do I have to disconnect my battery for charging?

I have recently installed a sparx alternator and rectifier/regulator, and bought a new Yuasa 4ah battery. I charged this from new, but on my first start up today voltage had dropped under 9 volts (about 8.4), and I had to charge it to get ignition from my black box Boyer system. I have always found that the old battery drained fairly quickly - and I expect that from time to time I will have to put this battery on a charger. Will I harm the regulator - or anything else - if I charge the battery without disconnecting it from the wiring harness?

hi Chris T, check the thread on the 2MC Capacitor , that will give you an insight into battery drain as much as anything.
REgrads Mike

You will not need to disconnect the battery if you are using a trickle charger [less than 1 amp] but I would for a fast charger. And yes, check or replace the capacitor. Jim

Jim - thanks for that. My bike no longer has the capacitor - that has been removed at some point -presumably when it changed to electronic ignition. Having read the thread on them I assume that fitting one would assist starting if the battery has low voltage?

A capacitor will help with push starting but they are pretty tough to kick start with a dead battery even with a good capacitor. It could make the difference between a no start and a start if the battery was just low. I never use anything but a fresh electrolytic from an electronics supply store. Electrolytic manufacturers say the lifespan of their caps are only a few years at best. Not to say they are going to short in that time but they loose their efficiency pretty quickly. Jim

chris,i use a trickle charger on my bike when the battery starts to lose charge( costs about $45 bucks),,and i have the end conection hard wired so you dont even have to remove the seat to get to connection it just sits in behind side cover.you wouldnt even know it was there.

Chris T said:

I have recently installed a sparx alternator and rectifier/regulator, and bought a new Yuasa 4ah battery. I charged this from new, but on my first start up today voltage had dropped under 9 volts (about 8.4), and I had to charge it to get ignition from my black box Boyer system. I have always found that the old battery drained fairly quickly - and I expect that from time to time I will have to put this battery on a charger. Will I harm the regulator - or anything else - if I charge the battery without disconnecting it from the wiring harness?

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I too have the end of my battery leads pigtailed so I ostensibly do not have to remove the seat to charge.

I have found however that the new smart chargers are completely flummoxed by the (insert appropriate adjective here)
British concept of the positive ground. (Give a Brit a piece of metal and he'll f^^% it up somehow)

The older chargers that are not "smart" seem to work fine, set to trickle as others have stated.

My $0.02

Thanks for the input everyone. Looks like a trickle charger that can be manually set is the answer; I have one that automatically shifts from "boost" to something and then to maintenance; yesterday when I charged the battery from 8.5 volts it started on the second setting but then shifted back to "boost", so based on the advice from Jim it would not be desirable to use that charger when the battery is still on the harness.

The issue that I have with removing the battery for charging is that I haven't got a good set of straps for it, and for the moment I have tied it in with elastic cord; so I will have to cut the cord to get it out; which is a pain. Up until now I have used a sealed battery with two bayonet terminals at one end; which has made it very easy to disconnect and connect in situ; with the traditional set up that I now have it is a bit harder, especially given that I am running the rectifier on its own circuit and fuse, and therefore have two connectors to each terminal to try to unscrew from above. Yesterday, rather than unscrew the connectors from the battery at the far end, I disconnected them by removing the two fuses that I have (one for the rectifier and one for the main harness).

The concept of having charger connectors that can be permanently wired to the connectors is attractive - in fact my charger has an additional cord that can do that - but it would need cutting down - and as above is probably not suitable - but I am conscious of the statement of L.A.B. on one of the threads here that he does not like to have more than one terminal per connector; I am currently running two, and it might be unwise to run three?

I took my bike for a ride yesterday after charging the battery - the first time for the new 3 phase alternator. One of main reasons I upgraded to a sparx alternator was to enable me to run a headlight during the day - my old system couldn't cope with running the headlight for more than say half an hour. Before charging, my bike would not start, and had voltage of about 8.5. After charging voltage was about 13.2, and started well, although some kickback. After the ride, which was city riding in 50k (30 mph) zones the voltage had dropped to 10.5. My ammeter suggested that the voltage was less than 12 the whole trip, and when I turned the headlight on full, the ammeter went down to close to zero - so I expect that I will still have to use the charger quite a lot.

Chris T said:

The issue that I have with removing the battery for charging is that I haven't got a good set of straps for it, and for the moment I have tied it in with elastic cord; so I will have to cut the cord to get it out; which is a pain. Up until now I have used a sealed battery with two bayonet terminals at one end; which has made it very easy to disconnect and connect in situ; with the traditional set up that I now have it is a bit harder, especially given that I am running the rectifier on its own circuit and fuse, and therefore have two connectors to each terminal to try to unscrew from above. Yesterday, rather than unscrew the connectors from the battery at the far end, I disconnected them by removing the two fuses that I have (one for the rectifier and one for the main harness).

