Hello I have a 2019 SP with a dead battery, the bike has only done 2000 miles from new and laid in a garage for the last 2 years. I've tried to recover it with an Optimate, but no luck. I can't seem to find any aftermarket replacements and don't like the price of a genuine replacement battery. Does anyone know where I can get a reasonable priced replacement? Thanks
I have brought battery's back with a power supply if it is lead acid, you have to limit current to 100ma for a couple of days and it has a good chance of coming back to life, the physics behind this is, lead acids work by transferring calcium onto the plates when discharging and when charging the calcium goes back into the electrolyte, when a lead acid is left discharged for some time the calcium hardens and stops the battery charging, putting the battery on a power supply at 14.4v current limited to 100ma for a couple of days will slowly put the calcium back into the electrolyte and should be good to go this mainly works when a good battery has been left to drain flat and left, rather than a regularly used dead one
Lithium cant be recovered with an Optimate (or any charger I know of). The desulfating procedure used by these smart chargers works only on lead-acid, and is likely to be dangerous on a Lithium chemistry battery. If a lithium battery is dead, it's dead, and you should remove it from the bike and take it to a safe disposal site. If it's LiFePo4 then it's reasonably safe, but if it's L-Ion (or even worse, LiPo), then you need to keep away from it (and keep it away from anything combustible). That said, in starter batteries I have only seen the LiFePo4 type, and some labelled L-Ion (like laptop batteries) are actually LiFePo4 (which is a kind of L-Ion but much more stable and safe). If a 3rd party Lithium company doesn't offer a replacement yet, your only bet is a Honda dealer, unfortunately. That said, if you measure the dimensions, and take the battery data off the side (important bits are the CCA (cold cranking amps), and capacity in Ah), and look at the terminals, you should be able to find a battery that will fit. I would start here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284316433832?hash=item4232947da8:g:G~gAAOSwkiRieRDs They state ->2019 blades, but I'd double check that. Up to I think 2017, the non-ABS used the YT7S, and the ABS version used the YT10S (few more Ah). I don't know after that.
main thing is don't let any lithium based battery run flat as you have little chance of recovery unless you are quick, I have recovered lithiums before by charging on a nimh charger at 0.5A to get the voltage up to about 3v a cell, then putting it on a lithium charger ( lithium chargers will not charge if they detect under voltage ) but do it outside for safety , you need current limiting so it does not overcharge as to much current/voltage can cause fires, I have computerised chargers and digital power supplies so it is easy for me to try
most LFP batteries have on board BMS which shuts down the battery when the volts drop below 9~10v. The battery appears totally dead to the outside world and cannot be recharged unless it is RESET (there are other techniques to engage the dead batteries). There's a good chance this is your situation if you use dedicated LFP charger with reset function, you could get up & running. The battery honda uses is very low capacity and cheap (2.4Ah?). If new one is needed, you can easily get the likes of shido and others rather than buying the OEM unit
Don't forget - capacities of Lead Acid and Lithium are not comparable. You can use 100% of a lithium's Ah rating, but in a standard lead acid this figure is about 50%, slightly more for AGM.
The Optimate Lithium claims it can recover them. It might take a few goes to get the voltage high enough.