Battery Life

[VoyKimmer]

I only use interstate lead acid batteries in both my voyagers and my 3 cars. I tipicly get 7 years out of them and could go longer but don’t like to push it. I take my batteries out of my voyagers in the winter and store them in my basement and put a battery tender on them once a month .

[cushman eagle]

I leave my battery in my bike all year.
It is in an attached,insulated, but unheated garage.I hook up my battery tender whenever it is not going to be ridden for a week or more.
I changed it every 3 years,even though it still acts like new.
The garage rarely gets below 32 inside,and has slow tempurature and humidity changes due to the insulation.

[cushman eagle]

PS,it is a wet lead acid battery.
My Cushman gets a AGM battery,due to mounting it on it's side,and it is on it's third year.
All the battery does is stabilizes voltage for the lights between idle and cruise.

[mayhem8]

Noticed the radio display getting dim and sure enough the battery was dead. I hooked it up to the automatic charger and it didn't seem to want to charge. Left it there overnight and it did charge to the point the bike would turn over. I have one of those cheap Harbor Freight trickle chargers and left that connected.

I just bought that battery at the end of this past season. I wouldn't think it would take much juice, but I'm wondering if draw from the radio display just drains the battery down to nothing when it's sitting there parked? I was considering just charging it then disconnecting the battery.

[Barry]

Another battery draw when the bike sits has been traced to the light in the trunk. Sometimes the switch for the lid doesn't turn the light off and will quickly kill the battery.

[mayhem8]

As far as I can tell that trunk light is going off, but I may just unscrew the bulb in the off-season and leave it in the trunk.

[Barry]

Or just unplug the wire from the switch.

[mayhem8]

What was weird is that, normally, a battery this low would have drawn a lot of current from the charger, but it didn't. The battery was dead enough that the starter would only click when I tried to start it. Leaving the charger on overnight, it was drawing 1-2 amps the next day and would crank over just fine.

Good idea on unplugging the wire.

I think the trickle chargers are meant to be left on indefinitely so plan to just leave that on until we get to the next riding season. The bike is in my garage, which isn't heated, but has one wall below the finish grade so I don't think it gets below freezing.

FWIW - Harbor Freight sometimes practically gives away the little trickle chargers. Hit a sale where they were like $5 each, so just bought 5 or 6 of them. Also have a snowmobile, elec start generator, and using one on one of our 2 cars that hardly gets used.

[Nails]

What was weird is that ...

I've seen corroded connections that wouldn't allow charging but would start the motor. I've also seen the opposite: pass low current but not high. Like basically all bikes, ours are prone to poor grounding or socket connections. I advocate adding grounds, especially a new one straight from the battery (-) to the closest bolt on the frame. I also added a bunch of new/additional grounds under the left fairing; and that rather unsightly stack of ground wires includes another new wire straight from battery (-). Poor connections aren't always obvious.