How long to charge battery RUNNING?

[CoolATIGuy]

Sorry if already answered, but googled and searched the forums, all I could find was on battery tenders and trickle chargers and idling charge. What I'm trying to figure out, is how long does it take for the FZ6 to fully recharge the battery when running over 5k rpm? A 30 min ride, 3 hours, longer??


Situation: A month or two ago, turned engine off but left key in run and bike died after just 3-5 min, wouldn't start back up. Got it bump started and no issues for awhile.

About a week ago, bike refused to start - fuel bump whine came on, tach came on, tried to turn over (sounded decently strong), but just couldn't make it. It had been cold overnight, but it wasn't as cold when I was trying to start it. Got it bump started and rode. 2 days later, wouldn't start again. Got it bump started again, but battery was from summer '09 (per label), so just bought a brand new battery from Batteries Plus and put in a few days ago. Tried to start it up a few times, started up super strong, but didn't ride it.

Now today, went out, and same thing - tries to turn over but can't and eventually completely dies! Argh. Bumped it, let it run for a few min, multimeter voltage showed ~12.4 idle and ~13.4 revved I believe. Checked 30A main fuse under gas tank and doesn't look blown. Turned off and wouldn't turn back on. Bump started again, now I'm annoyed.

From the voltages it looks like charging system is working right? No alarms/extra lights; only mod is a stebel nautilus airhorn I've had on it for a long time. I'm a little handy but not overly..


Any suggestions?

 

[Motogiro]

Need a little clarification on the starting. Is the starter cranking the engine over but the motor is taking a while to start? Or does the starter not have enough to crank the engine over and then you have to bump start the bike. When you say bump start you are saying you're rolling the bike and letting the clutch out to start it?

You may have a drain on the battery as it's sitting. If you have no active accessories while the bike is turned off you may have a shorted diode in the regulator/rectifier assembly that is allowing current flow and also not providing enough current(rectifying) when the stator is giving good output.

You can unplug your stator and set your ohm meter to the 1x range. Measure resistance between each of the three white wires. The reading should be .22 to .34 ohms. Then measure the reading of each wire to a good electrically conductive spot on the engine metal. There should be no continuity to the engine. If you stator passes and you've got a new battery chances are your may need a new R/R...

 

[pookamatic]

To your original question, I don't know how long it would take to go from a dead battery to a fully charged one on this bike. I can say that:

1. It will take a long time... this bike's charging system is limited and doesn't have much to spare over what it takes to run the bike.
2. You shouldn't do this. Drained batteries should not be charged by a vehicles charging system. OK to do in a pinch, but ideally, this would be done with a slow and smart charge.

 

[Cali rider]

A quick estimate would be less than 2 hours of continuous operation above 2200 RPM would be enough to completely charge a healthy battery that was dead to start with.

 

[CoolATIGuy]

Need a little clarification on the starting. Is the starter cranking the engine over but the motor is taking a while to start? Or does the starter not have enough to crank the engine over and then you have to bump start the bike. When you say bump start you are saying you're rolling the bike and letting the clutch out to start it?

You may have a drain on the battery as it's sitting. If you have no active accessories while the bike is turned off you may have a shorted diode in the regulator/rectifier assembly that is allowing current flow and also not providing enough current(rectifying) when the stator is giving good output.

You can unplug your stator and set your ohm meter to the 1x range. Measure resistance between each of the three white wires. The reading should be .22 to .34 ohms. Then measure the reading of each wire to a good electrically conductive spot on the engine metal. There should be no continuity to the engine. If you stator passes and you've got a new battery chances are your may need a new R/R...

It's like it doesn't have enough juice to kick the motor over. So it eventually dies. And yes, by bump start, I mean laboriously dragging both our hindquarters up an incline and letting gravity + dropping clutch do their work.

No active accessories; no mods besides the stebel airhorn.

Right after I posted, went out to the bike, had the charging system orange light on solid. Revving would make it disappear. At one point had error 46.

Actually at a coffee shop now a few blocks from bike repair shop; they were nice enough to let me do a walkin. Dropped it off ~2 hours ago. He used the Ohm tester and tested the regulator, rectifier, battery, stator, etc etc. He tried using a r/r from another similar bike.

