I think I might have found the source of the battery drain. I remembered last night that I hadn't connected the Power Commander to the neg side of the battery. So I got out of bed and went and did it, as I was disconnecting the neg terminal from the battery there was a spark. The only thing connected and powered up was the tracker, but as that should only use the current draw of a digital watch, according to the manufacturer, it shouldn't spark. So I made good all the connections, including the tracker, left the charger disconnected too. Got up at 5am, went downstairs and connected the charger, and sure enough the charging light came on, so I left it an hour, and it's still charging. Which means, the tracker had drawn the battery down. So I've removed the device from the bike, which, incidentally, was very very warm, so must have some internal fault. Off to eBay again it seems to find another one...hopefully better quality and not a battery killer.
Just a cheapy Chinese one off eBay, £9 delivered or there abouts IIRC. It did actually work as in locations etc However, the next tracker will be one with it's own battery I think..
Had a bit of a brain wave. I'm guessing the tracker has a SIM card in it, and if it is struggling to get a signal it may well go into a higher power mode the same as a mobile does. Do you know which SIM it has in it, and can you check what the signal is like in your garage? If this is the case then any of the cheaper ones would probably have the same problem. It could be solved with some for of voltage detection which powers off fully when the voltage drops too low, but not sure that would be any good if the bike was stolen for parts and never switched back on.
It is a Tesco PAYG 3G sim, the heat has bent the sim card, so I'm going to have to try to straighten it so I can use it to get the number/credit transferred off as it has about £30 on it. My shed is steel lined/roof/doors, so could well be struggling to get a signal, though I'm fairly close to a mobile mast.
I've had a lithium battery on for two years now this is the third year, I remove it during the winter and keep it warm as they don't like the cold. It was completly flattened by my 12v USB charger but seems to have been recovered by a charge on the car battery charger for an hour. Don't have a fancy pants charger and read a blast on car battery charger is the best way as they don't like trickle charging. Seems ok so far so fingers crossed..
It's was hard wired into the power system so that it'll always work if the bike should get stolen. It wasn't the obvious culprit for flattening batteries as it's power consumption should have only been digital watch like, but I guess if something can go wrong, it will....electronics huh ...
Is your bike an 04-07? My parasitic drain was tracked down to the red light flashing on the clocks, not what you expect from an LED! Turned it off and bike can now sit for ages and still stays charged. Same bike, same battery, just with the red led turned off!
Ahh now that's very very interesting .. After the last battery croaked, I did a real investigation into the parasitic drain and traced it to the dash, but couldn't figure out what was doing it...I thought it might have been one of the sensors through the clocks. I do have the led flashing, as you say, it's an led so you wouldn't see it a prime suspect for a major parasitic drain..
12 hours isn't it ??, though if it's faulty, 12 hours is enough to flatten the battery, at least in my case anyway..
Yeah, that was my thought! With it turned on it would pretty much go flat overnight and definitely within 24 hours. With it turned off i left the bike 3.5 weeks and it turned over instantly. Assuming it wasn't the LED causing it as that's not enough to drain a good healthy battery in 24 hours but it was definitely something. My bike hasn't been on the optimate since. Definitely worth a try, just look at the manual and it's only like holding one button with the engine running iirc to turn it off?
