at 14 odd volts, wired it up and wouldnt turn over, I watched the 14v go down to about 2! Then the battery sat at 12.5v :S

Assuming its the battery as I cant get the engine started to see if the charging system is going.