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It isn't absolutely necessary to remove the battery for charging, but only to disconnect it from the bike's electrical system during high rate charging which, as you found, can be achieved by simply removing the fuses.

Chris T said:

I took my bike for a ride yesterday after charging the battery - the first time for the new 3 phase alternator. One of main reasons I upgraded to a sparx alternator was to enable me to run a headlight during the day - my old system couldn't cope with running the headlight for more than say half an hour. Before charging, my bike would not start, and had voltage of about 8.5. After charging voltage was about 13.2, and started well, although some kickback. After the ride, which was city riding in 50k (30 mph) zones the voltage had dropped to 10.5. My ammeter suggested that the voltage was less than 12 the whole trip, and when I turned the headlight on full, the ammeter went down to close to zero - so I expect that I will still have to use the charger quite a lot.

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Even at 2,000 RPM, according to the Sparx figures, the three-phase alternator should be producing around 140 watts of output which should be more than enough to keep the battery charged.

http://www.tri-corengland.com/acatalog/ ... lts_1.html

yes L.A.B., that was my understanding too; and I will be disappointed if that is not the case. It is too early to tell from just one short test ride, and I am not too confident in my ammeter - on the old alternator the needle waved around tremendously at over 3000 rpm - is that standard behaviour? I will keep monitoring the battery level; if it consistantly loses voltage then I guess I will have a bit of trouble shooting to do...

A 4AH battery is pretty thin. I wouldn't go with much less than an 8AH. There's just too much load on the battery especially at low revs. You should get charging at around 3K but it depends on what charge level the battery is. If it hasn't been charged much lately, it may take some charging to keep the ammeter above the 0. You really need to put a volt meter on the battery and see what the volts are at different revs. Anything above 12.8 should show charge on the ammeter, depending on the battery condition. At 4-5K revs you should show over 13 V, and more like 14. You can test the battery by charging it with a charger, letting it sit for a day or 2 and read the voltage, it should be at least 12.5, but better 12.7-8. Anything below that is getting a bit sketchy.

Dave
69S

I've run a Sparx 3 phase alternator with their matching regulator for some years now and somewhere over 25,000 miles with no charging issues at all. I would suggest that you have a problem somewhere. I'm sure that once you have it sorted you will be very happy with the product.

Ya, if you're running a 3 phase system, you need some better storage than a 4ah new fangle thingy. Remember, the bike runs off the battery and the stator supports it. Are you sure you didn't mean 14ah?

I run a high output single phase with a 200 watt Pods unit. I get 13.2 vdc at idle. I repeat, at idle, 600 to 900 rpm.

It sounds like something is not right with in your system.

pvisseriii said:

I run a high output single phase with a 200 watt Pods unit. I get 13.2 vdc at idle. I repeat, at idle, 600 to 900 rpm.

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Exactly what are you using pv? I wish I had 13.2V at idle, but I'm the Luddite still using the original '69 rotor and stator so I should talk.

Dave
69S

I too am thinking that I the new battery I have bought is too low capacity; I will see how it goes for a while, but may consider getting a bigger one, and putting this one on the kids' mini bike, which must be overdue for a new one. In the meantime I will monitor it to see how the system performs.

When buying this battery I was slightly influenced by a statement in this forum by Hobot that anything over 2ah is not needed if you are not going to idle for more than a few minutes; (at least that is what I think he said; he can correct me ). That said, there is another factor; the physical dimensions which cannot exceed 150mm length, and 65 mm width in order to fit my battery tray - width governed by the fact that the rectifier lives in that space too.

I am aware of other more powerful ones that meet that criteria (like my old 7ah). I did have one in mind which the store didn't stock when I was buying it - this one did fit and I had the kids in the car and they moan and bitch constantly when I do anything Norton related (philistines) so I bought it rather than shop around. Maybe a mistake - certainly not the first one I have made in my Commando owning experience.

DogT said:

pvisseriii said:

I run a high output single phase with a 200 watt Pods unit. I get 13.2 vdc at idle. I repeat, at idle, 600 to 900 rpm.

Click to expand...

Exactly what are you using pv? I wish I had 13.2V at idle, but I'm the Luddite still using the original '69 rotor and stator so I should talk.

Dave
69S

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Stock rotor, 16amp/200watt stator from racingnorton(ebay) and a 200 watt podtronics reg/rec for old brits. No assimulator or capacitor. Pazon sure fire. 14ah battery from battries Plus. Clean, simple and to the point.