Electrical problem ?

[didge]

The RE5, before the UK Cardiff show, I charged the battery (despite it being a new battery it doesn't seem to hold it's charge)
Get to the show ground and I unload the bike, fire it up, and ride it the 100 yards to the hall, end of the day start it up and ride it back to the trailer, it started lovely both times, beautiful strong battery.

I park it up and walk away from it using the Harley all week........................

Fast forward to tonight (Friday), go out to the RE5, turn on the ignition and press the starter, nothing (well not nothing exactly. there was a slight bit of starter motor activity, but barely anything at all)

So, assuming the battery's good cos it's new, why would it lose it's charge and what else should I be looking for, bear in mind I'm the worlds worst mechanic, so go easy.

[kettle738]

Hi Didge, I have a similar if less severe problem with my RE5, the best (simplest because I'm hopeless at electrics) description I have seen for tracing this type of power drain fault was written by Mike Yeadon on the Kettle Clinic forum, as follows, I take no credit for it, I just recall reading it and thinking even I could do that.

two most-likely possibilities I think:

1 - something is drawing current even when ign switch is off. You could test by placing an ammeter in series with the fuse (break that link and attach one end to each of the AVO meter terminals with swicth off - should read zero amps).

2 - battery is a bit knackered! test by fully charging, then leaving off charge for a couple of hours, and then attaching a volt meter in parallel across batt terminals and put lights on. If voltage rapidly falls to way below 12v, it is not capable of holding much of a charge.

The fix for 1 obviously is to find the source of drain by disconnecting block connectors until current goes to zero. Possibly rect/reg. For 2, buy a new battery :-)


Mick.........kettle738