His consensus is possibly the regulator or rectifier (don't remember which he said), although he's not convinced enough to warrant the ~$150 part yet. He also tried another charged up battery and voltage at the terminals was 13.9 when revving at 5k rpm. So he thinks might be the new battery I got was never charged up fully...

So here I am. waiting. at the coffee shop. while they have the bike on a quick slow trickle charge, hoping it will only take an hour if we're lucky. They were cool and let me take an old ninja 250 up the street to get here - that brings back memories! Forgot how light that thing is!!

So yeah, that's pretty much where we're at..

 

[Motogiro]

Some additional reading that may give better understanding.

See attached:

What makes me think the battery may be okay or at least it was okay in the beginning is you are have the same symptom you had when you had the old battery, not that a new battery can't be at fault, but you're describing the same symptom. You seem to have this experience after the bike sits overnight. This makes me think it may be a leak/drain on the battery. If there are no accessories suspected my first thought would be the component failure in the solid state area and my first choice would be a bad diode in the R/R. You could also be lacking the amount of current required to charge the system as a diode/s have failed in addition to the diode/s allowing current to be dissipated through them as heat.

Charge the battery
Load test the battery
Ohm test the stator.
If they pass it's a good chance the R/R is at fault.
Always check the plugs, ground and battery connectors for obvious problems.

If your tech has the equipment and knowledge he should not guess it's this or that.

Good hunting!

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Read some of the FAQ's from the Battery Tender site. There's no set time period of charging but as stated above, it can take a long time if its run low. Slow re-charging is the best for the life of the battery.


Freq Asked Questions - Batterytender.com


"Background: The motorcycle dealers receive batteries from the manufacturer in a dry state. The plates are dried out, and there is no acid in the cell compartments. (Do not confuse this with a dry-cell battery.) The dealer must fill the individual battery cells with acid and then put them on a shop charger to pre-charge prior to selling them to a customer. As the batteries arrive from the manufacturer, the plates are approximately 80% "formed". The initial pre-charge, post-formation charge, or more correctly, formation-finishing charge, must be conducted at a specific power level and for a specific time period. Each manufacturer has its own recommendations, for example one manufacturer recommends that the charger deliver a constant current equal to 10% to 15% of the battery amp-hour capacity and that the charge current be applied to the battery for a period of 5 to 10 hours.
Answer 1) Certainly if the dealer has properly pre-charged the battery after filling it with acid, then the answer is ABSOLUTELY YES.

Answer 2) If the dealer has not properly pre-charged the
newly filled battery prior to the sale, then the answer is YES, WITH SOME QUALIFICATIONS:

Qualification A) The Battery Tender® Plus should be left on the new battery for a minimum of 24 hours on float, in addition to whatever amount of time it takes for the charger to get to the float stage. It is not clear how to correlate the 80% formed plates with a given state of charge once the cells are filled with acid. To be safe, assume that the batteries require a full 100% charge after the cells are filled.

For example, a 16 Ah battery will take about 13 hours to get to the absorption voltage (constant 14.4 Volts). It may take another 6 to 8 hours to reach the float voltage (constant 13.2 Volts). This may sound awkward; because what happens is that the battery charge current drops while the absorption voltage is held constant. When the battery current drops to 0.1 amp, or if 6 to hours have elapsed at the absorption voltage, the charger automatically switches its output from 14.4 V to 13.2 V. So it may take the better part of 20 hours to reach the float stage. Add another 24 hours to that and you are at 44 hours. Throw in another 4 hours for good measure and you get a nice round, even 48 hours, or 2 days.

Qualification B) Although there are probably several charging methods that will be equally effective, regardless of who manufactures the battery, in the interests of technical consistency, they will not officially sanction any initial charging method other than those published in their technical applications literature."

 

[CoolATIGuy]

So, after a couple hours of sitting on the charger, they got the "new" battery fully charged. Put it back in the bike and started it up. Got a ready of 14v. They also put a lead from the battery so I can plug a trickle charger and/or check the voltage more easily.

He said the Stator looked ok, he said the R&R didn't seem to have any bad diodes but he didn't completely rule it out yet. He said to test the battery a few min after getting home, then test again in the morning, and see if the current dropped - .1 prob ok, but if it's a full volt something's wrong.

He also tightened the battery bolts, said they were a little loose but nothing crazy (I used a screwdriver instead of socket), and also put the stebel air horn leads on the outside of the battery connector rather than sandwiched between the battery and plugs.

