Dead Battery, Phantom Load, MOSS Re-Flash, and Other Battery Stuff

[TE250Guy]

DEAD BATTERY
Went to start my Terra after a week rest and the battery was dead! Read 4.6 volts. The culprit was the LED lights on several chargers that were plugged in via my tank bag connection. Nothing was hooked up to them. Normally I unplug the connection since it is not a switched connection.
I thought that those LEDS were flea powered and would take quite a while to discharge a battery. Not so. I measured a 0.23 amp draw with NOTHING CONNECTED to the chargers! That is 2.3 amp-hrs every 10 hours! The battery is a BMW 12v 10AH 160CCA. Needless to say, I will be going to switched power here. In the interim, I will plug this thing in only when the engine is running.
I charged the battery and it seems to be holding.

PHANTOM POWER DRAW
I noticed that any time when I reconnected my battery connection, there was a clicking noise behind the panel. I hooked up my cheapie multi-meter and it showed that there was a 0.06 amp draw with nothing turned on. It didn’t make any difference if the key (OFF) was in the ignition switch or not. Couple of questions:
1. What is causing this?
2. Does it do it all the time? (a few times it was 0.00 draw?)

I think I will be hooking up my Battery Tender more often.

MOSS REFLASH NEEDED?

Did the battery discharge screw up my computer thingy? ( Mine was OK from Bill’s Husky, but recently, prior to the dead battery, did the stumble thing. I have a Booster Plug on the way.)

BATTERY REPLACEMENT

Reading in the BMW forums, it seems that the BMW batteries don’t have a very good reputation. The GS650 and FS800 guys have had bad luck. The 10AH rating is also pretty low, methinks. Any good replacement suggestions?

 

[Coffee]

Regarding the formatting of your post, if you select all text while editing, then click on this eraser symbol, it will remove any fonts that you may have specified, and use the default font for this site. Which I believe is Verdana. Just thought I would reply publicly to your request you made because others may not know.

 

[TE250Guy]

DEAD BATTERY


MOSS REFLASH NEEDED?

Did the battery discharge screw up my computer thingy? ( Mine was OK from Bill’s Husky, but recently, prior to the dead battery, did the stumble thing. I have a Booster Plug on the way.)

Did the 3 minute warm-up thing. Actually more like 5 minutes. The fan kicked in. Took it for a test ride. The stumble is gone! Probably don't need the Booster Plug, but others have reported performance improvements regardless, so I guess I'll keep it.

So, FYI, having a battery go dead does NOT affect the computer. No MOSS needed.

 

[Coffee]

..So, FYI, having a battery go dead does NOT affect the computer. No MOSS needed.

Well that is good to know.

Regarding the occasional 60mA draw from the battery while the key is off: I suppose the computers could be periodically waking up to take various readings so the bike has an idea what the conditions are so it is ready to go. But I do not know, it would be good to have a 'theory of operation' for these types of things which ideally would be in the next revision of the service manual.

At the moment I am reluctant to do anything electrical to my bike, until the transition of the company is firmed up a little more.

 

[DirtyOldMan]

Well that is good to know.

Regarding the occasional 60mA draw from the battery while the key is off: I suppose the computers could be periodically waking up to take various readings so the bike has an idea what the conditions are so it is ready to go. But I do not know, it would be good to have a 'theory of operation' for these types of things which ideally would be in the next revision of the service manual.

At the moment I am reluctant to do anything electrical to my bike, until the transition of the company is firmed up a little more.

I too am reluctant to molest the electrical system. Motorcycle electrics in it's simplest form confuses me. I'm quite sure there is voodoo involved.
I have hooked up a battery tender pigtail for keeping the battery charged. I have made a short plug and play pigtail that plugs into it and reches my tankbag with a cig. lighter plug for charging a phone. If I wind up installing the gripwarmers I bought, I'm inclined to power them the same way.

 

[Coffee]

I too am reluctant to molest the electrical system. Motorcycle electrics in it's simplest form confuses me. I'm quite sure there is voodoo involved.
I have hooked up a battery tender pigtail for keeping the battery charged. I have made a short plug and play pigtail that plugs into it and reches my tankbag with a cig. lighter plug for charging a phone. If I wind up installing the gripwarmers I bought, I'm inclined to power them the same way.

The level of detail/experiments I was referring to would be much more in depth. Ideally with an oscilloscope (which I no longer have).

 

[visegrip]

Just curious how did you measure the amp draw? Did you use a clamp on amp meter.

 

[TE250Guy]

Just curious how did you measure the amp draw? Did you use a clamp on amp meter.

I used a multi-meter set to measure DC amps 0-10. With the battery wires disconnected from the battery at the positive terminal, I put the probes in series between the load terminal wire and the positive terminal on the battery. I then varied the things that were hooked up or turned OFF/ON. Any electric current flowing out of the battery went through my multi-meter where I could read it out.

The data was very interesting and informative and sometimes surprising. For example, my cell phone drew 0.96 amp when charging. My Garmin 76CSx GPS drew 0.05 amp. My Sony NEX-6 DSLR drew 0.85 amp when charging. The 0.06 amp "phantom" draw from the Terra should be added to this to get the total amps draw. The amps don't look like much, but they add up to big amp-hours when the bike is sitting around drawing the load and not being charged. As I showed in my original post, within a week I had a dead battery with basically nothing hooked to it but chargers that weren't charging anything! The LED indicators on the plugs were enough to do me in.

Also, I should have written this down, but when you turn the key on and the low beam headlights go on, it drew something like 6.5 amps. That is one reason I would like to get a headlight disconnect to lessen the load during starting in the event of a low battery.

 

[Coffee]

...within a week I had a dead battery with basically nothing hooked to it but chargers that weren't charging anything! The LED indicators on the plugs were enough to do me in.

Actually that makes sense now that you've worded it slightly differently and I re-read you original post. 'Chargers' seem to be designed for automotive applications which do not have to be careful about the nuances of milliamps wasted, and it is assumed that the power to them would be off if the vehicle is off.

They were all 12V chargers, correct? No power inverters converting to 110, then powering the chargers off of that?

 

[TE250Guy]

Actually that makes sense now that you've worded it slightly differently and I re-read you original post. 'Chargers' seem to be designed for automotive applications which do not have to be careful about the nuances of milliamps wasted, and it is assumed that the power to them would be off if the vehicle is off.

They were all 12V chargers, correct? No power inverters converting to 110, then powering the chargers off of that?

They were the normal 12 volt things that are used for keeping your cell phone charged in your car. !2 volt cigarette light plug on one end, usb connector on the other. Tiny LED light on the plug that lights up to show the 12 volt plug has power even when not connected to a cell phone at the usb plug.

There were actually 4 of these LED lights on. The Radio Shack 3 port receptacle has a large LED light on one port, plus 3 things with LED lights plugged into it. I have mixed emotions about a switched connection that only has power when the bike is powered up. Typically on an adventure ride, I charge the bike-to-bike intercoms overnight so they are ready for next day use. Most of the rest of the stuff can be charged while the motor is running. I have done this for years with no problems. The situation is easily remedied by a little discipline and using components that do not have the LED lights that are always on.

I imagine there could be a step-down resister in the charging plugs to get the voltage down from12 volts, but I wouldn't think it would be in the circuit until plugged into the phone.

As you noted, there is a huge difference between my truck which probably has a 85+ AH battery and the Terra that has a 10AH battery.