lead acid battery

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seattle##gs

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is it my imagination or are the lead acid batteries produced in the last few years of poorer quality than usual. Mine seem to be giving up the ghost quicker than usual.
 
The gell type sealed battery where you pour the acid in and put the top on then that's it job done seem to last well in my experience of various bikes and cars.

Are you buying the cheapest type available or paying extra for what you would then justifiably expect to be a better item?
Are you sure your charging an electrical systems are not in some way shortening the life of the battery?
An of course how long does your battery last and how long do you expect it to last?
 
Odyssey batteries are pretty awesome, they last for ages. Well worth the few extra £/$ compared to the cheap sh*t things that don't last 5 minutes!

My Shorai battery is now 3 1/2 year old and has never been on charge. I am hardly what you'd call a high mileage rider so it spends frequent periods standing. These also have the added appeal of weighing a fraction of bugger all!
 
I would doubt that lead-acid batteries currently available are of any different quality than they were back when they ruled the day (were the only choice). Its easy to forget how often they needed refilling with distilled water or how nicely they helped you with your up-coming restoration by removing paint and chrome at random, and how they did yeoman service on your upcoming restoration when you dumped the motorcycle? Between running dry and being left in the motorcycle unattended during periods of storage they were a 1 to 2 year replacement part. I'm sure that there are a few obscure applications where you may be limited to a lead-acid battery; I think my son and I ran into this when restoring a 1966 Honda C110 (last pushrod implementation) for a local customer.

Purchasing a lead-acid battery to save money is false economy! Purchase a sealed, maintenance-free battery and a float charger and enjoy 4-6 years of service; Li is also a good choice.

If you must have a lead-acid batter with the plastic vent tube for show purposes, at least remove it when you get your trophy properly displayed, but if you are operating at that level, you already knew that...
 
I have been using a sealed battery from Batteries Plus. The website even lists Nortons in the selection drop downs. I have had it for at least 4 years including the last year in which it was unused but on a trickle charger. I put it in the bike a few weeks ago and she roared to life. I have the Xtreme AGM listed in the link below.

https://www.batteriesplus.com/battery/m ... er-box-top
 
Fast Eddie said:
Odyssey batteries are pretty awesome, they last for ages. Well worth the few extra £/$ compared to the cheap sh*t things that don't last 5 minutes!
Click to expand...

I just replaced the Odyssey battery in my '74 Roadster after 13 years of problem free use. I believe it was about $110 new. I did
keep it topped up with a trickle charger. I replaced it with a Shorai lithium iron battery, about 1/4 the weight.
 
I'm a big fan of AGM type batteries e.g. Odyssey, WestCo etc.

My best demonstration was 9 years ago when touring France on a BMW R80. One night I stopped for the night and accidentally left it in the Parking Light setting (front pilot and rear light on), (the key comes out just as in the OFF setting). Next morning I realised what i'd done, so turned it off, had a leisurely breakfast in the hope it would recover a bit, and to my surprise it turned over and started right up.

Since then all my bikes get them. That battery was still working fine when the bike was sold this summer and was over 10 years old. I fitted one to my E-start Mk3 and the difference is night and day better. (Interestingly the first one I was sent was a dud!). They also fare well over winter as they have a lower self-discharge rate than normal Lead/Acid types.

Lithium batteries are less robust and rather sensitive to charging rate - just ask Boeing and Samsung...
 
I am using an AGM battery about 8 months old now and it is not holding a charge for long. I had a Shori , gave good service for about 4 years.
 
seattle##gs said:
I am using an AGM battery about 8 months old now and it is not holding a charge for long. I had a Shori , gave good service for about 4 years.
Click to expand...
As all things, there are cheap junk AGM technology being sold. The Deka, (and a few others like Yuasa) are top quality, US Made batts. I bought a ETX-20L on ebay last night for $85 shipped.

You've checked the bike's system for current drain?
 
Like Fast Eddie, I have switched over to Shorai and it seems like the only way to go; no maintenance, light weight, etc.
 
If you can get a Yuasa lead/acid it might last depending on charging system, storage ect, but why bother? My 07 Suzuki Bandit came off the showroom floor with a Yuasa sealed battery and I just replaced it this past summer with a Motobat purely as a preemptive measure. It's been my experience that a battery that has lasted that long won't give much warning of impending failure.
 
The Shorai and other Li batteries are not compatible with our bikes, unless you have fitted a charging system that produces at least 13.1 volts at idle ( from the Shorai website) Nonetheless, they seem to work for awhile. If the bike sits most of the time and you use the Shorai charger, they seem to do OK. The more you use the bike, the worse it is for the Li batteries.
I killed two in less than 12 months, lots of night riding, discharging at stop lights etc. Lead acid batteries in the same scenario work fine.