Hope I didn't hurt my brand new battery by not making sure it was fully charged first, before putting it in and starting it a few times, then riding it for awhile.

So, $65 for an hour of shop time + ~$5 for the external access lead to the battery later, I'm hoping either the new battery just came too low and got run down faster than I gave it time to fully charge (and that the old battery really was bad), and/or something got jiggled/tightened and it kicked back into place.

Didn't feel like I got a really good answer at the end of the day, no obvious "here's your problem", although it didn't seem like he had *completely* ruled out the battery. I guess if stator is good and battery is good and he tested all the leads and diodes and connectors he could find, I guess the next thing to try is the R&R?

*sigh*

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

As posted above, post #7, regular batteries come charged approx 80%. They will work and charge but your shortening the life of them if NOT TRICKLE CHARGED before being put into service. My last Yuasa battery took over 5 hours to top off, that's BRAND NEW..

As the batteries arrive from the manufacturer, the plates are approximately 80% "formed". The initial pre-charge, post-formation charge, or more correctly, formation-finishing charge, must be conducted at a specific power level and for a specific time period.

If your getting 14 volts now and nothing major is draining it, I suspect your good to go. Your battery life will likely be shortened slightly, nothing to loose any sleep over...

*Cliff will chime in, pay close attention to his opinion...

 

[CoolATIGuy]

Some additional reading that may give better understanding.

See attached:

What makes me think the battery may be okay or at least it was okay in the beginning is you are have the same symptom you had when you had the old battery, not that a new battery can't be at fault, but you're describing the same symptom. You seem to have this experience after the bike sits overnight. This makes me think it may be a leak/drain on the battery. If there are no accessories suspected my first thought would be the component failure in the solid state area and my first choice would be a bad diode in the R/R. You could also be lacking the amount of current required to charge the system is a diode/s have failed in addition to the diode/s allowing current to be dissipated through them as heat.

Charge the battery
Load test the battery
Ohm test the stator.
If they pass it's a good chance the R/R is at fault.
Always check the plugs, ground and battery connectors for obvious problems.

If your tech has the equipment and knowledge he should not guess it's this or that.

Good hunting!

Thanks for the info. I just rode back from the shop, where it was fully charged on their charger after a few hours. So basically I should leave it off for ~30 min, then go check it again and see if the voltage is the same? And then check again in the morning, and make sure it's still the same (give or take .1 volts)?

It should be ~12.8v with bike on/engine off as well as bike on idling, is that correct? And ~13.8v when revved? Give or take a tenth of a volt or two?


Sorry, not an electrician or a mechanic...just play one on tv.

 

[PhotoAl]

Sounds like some of the stuff I am going thru. Battery died, bought a new battery filled it and dropped it into the bike. 4 days later wound up pushing the bike home (2 miles). Figured out that fully charging the battery was something I should have done. I put mine on a trickle charger/battery charger (Schumacher brand from WalMart) overnight and have worked to get it fully charged. It is doing OK now but I have a bad stator. The charging system seems to be just almost keeping up or may be able to keep it charged if the battery is OK. Have wondered how long the stator coil has been burned out - probably recently but just have to wonder. The error 46 you saw was a low voltage to the fuel injection system. According to the Yamaha service manual minimum open circuit battery voltage is 12.8V (that is disconnected not connected). The charging voltage should be 14V at 5,000RPM. Anything else and you may have a problem. My advice is to carefully check everything THEN buy what is broken.

 

[CoolATIGuy]

Ok. Have let the bike sit for 1.5 - 2 hours outside. Reminder, it was fully charged on the trickle charger right before that, then I rode here (~10 min), mostly interstate. Temp 40's/50's

Before turning bike on, voltage (when steadied) tested at 12.78.
Starting bike with engine I believe reached 13.90 (idling?)
As bike warmed dropped to 12.44
Revving brought to 13.80
Idle came back to 13.00


I think those were correct. In the dark and needed more hands. Looked good except while idling it just kept dropping and dropping to 12.44 and sat steady around that (bouncing .1 v). Revving brought back up and idle came back to 13. I guess I'll check the voltages in the morning and see what we look like.


Any more suggestions?

