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General Category >> Rubber Side Down! >> Battery replacement recommendation
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Message started by Ragnar444 on 12/13/13 at 18:48:42

Title: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Ragnar444 on 12/13/13 at 18:48:42

Looking in to making my battery & lighting system up to date. LED bulb replacement and that kind of thing. Would it be worth it to up-grade my 6 year old stock battery with a Lithium ion or TrueGel type?
Go Seahawks!

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 12/13/13 at 21:26:48

Unless youre just doin crazy weight reduction stuff, just a glass mat battery, like the BIg Crank, is a great answer. Now is a great time to spend the time to put a tidy pigtail on & get a battery tender.

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Ragnar444 on 12/13/13 at 22:42:13

Thanks for the quick reply Justin. I was also thinking of less maintenance than a lead-acid battery. They seem so 19th century. :-?

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Paladin. on 12/14/13 at 17:00:13

A 2000 Savage. I get it in Aug.2004 (http://www.dslretorts.com/Paladin/archives/000640.html), wife wants me to be legal which takes until Oct.. (http://www.dslretorts.com/Paladin/archives/000686.html) Riding it, weak battery, get it replaced in Dec. 2004, a standard Yuasa lead/acid battery. I forget to turn off the bike roughly once a year. Three strikes and you're out (http://www.dslretorts.com/Paladin/archives/002527.html), so I got a Big Crank, Apr.'08.

I killed the Savage, got the Vespa, sold the Savage in Jan.'13. In the near five years I had flatten the battery at least six times, at least twice by charging it with a car charger at the 10 amp level. The battery was still good when I sold it. I really liked the Big Crank AGM battery. It survived my abuse, and I can destroy anything.

p.s. The AGM is totally sealed -- nothing to maintain.

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Dave on 12/16/13 at 09:30:55

I installed a LiIon battery in my bike....it was twice the price of a stock battery and very tiny and very light. It served my purpose well as it provided plenty of room for my revised air filter location. The down side is that if you overcharge or let a LiIon battery go dead just once....it is toast.

I tried some LED aftermarket turns signals - and they are not bright enough in the daylight to get attention. If you are looking at them you can see they are blinking - but if you are not focused on them you will not see them flashing in the sunlight. I know that lots of sport bike riders get them as they are small.....but they are not safe to use. Avoid lights that look like these, as they are just not up to the job.
http://i43.tinypic.com/7ted.jpg

I don't know anything about the replacement LED bulbs that plug into the standard socket.....they may be OK as long as your turn signal housing has a good reflector.

I ended up putting these LED's in the small turn signal housings that I had that used the small filament bulb (97), and they are really bright now that the original bulb has been replaced with 2 of these.
http://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/led-wired-bolts/plm-series-wired-one-and-half-watt-led/1141/#images

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Ragnar444 on 12/16/13 at 13:51:08

I noticed, before retiring as a UPS driver, that all the newer trucks had switched over to LED turn signals. They seemed so much brighter than the filament type. Perhaps you just had an inferior product Dave. Some where on this forum someone posted pics comparing bulbs to LEDs on his bike and I was impressed.

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by runrun on 12/16/13 at 16:50:16

Agree with Dave that for a price the smaller size/weight of lithium ion gives you lots of options for locating the battery, freeing up space for toolkits, air filters, etc. I can vouch for the people at Antigravity -- not cheap but they stand behind what they sell.

Also, keep in mind LED's are very directional, meaning that the less you are looking straight at them, the less bright they seem. I think this is especially true if you're using them with reflectors that aren't designed especially for LED.

Dave, did you check your charging voltage before making the swap to lithium ion or did you learn about overcharging the hard way? If you have checked, curious what your idle and mostly-full throttle readings were? Thanks.

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Ragnar444 on 12/16/13 at 18:14:23

When it concerns turn signal lens intensity and internal reflectors the more the better. Seems the logic no matter what the light source.

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Dave on 12/16/13 at 18:17:41

6F68736F68731D0 wrote:

Dave, did you check your charging voltage before making the swap to lithium ion or did you learn about overcharging the hard way? If you have checked, curious what your idle and mostly-full throttle readings were? Thanks.

No, I didn't learn the hard way. I bought an Earth-X and they state in their literature that Li Ion batteries are damaged if they are overcharged or run very low. The Earth X has some special circuitry built into the battery to even out the cell charge.

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Dave on 12/16/13 at 18:20:45

0231373E3122646464500 wrote:

Ragner444. I agree that the factory trailer and truck tail lights that are LED are very well made and very bright. I have them on my trailer and they work great. The same cannot be said for the LED majority of the LED motorcycle turn signals. So far I have not seen a good set....and ultimately had to make my own using the LED lamps from Supebright that I listed. They now work great....it would have been nice if I could have found some that worked as well as the ones I built.

Here is a comparison of the turn signals that I got that had the small 97 bulbs and no reflector vs. the LED lights I built. I first tried buying the LED lights that are built with 13 small LED's....but they are not as bright as the filament bulbs. So I got these 1.5 watt LED bulbs and they now work great.

View My Video (http://tinypic.com/r/2r20rc5/5)

I just want you all to be safe - and the tiny LED turn signals are not DOT approved and cannot be seen well when they sun is shining!

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by Ragnar444 on 12/16/13 at 19:31:43

Awesome! You are just the one who's advice i wanted. Thanks so much my friend!

:)

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by DavidOfMA on 12/17/13 at 06:25:10

One advantage of AGM batteries is that they are not supposed to be damaged by freezing. As I learned last winter, a standard lead-acid battery that is not fully charged, but will still start a motorcycle, will freeze when the temperatures get into the single digits (F) and be ruined.

Don't know what happens to LiON batteries when they get cold, though I suspect nothing particularly bad would occur.

Title: Re: Battery replacement recommendation
Post by justin_o_guy2 on 12/17/13 at 08:26:54

It would take some doing, BUT, if I had a real expensive battery that simply could not be allowed to over charge or be drained w/o killing it, Id be forced to consider adding some circuitry to protect it.
A Zener that breaks over at a spot just below Max V for the battery could initiate an Open in the charge circuit & there are V reg circuits that could also be used to key switching that would open the circuits draining it. Thats just my "I was a near total failure in electronics" thinking, I have no idea just how big of a mess that mite actually be.. but there are some here who could bang it out, I betchya.

& Lookie here

http://electronicdesign.com/files/29/6166/figure_01.gif