Hi, I've got an electrical issue with my bike and looking for a bit of advice please. About 2 months ago I had a new Lithium Battery fitted and have had no issues since. Last outing was Thursday last week, did 200 miles with no problems whatsoever. Sunday morning I went to go out and the bike was completely dead, not even enough power to illuminate the dash, let alone turn the bike over. After about 40 minutes on charge the battery had enough juice to power the bike up. I didn't go out on it, I just left the bike switched off for a few hours and when I went back to it, once again all the juice had gone and it was dead. I suspect the battery is fine because a) it's nigh on brand new and b) if I charge it, disconnect from the bike and then reconnect it several hours later, it's still held it's charge. I'm assuming it's something on the bike that's draining it. Only aftermarket part is heated grips but they've been on for ages so not convinced it's to do with them. I had the alarm disconnected by Honda when I bought the bike so it's not that. Some googling of electrical issues on the Blade make me thing Regulator/Rectifier. I am an utterly clueless mechanic so my default would be to take it to my usual garage and have them diagnose/fix the issue. Problem is they're on holiday so if I wait until they're back and can have it I'll have lost a few weeks riding. I thought I'd take a punt, order a replacement reg/rec and fit myself as it looks (just about) within my capabilities. However, when searching for reg/recs I noticed a few specifically state 'not for use with lithium batteries'. This led me to more searches on the subject with the usual mix of responses, some saying it 100% needs to be a specific reg/rec to suit and some saying that's scaremongering nonsense. So now I'm totally confused! 3 options as I see it: 1) Buy this standard pattern one and fit myself: https://www.motoelectrical.co.uk/pr...fier-honda-cbr-1000-rr-2004-2005-2007-rm30019 2) Buy this one as it's for lithium specifically (but not too sure if I can fit myself as not bike specific) https://www.motoelectrical.co.uk/ty...ging voltage for,in it's ideal charging range.: 3) Wait for the garage and miss out on several weeks of biking. Of course, either reg/rec is a punt as I still don't know if it is that but it's a circa £100 gamble I'm willing to take. I could order a multimeter but TBH I'm not convinced I'd trust myself to use it properly and diagnose the issue. Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions very gratefully received. Bike is a RR6 model, circa 24k on clock.
Probably not terribly helpful but Ive had a duff Lithium battery before.. similar symptoms to yours and mine was only a few months old too... when they go completely dead they'll struggle to recover properly.. mine was a Shido on my 1098R... ive currently got a Magnetti Marelli on the blade and its been fine despite sitting for 3 months during lockdown... your charger should be able to tell you if its holding charge.. or does it not get to full?
If it's flattened the battery with the bike turned off I doubt its the reg/rec. A faulty R/R can kill a battery when the bike is running because its not delivering a correct charging voltage. You need a meter really to test at the battery to see if something is drawing on it with the bike off. I'd also think it could just be a duff battery, be more inclined to buy a cheap meter rather than a R/R
@Marc. You can get a cheapish digital multimeter (DMM) from 'Halfrauds' or similar. Make sure it has Amps, most of them can read up to 10 A. Make sure the battery is charged. First check battery voltage. Red lead in Volts/Ohms socket on the meter, black lead in 'Com' socket. Set volt scale to 20V DC (it may have a symbol of a horizontal line with 3 dots underneath it). Red probe to battery pos, black probe to battery neg. You should have almost 13V if it's just come off charge. Now check the 'off drain'. The red lead on the DMM should be in '10A' socket, black lead in 'Common earth' socket (Com) and meter set to 10A. Disconnect one battery cable & attach red probe to that. Attach black probe to battery post. The meter is now connected in series and will give you a reading of the Amp drain. Should be minimal and only around 0.1 A. If it's more than 10 A, it will probably blow the safety fuse inside the meter. Do not put the probes on pos & neg terminals of the battery (parallel) as this WILL destroy the meter if set to Amps! If there's almost no drain, your battery is probably knackered. If there's a large drain, remove fuses and/or disconnect components one at a time to see which circuit is drawing the current.
the other thing is once a lithium has been completely flat they will suffer long term damage and may never be any good now.recharging will not bring it back to its former state
A thing that catches a lot of people is that most Lithium Batteries have protection circuitry. If they get down to low charge rather than let you keep drawing power until you destroy them they just switch off the terminals. This produces a situation where you can have zero volts on the terminals but press the 'test' button and a 'low' light lights up powered by... However some chargers can't cope with this. Duuh : No volts = nothing to charge = don't try. Last time I had this I used a nice 'bench supply' and dialled up 13V and 1.0A and left it for a couple of hours. It bounced back and could go on the lithium trickle charger again.
On a slightly different issue I had a lead acid battery that had failed due to not being charged and then would not take a charge. It seems when lead acids are used they put calcium onto the plates from the electrolyte, At first this is soft and when charged again goes back into the solution. leaving a lead acid discharged the calcium hardens and is reluctant to come off so will not take a charge. I looked on the tube and found if you put it on a power supply and regulate volts to about 13.5 and limit current to about 100ma after a few days the battery will come back to life. It worked for me
Is the RR the OEM unit? If it’s been replaced a lot of them cannot be used with Lithium batteries as you have stated. Get it fired up and check the RR output, at approx 5K should be 15-16VDC then chop, if it doesn’t it will cause damage, if it’s lower then it won’t charge the battery fully. Just taking a punt on electrical issues is financial roulette, you have 3 main components , genny, RR and battery plus the usual issues that cause most problems, is poor earths.
Thank you all for your help and suggestions. It's led me to the conclusion that just whacking on a new R/R is unlikely to resolve the issue. Sounds like I'm best getting some professional help (for the bike) and getting the garage to diagnose it properly. I shall spend the 2 hours on Sunday I'd normally be riding to clean the bike instead, poor thing will wonder what's going on
I'm Blackpool based. I wouldn't want to take advantage of anyone's time etc though, I can wait for the garage to reopen, just thought if I could find an easy fix it'd make sense but it seems with electrics there's no such thing. I long since accepted I am far from mechanically minded. I did replace the radiator myself the other week but I knew exactly what the fault was and had a youtube video to follow step by step. Still took me all week and although it appears to have worked from a cooling perspective I do have a niggling concern that I've messed something up whilst doing that, which has caused this fault. I'd probably burn the bleedin' house down if I start messing with a Mulitmeter, I only know one AC/DC and they were never the same after Bon Scott passed away!
