Hi I've been getting low battery alerrts from my Biketrac tracker recently. My bike is connected to the Ducati Tecmate lead-acid charger that the Ducati shop sells. I think it's only been happening since the weather has been a bit warmer. It's like the charger is not changing to charging mode like it used to when the charge in the battery drops. It hasnt dropped below 12.4V (according to the trackers voltage reading) but when it was colder is seemed to hover around 12.8V, it still starts ok. I'm not sure how old the battery is, do you think my battery health has something to do with it or is it just a change in charger behaviour due to the weather? Or something else?
I have 5 bikes on maintainers at any one time, battery voltage on the lead acid chemistry batteries sits around 13.8v on charge and 12.8v on standby. My immediate reaction is to doubt the battery but one thing to try, if you have access to an old fashioned battery charger, connect the battery up for 24 hours. Sometimes the high amperage kick revives the battery. Bottom line though, be prepared to buy a new battery. Andy
Have you checked the threshold set with BikeTrac? You can check and change this using their admin interface via the app or online. Mine's set to 11.7 volts and only sends an alert once the battery is really starting to deplete. My bike is on an Optimate solar charger which provides sufficient maintaining power all year round. I didn't have this the first year I lived here and got pinged by the tracker with an alert. As Andy says, quite probably it's time for a new battery.
I have the battery warning threshold set at 12.7V, I know this is high it's just it never used to alert me up until the last few weeks or so. I've just checked the voltage reading on the bikes dash (the Info menu) and it is reading 11.9/12 volts which it has always done since I bought it, hmmm.
This may be relevant, although you may have already considered what is in the link below, but if not here is it is: https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/biketrac-killing-batteries.94511/ . Hope it helps. Tom.
I think setting the threshold at 12.7 is too much, Mine was set at 11.7 or 11.8 which I think was the default. It might be that the optimate is causing it though in combination with your 12.7v threshold, because remember the optimates cycle modes and they do sulfation tests/discharge tests etc as well as the basic charge current. It may well be that the charger is pulling volts during it's test phase and that's giving the trigger.