 

[Motogiro]

Ok. Have let the bike sit for 1.5 - 2 hours outside. Reminder, it was fully charged on the trickle charger right before that, then I rode here (~10 min), mostly interstate. Temp 40's/50's

Before turning bike on, voltage (when steadied) tested at 12.78.
Starting bike with engine I believe reached 13.90 (idling?)
As bike warmed dropped to 12.44
Revving brought to 13.80
Idle came back to 13.00


I think those were correct. In the dark and needed more hands. Looked good except while idling it just kept dropping and dropping to 12.44 and sat steady around that (bouncing .1 v). Revving brought back up and idle came back to 13. I guess I'll check the voltages in the morning and see what we look like.


Any more suggestions?

Best thing is look at static voltage with nothing running on the bike now then look at the static voltage in the morning. It should be within .1 volt or less change. If it's more than that I would suspect a leak/current draw from somewhere or a bad battery. There's a pretty simple test you can do to test for current leakage and you will know for sure. Let's see what your voltage is in the morning.

 

[CoolATIGuy]

Just to confirm, you mean check the voltage at the trickle charge connector on the bike tonight with the engine off and key off, and it should be around 12.8, then confirm it's 12.8 in the morning?

 

[CoolATIGuy]

Just checked bike, has been off for ~1 hour, ~50 degrees fahrenheit out, engine off/bike off/key out, registers 12.75 volts (multimeter testing on the trickle charge lead coming off the battery). Now to see tomorrow!

 

[CoolATIGuy]

Just checked again, another 2.5 hours later, still haven't turned on, ~50 degrees fahrenheit out, engine off/bike off/key out, registers 12.74 volts (multimeter testing on the trickle charge lead coming off the battery). Just trying to make a bread crumb trail..

 

[FIZZER6]

I can't comment because I have been extremely fortunate with batteries so far!

I still have the original battery provided by Yamaha on my 2006 model and this is the first winter I have used a trickle charger and I have never once had the bike fail to start! *knocksonwood* (It probably helps that I store my bike in our heated basement in winter).

 

[CoolATIGuy]

we hate you. happy holidays.






:thumbup:

 

[CoolATIGuy]

Ok, more stats. Didn't have to go into work until later, so it got to sit all night/all morning/half of the afternoon.

Batteries Plus confirmed today when they activate a battery, they put them on a charger in the back and let them sit until they fully charge before putting them on the shelf. So yay, I guess it did come fully charged. They activated it about a month ago, mid-Nov btw.


~65 degrees fahrenheit out, nice day. Tested around 2pm.

Bike started right up.

- Bike before engine on/key in: 12.72 volts steady

- key turned on/engine off, volts semi-slowly dropped down to 12.22 volts where it stayed steady

- started, warming up ~1600-1680 rpms, hovered around 13.90 volts

- after warming up for a min or two, idling ~1100 rpms, hovered around 12.27 volts

- revved to 5k rpms, went up to 13.82/13.83 and hovered there


Thoughts? (that would be your cue, Motogiro

 

[Motogiro]

Ok, more stats. Didn't have to go into work until later, so it got to sit all night/all morning/half of the afternoon.

Batteries Plus confirmed today when they activate a battery, they put them on a charger in the back and let them sit until they fully charge before putting them on the shelf. So yay, I guess it did come fully charged. They activated it about a month ago, mid-Nov btw.


~65 degrees fahrenheit out, nice day. Tested around 2pm.

Bike started right up.

- Bike before engine on/key in: 12.72 volts steady

- key turned on/engine off, volts semi-slowly dropped down to 12.22 volts where it stayed steady

- started, warming up ~1600-1680 rpms, hovered around 13.90 volts

- after warming up for a min or two, idling ~1100 rpms, hovered around 12.27 volts

- revved to 5k rpms, went up to 13.82/13.83 and hovered there


Thoughts? (that would be your cue, Motogiro

Sounds good to me! Keep an eye on it. My bike will top off at 13.0 and after sitting 2 to 3 weeks it will be 12.6-12.8 The battery does have a source that drains it but it's still got good depth of charge for delivering current.

Our voltages can be different because of the battery or the measuring device we use so don't be too critical of the actual voltage( + - .2 vdc). Be more critical of change of voltage from your reference. The important part is voltage plus current or voltage times current.

Again if you're still having a problem we can go through testing to see if there is a parasitic current draw. It's a pretty simple test and your tech probably did this already.