Hi all. Relatively new owner here with the same issue on 2 different bikes. Anyway bought a 2019 Panigale just before Xmas and one of the conditions of insurance was that it must have a tracker fitted. Took the bike into the dealers and had them install a BikeTrac tracker. Whilst in the dealers bought a Streetfighter and as i know what the insurance would say as part of the deal i had a biketrac fitted on that too. So 2 new bikes with new trackers installed. Bought a new Skyrich lithium battery for the Panigale and the Ducati Lithium charger. Fast forward a week or two and both batteries are flat. Neither battery will take a charge and tried allsorts. The green light (power on) is lit but neither battery will go into charging mode. The dealer (ducati) isn't open while Tuesday so thought id ask if anyone has any thoughts? Immediate thought is that its probably the same tracker installer and that somehow they have both been wired in incorrectly as i cant see what else it may be. Both Lithium batteries should last longer than a couple of weeks. Regards Craig
Chances are they are wired in correctly. They do put a constant draw on the battery. The dealer should have mentioned it to you. You’ll need the bikes on trickle chargers all the time. Did you put the first one on charge with the Ducati battery maintainer? Noco Genius chargers are good but I haven’t used their lithium chargers. In short, yes, it will be the biketrack trackers.
My v2 with a bike track once fitted properly was absolutely fine, the bike could be left for 3-4 weeks and no issues at all
^^^ Yes thought it would last at least a few weeks as the tracker has its own battery and will only draw current when it pings location etc. Surely it should last longer than a week or so? In answer to Sam, no i didn't put it straight on the charger but didnt see the need.
You should try a MoniMoto tracker, no installation or wiring needed. I have used one for over 4 years and it's works brilliantly. Only €39.00 subscription a year. https://monimoto.com/uk/shop/
Both batteries read around 4.5v however the charger won't recover them or attempt to charge them. Ive looked through the charger instructions and gone through the requested process but it does mention it won't charge if the battery is below 8v. If correct is that it, just a dead irrecoverable battery? I assumed lithium batteries could be charged from flat?
The biketrac should fire you a warning on the app if the bikes voltage drops below a certain point. If it didn’t, there’s a possibility I guess they aren’t wired correctly? Lithium batteries wont like the cold temps we’ve had lately. If you have a conventional charger, hook it up for about half a hour, then switch over to the correct charger. That’s worked several times for me.
Nelly, you must have read my mind. Just hooked it up to my Ctek 5.0 for a minute or so (the battery is off the bike) then plugged in the lithium charger and hey presto its taking a charge! Fingers crossed that's it. The biketrac app did give me a low battery warning so guess it is hooked up correctly just didn't think it should drain that quickly. Maybe the cold isn't helping and both batteries are new so maybe needed a full charge prior to installing the trackers.
My old Pani would drain a battery in less than 2 weeks with the Biketrac, I recall doing a Euro TD and tracking it most of the way across Spain but then disappeared. Arrived at the circuit and had to charge the battery.
I have a biketac on both mine - about every 2 weeks if I forgot to plug it back in it will send me a low battery, but the 959 that can be a month so the bike draws more current at idle it seems as they are the same batteries. As someone said above - have also used a monimoto on my R6, great bit of kit and recomend them as a quick option. However think for insurance purposes it has to be a hard wired tracker to count from what I understand but could be wrong, been a while since worked in insurance now
I've got no power to my garage and my v4 only needs to be plugged in once a month for a few hours during winter lay up, I've got the alert threshold set to 12.8 so it never gets too low.. remember lithium batteries probably will never recover fully after a full discharge so keep an eye on how long yours hold charge for especially with this cold snap...
I have a BikeTrac on my 1200 XE Scrambler with no issues, although previous owner did say it caused him issues. For my 1098 I'm thinking about stashing an Apple AirTag somewhere on it.
the newest biketrac do seem MUCH better than the older ones, my mates have them on their 959 and 1299 bought in 2016 and they constantly go flat after just a few weeks, where as when I had mine on my 2020 Panigale V2, it was really good. I think Lithium batteries in this cold NEED to be on a tricky charger constantly though. My R1 has a LIPO and at snett, it was 7 degree's but had been frozen over night and my R1 just didn't want to start at all, it was like the battery was flat. TBH I even have my Thruxton on a trickle charger just to stop the sulfating in the battery
Have had a Biketrac on my MY18 Multistrada since new. Moved to a new house a couple of years ago last September and garage has no mains power. Ordered and received an Optimate Solar battery tender but didn't get around to fitting it until I was getting pinged by the app stating that my regular (not LiPo) battery had reached the threshold. this was at least six, if not eight, weeks after the last use of the bike at the end of that year. Since fitting the solar tender I've had no issues.
Lithium chemistry batteries have advantages, high CCA, low weight and very small non load drain over time but they have 2 major disadvantages, not good in the cold (although there is a starting technique to minimise this) and more relevant to the issue being discussed, they do not perform well where there is a steady drain caused by something like a Biketrac or active alarm monitoring. Something manufacturers know about and if you dig deep into the small print, there is a caution. There are dozens of lithium specific battery maintainers out there but some have a better reputation than others. Bear in mind, technology improves at a fast pace and these maintainers evolve. Something 5 years old isn’t necessarily going to be as good as something newer on the market. My current preference is the NOKO range for the 5 bikes I keep on maintainers. Andy
^Thanks Andy. Heard good things about NOKO so might try one of their maintainers. Latest is had one battery on charge overnight after giving it an initial kickstart on the Ctek(Lead acid charger). fitted to the bike this evening and fired first time so all good. Same process for the 2nd one which ive now got charging in the garage again after an initial couple of minutes on the Ctek. Will have to keep an eye on them and the app to see how long before they need topping up again. Fingers crossed no permanent damage.
Hello. I have a 2019 Panigale fitted with a Lithium battery from new, and also supplied with a battery charger from Ducati. Both the battery and charger are branded "Skyrich." I also needed a tracker for insurance purposes, and it does provide low battery warnings. The combination of battery and charger has been ok until this year, but during the very cold weather recently the charger stopped charging the battery, and indicated a charging fault. I checked the battery terminal voltage and it was below 8V, which is the lower limit for the charger to provide charge to the battery. The dashboard would not light-up at this point, therefore the on-board voltage could not be checked. So similar to post # 8 above by Nelly, I used an older charger for a few minutes, then reconnected the Lithium charger and it entered charging mode, and charged the battery to "normal" level. At this point the dash illuminated and the on-board battery voltage showed as 12.8V. So this method solved the problem in my case. I have since disconnected the charger for a few days and then reconnected it, and it seems to recharge back to normal quite quickly. When the fault first occurred, I contacted a number of Ducati dealers and they offered to supply a replacement for between £170 and £190, when available. They confirmed that the original part number had been changed twice, but could not confirm what the differences were. Two dealers offered to supply an alternative make of battery which they said would meet the requirements, but it wasn't OEM made by Skyrich. I don't know if this would affect bikes still under warranty? The links below provide some background on the issue that may help: , . Tom. Update: The company in the Attachment below state that their IP65 charger should charge a Lithium battery that has shutdown because of low voltage. They suggest the IP65 6V/12V - 1.1A version for motorcycles. I don't have any first hand experience of the company or its chargers, but they might be worth researching, if considering a replacement battery charger.
My 1299 has a Biketrac, in one area of my garage there is a gps dead spot, then the tracker is trying to locate all the time, that flattened my battery over two weeks. I proved it by moving the bike into the next room and 4 to 6 weeks before I need to hook up again.