Actual weight true ah to true ah ( not the label number which is PbEq amphours) there isn't much difference between lead acid and li. An 18 ah (pbeq) Li battery has about 6 ah of actual power. That is when it is fully charged to 14.2 volts.
And at a resting voltage of 13.0 volts, typical of our systems with new parts fitted, the Li battery contains less amphours per pound than old style lead acid.

With the Li battery at resting voltage after a night run, try turning your headlight on with engine off and see how quickly things go dark!
Actually best not to do this, the Li batteries do not take kindly to discharge below 12.8, which is where the internal switch shuts them off.
But as you can imagine, there is very little power remaining in an Li battery at 13.0 volts, it is nearly dead.

Glen
 
Yes, by it's design, a Li battery is fully charged at 13.4 amps and is intended that it be kept in the 13.2-13.4 range. This
requires that a bike have a 3 phase alternator in order to keep the battery fully charged while using the headlight and
running at 2500 rpm. With no current draw a Li battery will not discharge even after months of storage. This has worked
for me so far with minimal use of a trickle charger, and the battery laughed as it spun my starter motor for a prolonged
period of time before I discovered that I had stupidly forgotten to turn on the gas tap.
 
worntorn said:
The Shorai and other Li batteries are not compatible with our bikes, unless you have fitted a charging system that produces at least 13.1 volts at idle ( from the Shorai website) Nonetheless, they seem to work for awhile. If the bike sits most of the time and you use the Shorai charger, they seem to do OK. The more you use the bike, the worse it is for the Li batteries.
I killed two in less than 12 months, lots of night riding, discharging at stop lights etc. Lead acid batteries in the same scenario work fine.

Actual weight true ah to true ah ( not the label number which is PbEq amphours) there isn't much difference between lead acid and li. An 18 ah (pbeq) Li battery has about 6 ah of actual power. That is when it is fully charged to 14.2 volts.
And at a resting voltage of 13.0 volts, typical of our systems with new parts fitted, the Li battery contains less amphours per pound than old style lead acid.

With the Li battery at resting voltage after a night run, try turning your headlight on with engine off and see how quickly things go dark!
Actually best not to do this, the Li batteries do not take kindly to discharge below 12.8, which is where the internal switch shuts them off.
But as you can imagine, there is very little power remaining in an Li battery at 13.0 volts, it is nearly dead.

Well put! When I worked for BMW Motorcycles we had a manufacturers rep give a talk on just this subject. His take was that the LI batteries were just the thing for modern bikes. As for fitting them to older airheads or any other older motorcycle with marginal charging systems his recommendation was a high quality AGM. He quoted the same reasons for discouraging them on older bikes as you did. Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
Batteries are a funny thing some will last for many many many years and some will give up the ghost very early and it don't matter what brand of battery you buy, I have had cheap batteries last for more that what I expected but also have had ones that didn't.
I buy my batteries from the same place that only deals in batteries, my wife went out one early morning to pick up my daughter and the car was fine but 3 hours later I went to go out and the battery just died, it was only 18 months old but had a 2 year warrenty, put it on the charger over night and it came back to 12.8 on the meter but as soon as I put it back in the car it dropped down to 6 volts, so took it to the place I brought it from but he kept it over night on his charger but next day when he put it on his load tester it dropped straight away to less than 10 volts next thing he just grabbed a new battery without any questions, he said he never had a battery do that to drop a cell in that short of time, but I have had 2 batteries do that to me in over 40 years of motoring.
I think its just luck of the draw with batteries and it don't matter what brand you buy, I have always had good runs out of my batteries but I have also had a few not so well runs with them, but thankfull I run a J/H maggie so no problems with power failure on my Norton.
Most of the time when they do fail its normally without warning, but a lot just get lazy after their time is up from old age, if you get more than 3 years out of a battery you are doing well.
Ashley
 
Fast Eddie said:
Odyssey batteries are pretty awesome, they last for ages. Well worth the few extra £/$ compared to the cheap sh*t things that don't last 5 minutes!

My Shorai battery is now 3 1/2 year old and has never been on charge. I am hardly what you'd call a high mileage rider so it spends frequent periods standing. These also have the added appeal of weighing a fraction of bugger all!
Click to expand...



I use nothing but Odyssey batteries in anything I intend to keep more than a year. They cost as much as they weigh, but they last as long as you maintain them. I also install a desulfator on anything I don't use regularly, and keep one on my bench batteries as well.

It sounds like voodoo, but it works and works great.

http://batterylifesaver.com/
 
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