Battery dead and replaced

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mukaiboston
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Battery dead and replaced

Post by mukaiboston »

My battery died last night while I was having Thanksgiving dinner and my scooter needed to be jumpstarted in order for me to get home. The battery was 12.8 volts but, when starting, it dropped to 5.5 volts which is really, really bad.

I swear this battery was less than two years old.

However, the new battery I just bought has the holes on the top. It was deactivated this morning. When I called the shop and said I needed a new battery, they put the acid in, waited 45 minutes and charged it up. So I know this battery is fresh.

The old battery that just died is factory-sealed. The description says it was activated at the factory. I wonder if it had been sitting on a shelf depleted until the mechanic put it on a charger when I wanted to buy it.

There is a code printed on the top of the battery "6EA2OA1"

Does 6E mean the battery was built in May 2016? I guess I have no way of knowing how old this battery really was when I bought it.
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viney266
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Post by viney266 »

The Genuine scooters are delivered with dry batteries. We fill them and activate them when someone buys a bike. So, they are new and fresh.

Sometimes you get a bad one.


Do you use a battery tender of some sort? You should.
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mukaiboston
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Post by mukaiboston »

I ride often and long. Like a few times a week for 24 miles or more. I always take the battery out if temps are expected to drop below freezing.
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Post by dasscooter »

Two years is respectable for a 7bs. You could trim the battery cover and upgrade to a 9bs for a little more cranking power if you wanted.
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babblefish
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Post by babblefish »

The Yuasa 7BS in my 2008 Buddy is its second battery (as far as I know) and is still going like the Everyready bunny. This is remarkable considering that the Buddy sat for about a year and a half without being ridden nor with a trickle charger connected. Gotta respect Yuasa batteries even if they do cost a kidney.
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k1dude
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Post by k1dude »

Meh. My Yuasa only lasted 2.5 years. My original stock battery lasted 4.5 years.
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babblefish
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Post by babblefish »

k1dude wrote:Meh. My Yuasa only lasted 2.5 years. My original stock battery lasted 4.5 years.
That's unfortunate. With all the counterfeits out on the market, are you sure your Yuasa was genuine? It should have cost about $65-75.
Some people can break a crowbar in a sandbox.
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k1dude
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Post by k1dude »

babblefish wrote:
k1dude wrote:Meh. My Yuasa only lasted 2.5 years. My original stock battery lasted 4.5 years.
That's unfortunate. With all the counterfeits out on the market, are you sure your Yuasa was genuine? It should have cost about $65-75.
It was real. I bought it new for big bucks at a Batteries Plus store.
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350kmi
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Post by 350kmi »

The Yuasa 9BS I order through my local Genuine Dealer in April of 2015 appears to be starting to fail.

It hasn't failed completely, but I have been having intermittent no starts on my 2012 170i now that the weather is consistently below 45. I asked my dealer about it and they said they have seen this problem on the fuel injected Buddy before - and that is a weak battery. While the engine sounds like it is cranking over fast enough to start, the battery isn't supplying enough power to the fuel pump to make proper fuel pressure.

Their explanation seems reasonable. The times it hadn't started I put it on the charger for a while and then it started fine. Also, once started it has run perfect. I am planning to wait until next season to get a new battery so it is fresh then, for now I have been using a battery tender to keep the current one topped up.
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Post by mukaiboston »

Not to change the subject of my own post completely, but does anyone have any chart as to how low an acceptable amperage is under load?

Like I said above, my battery is a week old. And the scooter has been sitting for two nights in near freezing temperatures. I walked out this morning and started it and it dipped from 12.7v to around 7.6v. Seems low. I heard 9.6v was the magic number, but then a read somewhere else that this is only when the ambient temperature is 70F. As the battery gets colder, the amps will dip lower. This makes me nervous and I just want to make sure I do not get stranded again.
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350kmi
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Post by 350kmi »

I haven't seen a chart of acceptable amperage but would be interested in seeing one if it exists.

I can watch voltage on my next few starts and see if I find the point at which it doesn't start. Today I went for a ride saw 12.5v with no load, a dropped to 12.3v while the fuel pump cycled and then a drop to 9.5v while cranking. It started first try, so it seems 9.5v is sufficient for my 170i to start. The temp was down to 30 last night, but had climbed to 45 at the time I started the bike. I had charged the battery last weekend and ridden it once mid week when it started fine. There have been 5 times this fall when it cranked over ok but not started; those times it was in the 30s. This coming week our high temps are predicted to be around 30, not great for riding but good for testing.
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Post by mukaiboston »

I saw a chart once but now I can't find it. I don't know how accurate it was. Basically I think a healthy battery is not supposed to drop below 9.6v at 70F. However, now that it is winter. I need to know what it is at freezing. This chart listed temperatures and then the minimum voltage next to it.

The battery I just tossed still started the bike at 5volts. However, it cranked many times before starting. Sometimes it wouldn't start the first time and the check engine light came on.

But the killer for that battery was when I changed the motor oil. I had to start the bike a few times as I was trying to top off the oil just to circulate it. When it came time to leave later that evening when the temperatures had dropped, the battery just couldn't give any more.
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charlie55
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Post by charlie55 »

9.6 volts while cranking appears to be the benchmark.....

http://constructionmanuals.tpub.com/140 ... est-92.htm
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mukaiboston
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Post by mukaiboston »

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I know that at sub-zero temperatures, the electrons in the battery cannot move as quickly. Therefore the force in which they go into the scooter will be weaker. So even if you have a battery on a tender and it is fully charged, if the temperature of the battery is below freezing, the voltage is going to still take a dive when you start the scooter.

Today in DC, the temperatures bounced up to 12c (54f) and the battery only dipped to 10.5 when starting.

When I got my last battery, I never bothered load testing it because I knew it was new. But know I feel I want to load test every time I start up for the day just to get an idea.
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Post by babblefish »

Though not the cheapest solution, Lithium batteries will hold a much higher cranking voltage and current. I carry a small home-made Lithium pack in my pet carrier for emergency starting and it cranks the engine over faster than the AGM battery. Of course, temperatures around these parts don't drop very low so I don't know how well it would work in near freezing conditions. I plan on modifying the charging system in my Blur to accept a Lithium battery full time. The commercial Lithium replacement batteries for scooters/motorcycles already have the charging electronics built in to them but I'm a DIY'er and cheap so I'll make my own.
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kmrcstintn
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Post by kmrcstintn »

not cool that the battery took a crap on ya! had something similar happen last season; bought a nearly new 2014 Yamaha V Star 250 that had 23 miles on it...the store that sold it to me (https://www.wengers.com/wholegoods/) sent it out to a local shop to replace the oem battery (they finally wised up and hired a motorcycle mechanic since their business ramped up significantly); when I got the bike home I put it on a trickle charger and after 4 hours it was not up to full charge (takes my scooter no more that 30 minutes to top off after multiple starts during a riding day);

yanked the MotoCross battery out & the install date was written on top...less than 5 months before I bought it! took it to local Advanced Auto Parts for testing...not capable of reaching peak voltage (the battery went through sulfonation becasue the store didn't recharge the battery after the short test rides that myself and a few other people took on the bike); ended up spending @ $60 for a new battery at Advanced Auto Parts to get the bike on the road! sucked to have a good MotoCross battery go bad that quickly...

for several weeks after riding I trickle charged the battery back to full and I had no issues before storage...both the scoot & bike are stored outside on the patio under covers with battery tenders plugged in 24/7;
did anyone get the license plate number of the bus that just hit me?!?
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