Had my 1098 for about a month now and had no problems, used it for work today and when I'd finished the battery was totally flat, I mean there was nothing not a squeak. The battery seems fine and is taking a charge off the optimate, is there anything that I could have done or left on that would have drained the battery so much? It has regularly stood for a fortnight at a time off the optimate but would still have no problems starting,it's as though I left the lights on all day? Paul
Common theme starting here but have you checked the voltage output from the reg / rectifier?... Run the bike from cold on idle & get the voltage up on the dash... Should be a steady 14 - 14.8v... Get her fully up to temp so that the fans kick in & put high beam on... give her a touch of throttle too... Even with all this going on the dash voltage should remain around the 14v mark... Any drops to 12v & its your reg / rec...
Have a spare if ya need it. Just bought for £65 from a 2k mile 848 & no longer needed. Looks brand new... just make an offer if you need it
Has your bike had the heat shield recall done behind regulator rectifier mine had the same symptoms fully charged battery then when back home flat battery bike runs solely on the battery when engine running this flattens the battery, the heat from the exhaust melts the rectifier get it checked by a ducati dealer will fix free if this is the problem.
lol...that's why I have a spare. Mine went and I bought the 848 one from evil bay. Rang ducati as I noticed no heat shield and they're doing the box and a new reg/rec for me.
I don't know if the bike has had the heat shield done or not, how would I tell? The bike does have full Ducati service history, I have taken the battery out and put it on the optimate, will see if it takes a charge and holds it. Carter I may take you up on your offer if the battery's knackered, depends where you are really
You know where the rectifier is? Don't wanna show you how to suck eggs but below the battery you'll see the ecu and behind that is the rectifier. Behind that part of the plastic battery box holding all that lot in you should see an aluminium plate. Don't count on the fact that it has been serviced, mine had and it still slipped through the net. If however you do decide you want this rectifier I have I'm happy to post so don't worry about location. Pic on here of the recall box you should have: http://pages.ebay.com/motors/link/?nav=item.view&id=181286181780
I will have a look later I'm still finding my way round the bike, took the battery out last night and left it on the optimate over night, still showing an orange light this morning so will see what happens later. i'm more concerned as to why the battery would just lose all of it's charge while i was in work. Hopefully battery will be ok when i get in, i can then start the bike and check the charging system.
Check that reg when you get chance... & if its not that thats causing the battery to die it could be a few different things.. You have any auxilliary equipment on there causing a drain? (Heated grips, usb chargers, recently fitted alarm system)... Could also be a bad earth... Earth strap is down under the battery to the right, could be worth undoing that & having at it with a wire brush whilst making sure its in good condition... Finally although you say the battery is charging fine you could still have a dead cell in there.. Had that happen to me a while back & to all intents it looked / ran the bike fine but didn't hold charge for more than a few days... Still have my money on a dodgy rectifier though... In addition to the idle test to be fully certain (& assuming she voltage tests ok) take her out for a few miles & take dash voltage readings every now & then... Only possible at standstill so pull up every few miles or so to have a butchers..
Taken a long time to charge the battery though! Could be part and parcel.... the first rectifier I had 'go' killed the battery to as it had drained it to death and it wouldn't recover even on charge.
Yeah I was thinking that too, been on charge all night & still on orange?.. All you can do is get it charged enough to start the bike.. Once thats done the battery (should) be redundant with the reg taking over... At least if its still at 12v or less once going its a sure fire thing its packed in..
Hutch, will check all of the above as soon as i can get the bike started again, i'm hoping it will be charged when i get home tonight. Startline Al, i didn't know you could turn the key one more click would this have left the lights on? i hadn't used the bike for 2 weeks till yesterday and it started first time yesterday morning, not been on the optimate either. Could be embarrassing if all I'd done is left the lights on, Thanks for all the feedback, sounds like a new battery may be in order anyway Arn't forums great Paul
Sounds like the battery to me, they do get a bit of a kicking as Ducati don't exactly oversize them. Be aware as well that the battery may go up to fully charged/float on the Optimate then the minute you put a load on it (like trying to start the bike) the Voltage collapses to zero or close to zero. The only way to really establish a battery's health is to do a load check and that would mean taking the battery to the dealer, who may or may not have the equipment to do it. If you can get one to fit I'd look at getting an AGM type, these are just as heavy or even slightly heavier than the gel type, but the batteries are tougher and have higher CCAs, like gels they don't need any venting and can be installed any way up except upside down usually. Motobatt and Odyssey get a very good reputation. John
John, thanks for the battery information, i will look into one of these battery's should it turn out to be the problem. Paul
You'll probably get varying degrees of answer on that one Paul, its a bit like asking do you use a torque wrench. I would guess most do and if you look at the manuals Ducati recommend it on nearly everything. Personally I'm not a huge fan, I do use it on the safety critical stuff and where I know fasteners have a history of undoing themselves, example the big exhaust heat shield. However I've already had to easy out/slot & chisel/drill out too many bloody fasteners on this bike already so I try just to use a bit of common sense. But that's just my philosophy and its worked up until now, I'm not saying it right John
Just one more thing that made a big difference to how my 1098 starts is to install additional good quality heavy duty leads. I thought the battery was going on mine as the bike was getting a bit reluctant to start. To cut to the chase it was when I installed the additional new leads that the bike became a lot faster to start. What I did was replace the solenoid to starter cable then doubled up on the battery to solenoid and negative to engine casing cables . I got mine of "The Bay" but these needed quite a bit of fiddling with bending etc to put in place and even then the solenoid no longer sits as snug in the rubber boot as it used to, but they work a treat as far as getting the bike to start. If I was doing it again I'd simply make a set up myself. If you can solder you can put on the terminals then crimp them up with a vice or hammer That's unrelated to your current problem though, just thought I'd pass it on John
John, thanks for the feedback on the loctite, i guess it is common sense, I have been looking at the cables and may try to knock my own up later on Paul
