Greetings, I received on one the above from the dealer who sold me the bike as the existing battery arrived and had obviosly dropped its guts. It is a 12v, 10a, lead acid unit for my 848. So I follows the idiots guide, fill up the cells with the little accordion like bottle of H2S04 that comes with it and hook it up to the optimate to charge it fully; just as the guide says. I watch. It doesn't take a charge. I check connections. I reconnect. No green lights, just the amber diagnosing light shining accusingly! So I puts the old multi meter across it. When hooked to the charger I'm getting 13.5+ volts. When I un hook it, the battery immediately starts to drop at about 0.1v/s and stops at 10.5v, bugger thinks me, they've sent me a duffer. So the question here is - Am I missing a trick? Is there a secret squirrel way to deal with these units? I have to admit in 30 years of dealing with batteries its the first time I have ever had to add my own acid.... Cheers in advance BTD
It's fairly standard my Yuasa came like that, I left it overnight on trickle charge and all good for the past 3 years
You are not supposed to be able to buy batteries with acid separately today, pretty sure it’s currently illegal. Anywho, my memory of the Optimate, it shows orange whilst charging and only goes green when fully charged. Andy
Shouldn’t be complicated and yes you can’t have the acid / dry charged unless you have a license ( in theory ) question how old is that battery though if dry charged shouldn’t be an issue. Should just put it on and could be used and charge from the bike or top up with charger
^ what Andy said. Orange charge. Green charged. Leave it hooked up at least overnight. The Optimate chargers do take a long time to get a new battery up to charge.
My Optimate is sheet! On a brand new battery , I only ever got the charging light. I junked the Optimate crap and bought a NOCO - different league...
It was on for nearly 36 hours, I know how an optimate works lads, I've had one for 15 years! I have now disconnected it completely as when I went into the garage a few minutes ago it was showing the red light; that seems pretty fatal to me for a new battery. I had read in another forum about the prohibition on transporting/delivering wet batteries but this one arrived by courier. I have also wondered about how old it is, where it came from and how long its been "in stock". I have to admit that a google search of the brand reveal absolutely FA. My faith in this dealer is taking a nose dive, it only took half a dozen emails and about a month to get them to sort this minor problem. I'm getting the distinct feeling that somebody's pissing down my back and telling me its raining. After spending the better part of seven grand on the bike it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Anyway, I have to admit that when I saw the instant voltage drop this afternoon I assumed that was it. Even with my limited knowledge of batteries I know they shouldn't do that. Ho hum. I will mention it to the dealer again but frankly I may as well just buy one myself as they are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
The issue isn't with the charger, I've had it for years and its always been reliable. It does all my other bikes and batteries just fine.
The 10.5v you mentioned originally does sounds like the battery could be faulty, adding fresh acid should give you virtually full charge
Yes, that was my thinking. The idiots guide did say that the unit was already 80% charged on delivery and that once the acid was added all it required was a boost charge. Although I have to admit I'm not quite sure how a dry, lead acid battery can be charged with no fluid?
I had a few batteries where I added the acid. Never had to charge one, leave it 5 minutes and they are good to go.
Some chargers need a charge (a small one) to be able to top up charge a dead flat battery, so get another battery with some voltage and connect the 2 in parallel, after a couple of hours remove the additional battery and the dead flat battery should continue to accept charge. As for a dry battery arriving 80% charged, how can it be so? A lead acid battery works by chemical reaction, with no acid that reaction cannot happen.
I will give that a bash mate, cheers, anything is worth a bash now as its nothing more than a big fishing weight now!
On a new battery where I have add the acid I use a 12v car battery charger (not an optimiser) overnight for the first charge, thereafter an Optimate 4 as the battery tenderererer
This is well worth a read:https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/art...s/secret-workings-of-a-lead-acid-battery.html
