Modern Buddy

Hi everyone!

I put my battery back in my scoot after winter (Prima 12V6Ah) and now I am getting absolutely no power to the scoot at all (Genuine Buddy 125). I got a reading of 13.13 volts on the battery before I put it in the scoot so I'm totally lost as to what the problem might be. I know I didn't mix up the wires because the Buddy doesn't allow it; the wires aren't long enough.

I did take the fuse out of the positive battery cable and looked at it. It doesn't look blown but then again I'm not positive what a blown fuse looks like.

It's starting to warm up here in New England and I'm crying over not being able to ride! Please help!

TIA!

If you've got a voltmeter, odds are it's also an ohmmeter. Take the fuse out of its holder, set the meter for ohms. You should see 'open' or 'infinite', or something like that. Now touch the leads together. You should see '0' or some such. Then touch the leads to the opposite ends of the fuse. You should see '0' - the same as if you were touching the leads together. If you get the 'infinite' reading, the fuse is blown.

I tested the fuse with my multimeter and it is good. Have no idea where to go from here.

Maybe a really dumb question, but do you have the kill switch on? Also, even if you do have the kill switch set properly, try flipping it a couple of times. Mine sometimes doesn't turn back on until I do that a couple of times.

Ok, found one problem but now have another. When I was putting the battery back in I realized the threads on the posts had been stripped; I couldn't get the screws to tighten. What I did was wrap the screws with some thread tape just to see if I could get them in properly. That worked but apparently the tape was doing something to mess up the flow of power because once I removed it the power was back. Now however I do not have tight connections and THAT won't do. Any ideas? I just bought this battery last year and hate to buy another just because the darned threads are mostly stripped.

Go to your local bike shop and buy a new set of battery bolts. Most shops keep spares in the back.

Are you able to kickstart it?

Thread tape (Teflon) is an insulator, which would limit the amount of contact area from the posts to the bolts & cable eyelets. So the restoration of voltage makes sense.

Even though I just changed my battery this winter, I can't remember if the Buddy's battery has a real 'imprisoned' nut inside the post or if the post itself is threaded and takes the tension. If it's the post itself, you're gonna need slightly bigger bolts to self-cut some new threads. I'm not really confident in the outcome. You could, however, see if there's room behind for some nuts, and if so, find a nut and bolt that are slightly smaller than the stripped post threads, and replace the existing bolt. Whatever helps you make good contact.

PeteH wrote:Thread tape (Teflon) is an insulator, which would limit the amount of contact area from the posts to the bolts & cable eyelets. So the restoration of voltage makes sense.

Even though I just changed my battery this winter, I can't remember if the Buddy's battery has a real 'imprisoned' nut inside the post or if the post itself is threaded and takes the tension. If it's the post itself, you're gonna need slightly bigger bolts to self-cut some new threads. I'm not really confident in the outcome. You could, however, see if there's room behind for some nuts, and if so, find a nut and bolt that are slightly smaller than the stripped post threads, and replace the existing bolt. Whatever helps you make good contact.

There is no nut in the post; there's just a threaded area about 1/8" high that the bold goes through. I truly am amazed that pipe threading the bolt would affect the battery power flow since the cables had good contact but there you go. I will try a slightly bigger bolt and see if I can "thread" the post that way. If not I'll probably have to get a new battery which really tees me off because this battery had only been connected once and disconnected once before the threads stripped. Those posts must be made of some really, really soft metal.

ericalm wrote:Are you able to kickstart it?

I've narrowed the problem down to a connection issue at the battery; the posts are stripped. I'd start a new thread but PeteH has already given me the only answer there is for that problem.