Slightly dull question about charging a battery / a battery charger..
 

Hi,

Due to medical stuff I've not been able to ride my bike over the winter, so the battery is pretty low / dead. In the hope that there's be something to charge up I've hooked it to a battery charger but nothing seems to happen.

To clarify, if I turn on the battery charger but don't connect the leads to anything then the 'Power' light on the charger comes on. As soon as I attach the leads to the battery (or touch the leads together) then the power light on the charger goes out and, as I say, it does nothing for the battery.

As soon as I remove the leads the power light comes back on again...any ideas what's going on?

Thanks,

Alex.

Hey Alex,

Batteries these days are pretty crap. The smaller 12V ones will only last about 18 months with regular charging. The past two winters have killed of two batteries for me, and the worse thing you can do is leave a bike running idle.

Yours is probably dead. You could push start the bike, but the charging system wont revive a dead batt.

Best advice is always disconnect if your not using the bike for a long time, and charge regular.

Agree that the battery is probually dead. But it is not good to "touch the leads together" you could damage the charger. You are actually shorting the positive and negative.
Testing with multimeter would be advised, just to see if your charger is still pushing out 12vdc.

+1 for JHMM advice.

By touching the charger cables together, with the power on obviously, you could have blown a fuse in it or tripped out an internal circuit breaker, depending on the design of the charging unit - the light you see may be just an indicator that the power is switched on; you could try reading the instructions for the charging unit!!

ps check the batt with the multimeter also.

If you use a "regulated" charger you will avoid overcharging the battery especially if the battery is low on power or old.

Get hold of an OptiMate Retail Chargers or the like and fit a "tail" to your bike so you can just plug it in when not in use.
My main bike lives outside so I just made a 20ft lead to extend the charger leads. The plugs and sockets are easy to come by.

If you pull the battery from your bike for storage do not, I repeat, DO NOT store them on concrete, find some good hardwood and isolate them from any temperature differential.